Contra Partem Donati Post Gesta

Why, Donatists, are you still being led astray by your bishops, whose deceitful shadows have been dispelled by the clear light, whose error has been revealed, whose stubbornness has been overcome? Why do they still boast empty lies to you? Why do you still believe men who have been defeated? When they tell you that the judge was corrupted by a bribe, what new thing are they doing? What else do all the defeated, who are unwilling to agree with the truth, customarily do except lie about the injustice of the judge? Ask them, and let them first answer you on this point, if they can: why did they dare to come to Carthage and assemble with us in one place for the sake of the conference? Several years ago we had publicly summoned them, so that by our conferring together the truth might appear and the dissension that divides us might be removed from our midst, but, fleeing the truth itself, they replied in the official records: "It is unworthy for the sons of martyrs and the offspring of traitors to meet together." Why, then, did they now wish to meet with us? I think they would not have done what seemed unworthy to them, unless they recognized that we are not the offspring of traitors. Or certainly let them themselves answer us why they said: "It is unworthy for the sons of martyrs and the offspring of traitors to meet together," and afterwards met with us. What forced them to do what is unworthy? For they were not brought in chains, but assembled entirely of their own free will. If they say: "Because the emperor ordered it," then they do what is unworthy only when the emperor orders it.

Why, then, are they angry about some traditores or other who have nothing to do with our case? For handing over the Lord’s codices to the persecutors is certainly unworthy; and when a traditor has done this, he has no crime, because the emperor had ordered it. We say this not according to the truth, but according to their own perversity. For they themselves said—the public records proclaim it—they said it in the official proceedings. It was not just some unknown person, but their own bishop of Carthage, Primianus, who said this; Primianus gave this statement in writing to the magistrate of Carthage and instructed his deacon to say it in the official proceedings: “It is unworthy that the sons of the martyrs and the offspring of the traditores should come together in one place.” Behold, we have come together in one place: what do they answer to this? If they say, “It is not unworthy,” why did they lie when they said it was unworthy? If they say, “It is unworthy,” why did they do what is unworthy? They will be able to assert in only one way that they have not done what is unworthy and that they were not lying in those words of Primianus: if they say, “It is indeed unworthy that the sons of the martyrs and the offspring of the traditores should come together in one place, but we have come together with you in one place because we have recognized that you are not the offspring of the traditores.” If that is so, why, when we were already coming together in one place, did they hurl these same slanders at us, unless perhaps so that we too might recognize that they are not the sons of the martyrs? For “martyrs” are called “witnesses.” And the true witnesses of Christ are the true ones.

But these men have been found to be false witnesses, who cast charges of betrayal, both their own and others', against other people, and could not even prove them. Why do you still pay attention to human lies and not pay attention to divine testimonies? Why do you still believe defeated men and not believe the truth, which has never been defeated? For the truth of God, as we have also proved in the very conference, bore witness to his Church through many proofs from the holy scriptures, through prophetic and evangelical writings; and a place was designated from which the Church of Christ was to begin, and the ends of the earth, to which it was to reach. The Lord says that his future Church will be among all peoples, beginning from Jerusalem. A divine reading is recited, how it began from Jerusalem, where the Holy Spirit was sent from heaven to the first gathered believers. Divine readings are recited, how it spread from Jerusalem through neighboring and distant lands.

The names of the places have been set forth, the names of the cities have been revealed, in which the Church of Christ was founded by apostolic labor, which places and cities also merited receiving letters from the apostles; which letters they themselves read in your congregations and yet do not communicate with the churches of those places and cities that merited receiving those same letters, casting against them some charges of crimes of the Africans, claiming that they have perished by their contagion, although they themselves said in this very conference which we have just held at Carthage, that neither does the cause prejudice the cause nor the person prejudice the person. But they said this at the time when we said to them: 'The council which you bring forth against Caecilian does not harm the absent Caecilian, just as the council which was held in the case of Maximianus, where Primianus was condemned, does not harm the absent Primianus.' For they brought forth a council where seventy-some bishops had condemned the absent Caecilian, while there are brought forth more or less a hundred bishops of their own party who had condemned the absent Primianus.

Since, therefore, we said to them that that does not harm Caecilianus, just as this does not harm Primianus, because both councils were held against absent persons, they immediately, finding nothing to reply and suffering terrible distress, said that neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person prejudice a person; which the Catholic Church has always on its lips against all human calumnies, but now much more strongly and much more freely, when what truth has always held has also been confirmed by the confession of enemies. Who, therefore, can bear this without grave sorrow, who can restrain a groan, who can refrain from bursting into tears and a cry of grief, who has duly considered this? Behold, although Primianus, condemned by the bishops of the Donatist party, does not lose his episcopate, or although Primianus, condemned, does not disturb the Donatist party, neither does a cause prejudice a cause nor a person prejudice a person; yet Caecilianus, whom enemies similarly condemned in his absence, is not considered a bishop and contaminates all Christian peoples to the ends of the earth, and a cause does prejudice a cause and a person does prejudice a person.

If the churches of Pontus, Bithynia, Asia, Cappadocia, and the other eastern regions, to which the blessed apostle Peter writes, cry out with the voice of unity itself: "O party of Donatus, we do not know what you are saying. Why do you not communicate with us? If Caecilianus did something wrong, which has not been proven or demonstrated to us, yet even if he did something wrong, why does he prejudice us? If you do not wish to hear us, hear yourselves saying: neither the cause of a cause nor the person of a person prejudices. Or can your perversity go so far that these words are valid so that Primianus does not prejudice you, and these words are not valid so that Caecilianus prejudices us?" Let also the seven eastern churches, to which the apostle John writes—Ephesus, Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, Pergamum—cry out similarly and say: "What have we done to you, brothers, who have chosen to be of the communion of Donatus rather than of ours? If Caecilianus sinned, although you could not even prove his crime, because, just as your Primianus, so also that man was condemned in absence, yet whatever he was like, what have we done to you? Why do you not wish to have peace with Christians who are Christians? Why do you break the common sacraments in us? What have we done to you? Why does the case of Primianus not prejudice the party of Donatus, except because what you said is true: neither the cause of a cause nor the person of a person prejudices?

Why, then, does the case of Caecilian prejudice the inheritance of Christ, in which we have been planted by the labor of the apostles? The apostle John writes to one of our churches that it has a few names in Sardis of those who have not defiled their garments; yet the garments of those few were not polluted by those who were unclean in that same church, because what you have said is true: neither one case prejudices another case, nor one person prejudices another person. How, then, can the case and person of Caecilian prejudice us? Or if it does not prejudice, why do you separate yourselves from us? Let the churches to which the apostle Paul writes also speak—those of the Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians (for Galatia and Ephesus have already been mentioned above). Let these also say: "You read the letters sent to us, brothers, every day, you who still wish to be of the Donatist party. In those same epistles, the apostle greeted us with the name of peace, saying: 'Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.' Why have you learned peace by reading our epistles and yet refused to keep it with us? Do you, placed in such distant lands across the sea, throw the African Caecilian in our faces?

Certainly what you said is true: neither does the cause prejudice the cause, nor the person the person. What is this private and peculiar sanctification by which it is permitted to you that the cause of the African party of Donatus does not prejudice the cause of the African Primian, nor does the person of Primian of Carthage prejudice the person of Felician of Musti, and yet African prejudices are sent so far against us, or does the cause of Caecilian prejudice us? Let the Catholic Church, established in Africa itself and joined to all those by the peace and unity of Christ through communion, also say: neither does the cause of Caecilian prejudice me, against whom, absent, a sentence was pronounced by seventy bishops, because it does not prejudice the Church, which is spread throughout the whole world, in whose communion I remain; or certainly let the cause of Primian prejudice the party of Donatus, whom his colleagues, likewise absent, condemned in a more numerous council. But if it does not prejudice for this reason, because neither cause prejudices cause nor person person, this justice must be observed all the more toward the Catholic unity of Christ, if the party of Donatus demands that it be observed toward itself. The Catholic Church established in Africa proclaims this: 'O party of Donatus, you spoke these words, you recognized these words of yours, you even subscribed to these words: neither cause prejudices cause nor person person. I, among spirits long at rest, recite Caecilian; you still see and have with you in the flesh Felician, by whom Primian was condemned.

In the case of Primian himself you condemned Felicianus and afterwards, just as he was, you united him as bishop with Primian and with yourselves. If the principle that neither does the cause prejudice the cause nor the person the person is so powerful that the communion of the living Felicianus with you does not prejudice you today, how does the memory of the long-dead Caecilian prejudice me?' What do those who still boast to you of empty and, unless they correct themselves, of lies harmful to their own salvation reply to these things? What do they still say, that we corrupted the judge so that a verdict would be given in our favor? Did we also corrupt a bishop of such great merit and a most illustrious defender in your eyes, so that he would speak such things in our favor? For this we were striving with all our might, this we were insisting upon: that the cause and person of Caecilian, whatever he might have been, be shown not to pertain to the cause and person of the Church, which God has strengthened with his holy testimonies.

We were also making this point with evangelical analogies: that the case and person of the tares should not prejudice the case and person of the wheat, even though in the same field, watered by the same rain, they grow together until the harvest, when they must be separated; that the case and person of the chaff should not prejudice the case and person of the grain, even though on the same threshing-floor they are threshed together, until they are separated by the final winnowing; that the case and person of the goats should not prejudice the case and person of the sheep, even though both flocks are kept mingled in common pastures, until by the supreme Shepherd at the final judgment some are separated to the left, others to the right; that the case and person of the bad fish should not prejudice the case and person of the good fish, even though they are held within the same nets, to be separated on the farthest shore, that is, at the end of the sea, which signifies the end of the world.

By which parables and figures the church was foretold to have, until the end of the age, both good and evil together, in such a way that the evil cannot harm the good, when they are either unknown or tolerated for the sake of peace and tranquility of the church, if it has not been opportune to expose or accuse them, or they could not be shown to other good persons; yet in such a way that the vigilance of correction does not rest, by rebuking, degrading, excommunicating, and by other lawful and permitted coercions, which, with the peace of unity preserved, are done daily in the church according to the apostolic precept, with charity maintained, who said: “But if anyone does not obey our word through the letter, mark this one, and do not associate with him, that he may be ashamed; and do not consider him an enemy, but correct him as a brother.” For thus discipline preserves patience, and patience tempers discipline, and both are referred to charity, lest either undisciplined patience foster iniquity or impatient discipline destroy unity.

When these things are done by the good, they are not polluted by the evil, because they neither consent to their sins and thus communicate with them, nor do they separate from them by physical segregation, but rather by spiritual dissimilarity of life and diversity of morals, in that way obeying the Lord's command where he says: "Depart from there, and do not touch the unclean." For those who think this is not to be observed spiritually fall, through the arrogance of vanity, into that which the Lord detests, saying through the same prophet: "Those who say, 'Do not touch me, for I am pure'—this is the smoke of my indignation." Your bishops thought this was to be done when, after the judge offered a joint session to both of us, they refused to sit with us, saying that it was written for them not to sit with such persons, understanding that not spiritually but carnally, which is set in the psalm: "And I will not sit with the impious," and yet they did what is likewise forbidden in that same place of the psalm. For there the prophet says: "And I will not enter with those who do iniquity." Therefore, if because they either knew or thought us to be iniquitous they refused to sit with us, why did they enter with us—partly holy and partly polluted—which is similarly forbidden, except that by not understanding the holy scriptures and by thinking carnally they also shattered unity itself?

Therefore, the evil do not pollute the good when they are placed in the same field, on the same threshing-floor, in the same pastures, in the same nets, because the good do not communicate with them, but with the altar and the sacraments of God. However, those who consent to the deeds of the evil communicate with the evil; for it is written: not only those who do these things, but also those who consent to those who do them. But when the evil are tolerated out of necessity for preserving peace, they are not sought after for the fellowship of sharing in iniquity, just as wheat together with tares drinks the gentle rain equally, yet preserves its own fruitfulness and is not converted into the barrenness of the tares, but both grow together until the harvest, lest, when the tares are gathered, the wheat be uprooted at the same time. The evil have no participation with the good in salvation or perdition — for what participation has justice with iniquity? —, the evil have no fellowship with the good in the kingdom or in eternal fire — for what fellowship has light with darkness? —, the evil have no harmony of life and will with the good — for what harmony has Christ with Beliar? —, the good have no part with the evil either in the punishment for crime or in the reward of piety — for what part has the faithful with the unfaithful?

—and while they are within the same nets until they reach the shore, they equally receive the divine sacraments; these are united, those are separated; these are in harmony, those are discordant; these have a part with mercy, those with judgment, because the church sings mercy and judgment to the Lord, and whoever eats unworthily eats judgment not for another, but for himself. For from that same bread and from that same Lord’s hand both Judas and Peter received a part; and yet what fellowship, what harmony, what part does Peter have with Judas, since neither does the cause prejudice the cause, nor the person the person? Therefore, whether those of whom it is written, “They went out from us, but they were not of us,” depart, or whether they appear to be within, concerning whom the blessed Cyprian speaks most openly, saying: “For even if tares are seen to be in the church, nevertheless our faith or our love ought not to be hindered, so that because we perceive tares to be in the church, we ourselves should withdraw from the church”—to which words your bishops dared to respond with nothing at all, although they long contended in vain that the tares were not figuratively predicted to be in the church, because the Lord said, “The field is this world,” and did not say, “The field is the church.” But we were saying that “world” was placed for the signification of the church, just as Cyprian also understood, because the church was prefigured throughout the whole world.

Hence they used to say that "world" is always placed in a bad sense, and they gave testimonies from the scriptures, because it is written: "If anyone has loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him," and other such things; but we replied that "world" is placed in the scriptures not only in a bad sense but also in a good sense, and we recalled among other things also that which is written: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself," who certainly does not reconcile to himself anything but the Church. Therefore, whether the evil depart or remain within, either unknown or seen, this is what the mercy and justice of God accomplish, that the good, not consenting to evils, are not harmed by the evil, but each carries his own burden, and the son does not receive the sins of the father unless he has imitated him in evil, but the soul that has sinned itself dies. When, therefore, anyone consents to the evil for evil, he already has one cause with them and becomes one person of the whole society of the evil, and by this, when they perish together and are condemned together, his own cause and his own person prejudice him, not another's; but when the good and the evil hear the same word of God together and receive the same sacraments of God together, and yet have dissimilar causes of their acts and bear dissimilar persons by the diversity of their will, the same holy food being eaten worthily by some and unworthily by others, neither does cause prejudice cause nor person prejudice person.

Therefore, whatever testimonies from the divine Scriptures your bishops were able to recall, by which the Church was foretold to be pure from any admixture of evil men, were not foretelling the Church as it now is, but as it will be after this mortal life in eternal life; and whatever testimonies from the Scriptures they set forth concerning sons who, by the merit of their parents, (not) by imitating their wickedness, they wished to have a common cause with them, [they] compelled the divine testimonies to fight among themselves, not understanding them, and they did not reduce the different voices of God, according to the diversity of times, causes, and persons, into harmony, but just as they themselves were against us, so they also wished the divine documents themselves to fight among themselves. Nor is it surprising if they did not understand the peace of the Scripture of God, who did not have peace with His Church. We, however, accepting both testimonies, demonstrated the harmony of both. For we also accepted that which they recalled in their letters, that it was said to the Church: "And the uncircumcised and unclean shall no longer pass through you," and that which is written: "Let both grow together until the harvest," but this is in the field, that will be in the granary.

Finally, even those who long contended, saying that the tares which are allowed to grow together with the wheat until the harvest are not in the Church but in the world—contrary to the understanding of the martyr Cyprian, who said: "Even if tares appear to be in the Church, yet our faith or charity ought not to be hindered, so that because we see tares in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church"—and who were unwilling to consent that the Church could be signified by the name "world," contrary to the words of the Apostle, who said: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," and contrary to the very words of the Lord, who said: "The Son of Man did not come to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him"—for the world cannot be reconciled to God and saved through Him unless by the name "world" the Church is understood, which alone is reconciled to God and saved through Him—nevertheless, in that similitude which we recalled from the Gospel, that both good and bad fish, until they are separated on the shore, that is, at the end of the world, are contained mixed together within the same nets, overcome by the evidence of the truth, they confessed that evil men are mixed in the Church until the end of the world, but they said that these are hidden, because they are unknown to the priests, just as fish within the nets, while they are still in the sea, are not seen by the fishermen.

How then is the prophetic testimony, which they placed in their reply, where it was said to the Church: "The uncircumcised and unclean shall no longer pass through you," understood to pertain to this time, when the Church was compared to nets, which, still placed in the sea, they confessed have bad fish mixed with good, or hidden? Hence it is clear that only in the future age, after judgment, will no uncircumcised and unclean one pass through the Church. O the violence of truth! It twists its enemies not in the flesh, but in the heart, so that they confess it unwillingly! Behold, it has been made clear what was being said by us: that the times of the Church must be distinguished—that it is not now such as it will be after the resurrection; that now it has the wicked mixed in, then it will have them not at all; that those divine testimonies, by which God foretold the Church would be utterly free from any mixture of the wicked, pertain to that purity of it, not to the mixture of this time. Behold, even they themselves, compelled by evangelical truth, have confessed nothing else, who said that the wicked, though hidden, are now mixed in with it. Behold, now the unclean one passes through it, albeit hidden. Therefore, this is not the time that was foretold when the prophet said: "The uncircumcised and unclean shall no longer pass through you." For now they pass through, even if hidden. For this very statement, that it says "shall no longer," shows that they were previously accustomed to pass through, but will pass through no longer.

And they demanded of us reproachfully, how the devil could have sown tares in the Church of Christ, when they themselves admitted that at least hidden evil men were mingled in the Church, and they were unwilling to consider that they were sown by the devil, of course. This very point, which they thought they had discovered as something acute, they were rather bringing forward against themselves. For if the Lord compared the Church to nets that gather good and bad fish alike, because he wished evil men in the Church to be understood not as manifest, but as hidden, whom priests do not know, just as fishermen do not know what the nets have caught beneath the waves, then for that reason the Church was also compared to a threshing-floor, so that even manifest evil men mingled with the good in it would be foretold as future. For the chaff, which is mingled with the grain on the threshing-floor, does not itself lie hidden beneath the waves, but is so conspicuous to everyone's eyes that rather the grain in it is hidden, while the chaff itself is manifest. But concerning this comparison of the threshing-floor, which we had also placed among others from the Gospel, they were able to write nothing against us in their letters except that the prophet Jeremiah said: "What has chaff to do with wheat?" which he said because they are not alike, not because they cannot be mingled, because they will not be together in the granary, not because they are not threshed together on the threshing-floor.

Although Jeremiah, when he said this, was not speaking about the people of God, but about the dreams of men and the visions of prophets—because these two things are not to be compared by any likeness, just as the emptiness of chaff cannot be compared to the fullness of wheat— Your bishops indeed attempted to deny that it is written in the Gospel that the Church is compared to a threshing-floor, but soon, upon the mention of the evangelical words, they were refuted and turned to saying that even there hidden evil men were signified, not manifest ones, concerning whom it is written: "He will come, bearing a winnowing-fan in his hand, and will cleanse his threshing-floor, will store the grain in the granary, and will burn the chaff with inextinguishable fire." Judge then for yourselves; open your eyes, lend your ears to the truth. If for that reason, as they themselves said, the Lord compared the Church to nets, because he wished not manifest but hidden evil men in it to be understood, whom priests do not see, just as fishermen do not see fish within the nets beneath the waves, is the threshing-floor also threshed under water or under the earth, or certainly at night, not in the sun, or does a blind peasant work on it? How much better, then, that they correct themselves than that they pervert the holy Gospels and try to twist the Lord's words to the vanity of their own mind's error!

For either that likeness of the fishes was placed by the Lord not on account of hidden, but only on account of mixed evil men in the Church, or certainly specific likenesses have been given for individual things: concerning fishes on account of hidden evil men, concerning the threshing-floor on account of manifest evil men, so that, just as those are mixed before the shore, so these are mixed before the winnowing-fan with the good in the Church. For they themselves admonish us to understand by the threshing-floor manifest evil men in the Church, while they wish reprobate fishes within swimming nets to be understood as hidden evil men for this reason, because, just as fishermen do not know those, so priests do not know these. For why do we not say: 'Thus, therefore, also the chaff are manifest evil men, because threshers see it in the open'? But just as those cannot be separated before the exit from the shore, so that cannot be winnowed before its due end. However, God guards the innocence of his saints and faithful, like good fishes, like plump grains, so that within these nets the mixed reprobate kinds do not harm them, and on this threshing-floor the mixed chaff to be winnowed does not harm them, because, as they themselves have said, read, and subscribed, neither cause will be able to prejudice cause, nor person person.

These words they would deny having spoken, were they not able to be convicted by their own subscription. Behold how diligently it was done for your salvation, that we should subscribe to our words, which they altogether refused to do, and which they were finally compelled to do by shame. For their words exist, where they refused to do this, and again other words, where they consented to do what they had first denied; all are written down, all are subscribed. For they seemed unwilling to subscribe, so that they might be able to deny that they had said what they said, and to calumniate the judge concerning corrupted acts. Which now, because they cannot, they say that the judge himself is corrupted, who, to judge against them, did nothing but what they themselves did, who spoke so much against themselves for us, which, so that they could not deny, even though compelled and unwilling, they subscribed to their own statements. Therefore they were unwilling to subscribe, so that it might be permitted to them, through the calumny of corrupted acts, to deny what they had said, and therefore afterwards, with the judge insisting, they consented, because they perceived that it appeared to all that they indicated nothing else by their unwillingness to subscribe, except that they feared that their own words would be read back to them. For they preferred to defend their own statements with whatever clouds afterwards, rather than to condemn them so quickly.

But see, we ask you, how by their very defense they entangle themselves more deeply and advance our case while utterly destroying their own. For after the conference, when they wished to appeal after being defeated, these words were charged against them, and they attempt to defend them by a worse self-entanglement, when you ask them what they did. For they think you have no heart, so that you do not understand that they have been overcome in every way, when they say to you things which they would not say at all if they found anything useful to say. For who would tolerate defeated men complaining that sentence was pronounced against them at night? As if judges are not often constrained by the necessity of hearing so that they are forced to sit until a large part of the night, or as if what is said is not true because it is said at night. Nor do they hear the Scripture crying out: "By day the Lord commanded his mercy and by night he declared it," and again: "To proclaim your mercy in the morning and your truth by night." Or that they said persecutors came by night to seize the Lord, not noticing that even the Lord preached the truth to his disciples in those nocturnal hours, nor did they wish to heed what is written, that the Apostle Paul prolonged his discourse until midnight. If they had something true to say, night could not hinder them. But clearly they were suffering the darkest night in their own minds, when they brought forth so many things against themselves and did not correct their perverse mind toward the light of truth.

And still, indeed, it was day, when they prescribed to us in forensic manner concerning time, saying that the case had lapsed and could no longer be conducted at all, not understanding that they had shown men nothing except how much they feared that it might be conducted, where their perversity and Catholic truth would be revealed. It was still day, when, wishing to destroy the judgment of the Roman bishop Miltiades, by which Caecilianus was cleared and absolved, they said that Miltiades himself had been a traditor. When proof of this accusation was demanded of them, they recited very lengthy records, where the name of Miltiades, as having handed over anything, was not found. And they also recited other records, where it was read that Miltiades had sent deacons with letters of the emperor Maxentius and the praetorian prefect to the prefect of the city, that they might recover the places which had been taken from Christians during the time of persecution. When no crime of Miltiades appeared at all therein, they said that in the earlier records of the traditor, a traditor named Strato had been recited, because one of the deacons whom Miltiades had sent to recover the places was also called by that name, contending this, but not proving it. For they did not even show that Strato, who had handed over, was a deacon. And even if that were so, we had replied to them a short time before that in the same clergy of the Roman Church there had been two deacons named Peter.

Thus, with minds blind, they wove shadowy calumnies, adding also the most manifest falsehood: that not only the name, but also the places, regions, and persons coincided, by which it would be shown that no other, but Straton himself, was meant, whereas in those records nothing at all fitting was read except the similarity of the name, with which the custom of the human race is replete, so that not only two, but even more men are called by one name. For they themselves also cried out that their own Donatus of Carthage, lest he be thought to have been condemned in the judgment of Miltiades—since they hold him in high regard—was to be distinguished from Donatus of Casae, because Donatus of Carthage had not been sent to the episcopal judgment of Miltiades against Caecilian, bearing so thick a night in their heart that they were unwilling for Donatus to be defamed by the similarity of his own name, yet wished Miltiades to be stained by the similarity of another’s name. Now, however, they are said to add even the name of Cassianus to Straton, which they kept silent about in the conference, as if Straton alone could have a namesake and Cassianus could not.

Nor could they, hindered by their own inner darkness, attend to the fact that there are not only two Johns—one the Baptist, the other the Evangelist—but also two Simons—one Peter, the other the Magician—and, finally, in that very small number of apostles, not only two Jameses—one the son of Alphaeus, the other the son of Zebedee—but also two Judases—one holy, the other diabolical. Yet anyone who, similarly blind of mind, should slander that holy apostle Judas concerning the crime of the traitor Judas would be imitating none other than these men. For it is no wonder that the reputation of Miltiades suffers such slanderers after so long a time concerning two Cassians or two Strato(n)s, when evangelical truth suffers them concerning two Herods. For because it is not specified which Herod died immediately after the slaughter of the infants for Christ, and which Herod persecuted the Lord together with Pilate, they, thinking there was one, cast upon the Gospel the charge of falsehood, just as these men, thinking there was one Strato or one Cassian, cast upon Miltiades the stain of betrayal. And yet those men err more tolerably, because not only the name but also the rank agrees—for each is read as King Herod—whereas these men have lied about the rank agreeing, for they could in no way read that both were deacons.

It was still day when the Cirtense council—if indeed it can be called a council, in which scarcely eleven or twelve bishops were present—from which we recited that certain men were traditors, who, together with Secundus of Tigisi, pronounced sentences against Caecilian, wishing to show a falsehood, said that during the time of persecution those eleven or twelve bishops could not have gathered in any house, and to prove that it was a time of persecution, they produced the acts of the martyrs, so that, with the days and consuls considered, what time it was might appear. They were convicted of having produced those acts of the martyrs against themselves; for in those acts it was made manifest that at that time of persecution Christian congregations were accustomed to assemble. Hence it was established that it was not incredible that those bishops were likewise recorded to have assembled in a private house, so that for the congregation that was able, as was contained in the acts of the martyrs, to assemble even during the time of persecution, a bishop might be secretly ordained, who could himself also secretly ordain clerics in such great necessity, where the previous bishop, together with his clergy, was shown, through the letter of Secundus himself which was adduced by them, to have lapsed.

From these acts of the martyrs, which they themselves were presenting, we were reminded to examine other acts of the martyrs as well, and we found and pointed out that during the fervent time of persecution, a private house—which they had denied could have happened—was granted for the gathering of Christians, and that martyrs were baptized in prison, so that they might see how not incredible it was that, during the time of persecution, a few bishops gathered in a private house, when even in the prison itself, where men were held confined for the sake of Christ's faith, the sacraments of Christ were being celebrated. Therefore, who does not see how much the acts of the martyrs helped you by being presented—unless he has a night in his heart similar to that which those had who did not see these things? They also slandered the Cirtense acts themselves on this point, because there the day and the consuls were read, and they demanded from us that we produce some ecclesiastical councils where the day and the consuls were recited. For they themselves presented the Carthaginian council made without a day and a consul. They said, moreover, that the council of Cyprian did not have consuls, although the day is read there, but in that Carthaginian council of theirs, not even the day. We, however, demonstrated that the Roman council of Miltiades, which was at hand, just like that Cirtense one, had both a day and consuls. For it was not then the time for us to examine ancient ecclesiastical archives, from which it might be shown that this custom also existed among the ancients.

Nevertheless, we did not wish to bring empty accusations against them either, as to why a date was found in the Council of Cyprian but not in their own, because they wanted to interpose vain delays, which we were trying to avert. For they also demanded that we show from the holy scriptures somewhere that days and consuls were recorded, as if the councils of bishops had ever been compared to the canonical scriptures, or as if they themselves could produce from the holy scriptures a council where the apostles sat as judges and either condemned or acquitted someone accused. And yet we answered them that even the prophets had commended their books with designated and defined times—in what year of which king, in what month of the year, on what day of the month the word of the Lord was made known to them—in order to show how vainly and slanderously they stirred up the most empty questions about the days and consuls of episcopal councils. For it is possible that there is such variety in the manuscripts, since some describe even the days and consuls with greater diligence, while others omit them as superfluous, just as the manuscript from which we first read the judgment of Constantine, in which he pronounced Caecilianus innocent and them most slanderous, did not have the day and consul, but another manuscript, which we later produced against their slanders, did have them.

who also had proclaimed there in a most invidious manner that we had recited the emperor's letter without date and consul, and yet they themselves recited other letters of the same emperor in the case of Felix the ordainer of Caecilian, which with remarkable blindness they brought forward against themselves, without date and consul. Nor did we object to them on that account, lest we similarly occupy 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 from the dark night which your bishops carried in their heart, who objected the nocturnal sentence to the judge's inquiry and themselves, wrapped in inner darkness by day, with remarkable blindness said so much against themselves. The express words of Primian are read from the acts before the magistrate of Carthage, where he says that their parents harassed our ancestors with various exiles, and in the conference they try to prove that Caecilian was condemned to exile by the emperor at the accusation of their ancestors. In their letters they call their communion the church of truth, which suffers persecution, not which inflicts it, and they try to show that Caecilian was condemned by the judgment of the emperor with their ancestors as persecutors, and they say this was done not through Donatus of Casae Nigrae, but through the one they praise above all others, Donatus of Carthage. For they are said to boast of this now in their writings [through their agents], where, defeated, they accuse the judge, because the truth of the night refuted the night of their heart.

That Donatus—that very Donatus, I say, whom they called the ornament of the church of Carthage and a man of martyrial glory—they wished to commend in such a way as to say that, in the hearing of the emperor Constantine, he himself had both accused and convicted Caecilian as guilty. Therefore that man of martyrial glory, in the hearing of the emperor, established and asserted Caecilian as guilty, and that hearing was followed by the condemnation of Caecilian; with that man of martyrial glory accusing and pressing the case, Caecilian was condemned by the emperor. But we have proved this to be false. For we recited, produced from the public archive, the letters of the same emperor, in which he testifies that he heard and judged between the parties, where, with Caecilian acquitted and cleared, he denounced their calumnies. Against these letters they could find absolutely nothing to reply, and in trying to confirm them they brought forward other documents that told against themselves. Hence it is established that Caecilian was accused by their predecessors before the emperor, but it is not established that he was condemned; on the contrary, it is even established that he was acquitted. But at least see for yourselves how much your bishops have aided our cause, who wished to boast even of that falsehood.

For if that Donatus, a man of martyrial glory, asserted Caecilianus as defendant in the hearing of the emperor, and with that man of martyrial glory accusing and pressing the case, Caecilianus was condemned by the emperor, answer to you: when these things were taking place, who was the martyr—Donatus, who was prosecuting a man before the emperor, or Caecilianus, who, with that man prosecuting, was condemned by the emperor? Where now is that definitive rule of theirs, that the communion of Donatus is the church of truth which suffers persecution, not which inflicts it? Behold, Caecilianus suffers, Donatus inflicts: which of them is the man of martyrial glory? Attend, take heed, be not seduced into pernicious error even still. The truth, which was hidden from you, God has deigned to reveal; the falsehood, which was poured over you, God has deigned to refute; why are you still ungrateful for such a benefit of His? This is, indeed, what they often said to you, by which the eyes of your heart were darkened with cunning deceit, and even now, when refuted, they boast of this, they tear at us from this, because we inflict persecution, they suffer it. This alone remains to them, overcome on every side, from which they still make clouds for the unlearned, from this showing themselves, as it were, to be the church of truth, because it suffers persecution, not inflicts it. Therefore, let them not still deceive you; we do to them what their predecessors, and the very man they proclaim as a man of martyrial glory, boast of having done to Caecilianus.

This is what that man accomplished before the emperor: Caecilianus was convicted so that he would be condemned by his judgment. This is also what we have accomplished, so that these men, once convicted, would suffer similar treatment. If he acted wrongly, why did that Donatus do this? But if he acted rightly, why does the Catholic party not do this to the Donatists? Indeed, they themselves do not doubt that it was done rightly. They boast that their predecessors, whom they greatly praise, did this, and we do not doubt it, since we cannot deny that this ought to be done to them: that without bloodshed, those who are not corrected by words should be restrained 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 by a heavier penalty, the judges, who have always been permitted to soften and mitigate the sentence, should act more leniently. Meanwhile, therefore, although it cannot be shown that Caecilianus was condemned by the emperor Constantine, that error of yours has nevertheless been removed, by which you thought that the true church is the one that suffers persecution, not the one that inflicts it; for Donatus inflicted it, Caecilianus suffered it. And if the Donatist party suffers persecution, it suffers it along with the party of Maximianus, whom they themselves affirm is not the church of Christ. And for this reason, inflicting persecution is not a sign of iniquity, because good men also inflict it upon the wicked and wicked men upon the good; and suffering persecution is not a proof of righteousness, because not only the good suffer it for piety, but also the wicked suffer it for iniquity.

It remains for you, therefore, with error cast aside, to see and hold to the Catholic Church of Christ, not to choose it from that because it suffers persecution. For when the Lord said, "Blessed are those who suffer persecution," he added, "for the sake of righteousness," lest heretics boast of it. For you know, as do we, how many evils the most frenzied clergy and circumcellions of the Donatist party have inflicted on our people. Churches have been burned, sacred codices thrown into flames, even private houses set on fire, men dragged from their homes, and with all their possessions taken or destroyed, they themselves have been beaten, lacerated, and blinded. Nor could they refrain from homicide, although it is milder to put to death one who is dying to this light than to take away that light from one who is living. It came to the point of killing men, not that they were arrested and led somewhere, but merely that they should suffer these things. Yet we do not justify our people because they have suffered these things, but because they have suffered them for Christian truth, for Christ's peace, for the unity of the Church. But those men, under so many, under such severe laws, and under such power as the Lord has granted to the Catholic Church—what do they suffer of the same kind? For if they are ever punished by death, they either kill themselves or are killed while their bloody violence is resisted, not for the communion of the Donatist party nor for the error of sacrilegious schism, but for their own most open crimes and wickednesses, which they commit like bandits with monstrous fury and cruelty.

But on the part of Donatus, they suffer hardly anything of the kind that they said Caecilianus suffered at the instigation of Donatus. Therefore, either not all persecution is unjust, or it should not be called persecution when it is just. Hence, either the Donatist party suffers just persecution, or it does not suffer persecution because it suffers justly. But Caecilianus did not suffer justly, because he was proven innocent and acquitted. Indeed, they denied this and claimed instead that he was condemned by the emperor, and thus they confessed that their predecessors, and especially Donatus, whom they so greatly praised, inflicted persecution on Caecilianus. But they were utterly unable to prove that he was convicted and condemned; on the contrary, even they themselves, by reading many things, confirmed what we were saying—that he was acquitted and cleared. And yet they boast that freedom of choice was granted to them by the emperor. Defeated and confounded, they even now demanded that what their predecessors did not grant to Caecilianus should be conceded to them—Caecilianus, whom they accused before the emperor, and whom they even wanted to lie about as having been condemned by the emperor at their accusation. If free will is to be granted to each person, it should have been granted first to Caecilianus; if these matters are not to be left to a human judge but rather to God, then Caecilianus should not have been accused before the emperor in the first place.

Wake up at last; may not the infernal sleep bind you, may not the impious habit still plunge you into the depth of sacrilegious error; now be in harmony with peace, cling to unity, acquiesce in charity, yield to truth; recognize the Catholic Church beginning from Jerusalem and spreading everywhere, with which the Donatist party does not communicate, to which the case of Caecilianus does not prejudice. For however often purged, however often acquitted, even if he were not innocent, neither does a case prejudice a case nor a person prejudice a person. The universal Church throughout the whole world proclaims these words, and its member in Africa also cries out: 'I know the testimony of God, I do not know the case of Caecilianus; I believe him innocent, persecuted by your elders, whom I read was so often acquitted; but whatever his case may be, it does not prejudice my case; whatever his person may be, it does not prejudice my person. You said this, you subscribed to this: neither case prejudices case nor person prejudices person. Behold, the Lord says: throughout all nations, beginning from Jerusalem; let us hold the divine truth in one Church and at last put an end to human quarrels.

For can they in any way defend those words, where they said that the cause does not prejudice the cause nor the person the person, after the conference itself, and have they not rather entangled themselves much more perplexingly? For thus they spoke in some of their writings: "That the cause does not prejudice the cause and the person does not prejudice the person," they say, "has been recalled as having been said by us, but with reference to the point: 'that we are not prejudiced by those who have been either rejected or condemned by us.' But those who descend from the ordination of Caecilianus, whom the origin counts from the predecessor to the guilt, how can they not be bound by the crimes of their ordainer, since the rope of sins, stretched through the series, necessarily makes those whom it has bound by the bond of communion partners in sin?" O marvelous defense! The mud is so thick and dense where their feet have stuck, that when they try to pull them out, they vainly fix both hands and head, and, hesitating in the same mud, are more tightly entangled. For among those whom they recall having either rejected or condemned, that is, from the Maximianists, they have with them Felicianus, both the condemner of Primianus and condemned by themselves in the case of Primianus. What is it that they strive to entangle such a long rope from Caecilianus up to these times of the Catholic Church, and do not notice their own chain so close at hand? Indeed, that splendid Bagaitanian sentence concerning Maximianus and his associates says: "The chain of sacrilege," it says, "draws many into the fellowship of crime.

Felicianus, then, was being dragged along by that chain: if Felicianus does not prejudice them, why does Caecilianus prejudice us? Or does it prejudice where they wish, but where they do not wish, cause does not prejudice cause, and according to their own caprice the old rope is stronger than the new chain? Maximianus does not prejudice Felicianus, by whom he was condemned; Maximianus and Felicianus do not prejudice Primianus, by whom they were condemned; Maximianus does not prejudice those who received a delay, with whom he was associated in one schism; Felicianus does not prejudice the Donatist party, by which he was received in the same honor, nor was the baptism he gave in a sacrilegious schism destroyed there; and Caecilianus prejudices so many Christian peoples, who was once condemned in absence, as Primianus was, and thrice acquitted in presence, as Primianus was not. He prejudices us, long dead and unknown; and these men are not prejudiced by a living man, who was recently condemned by them, as is read, and is now seen associated with them. The rope of Caecilianus is wound around us, who are ignorant of him; and the chain of Felicianus is not wound around them, whose sentence against him is recited, where that very chain is condemned. They are allowed to say: 'We have received those whom we condemned for the sake of Donatist peace, because cause does not prejudice cause, nor person person'; and we are not allowed to say: 'Because of those whom you condemned, we do not abandon the peace of Christ, because cause does not prejudice cause, nor person person.

Oh iron forehead, oh darkness of madness, casting the nocturnal sentence in the face of the judge and groping in the night of their own heart, stumbling and falling, rabidly litigating against us and saying so much on our behalf! Moreover, they even now dare to recall the prophetic and apostolic testimonies to which we responded universally in that conference, showing that the holy prophets themselves moved among the wicked in one temple, under the same priests, amid the same sacraments, and were not polluted by the evil ones, because they knew how to distinguish between the holy and the unclean not, as these people think, by physically dividing the people, but by judging rightly and living rightly. And they did this without ceasing, so that in that great house where they were, as the apostle says, some vessels are for honor, others for dishonor, they would purify themselves from such people by the diversity of their morals and be vessels for honor, useful to the Lord, always ready for every good work. But it is well that they, from the many testimonies which they inserted into their writings without understanding, which they brought forth and read in the conference, have now, after being defeated in the conference, recalled as a special testimony from the prophet Haggai. In this prophet, therefore, we demonstrate much more clearly what we wish, because it is not physical but spiritual contact, which occurs through consent, that pollutes men, whose cause a single consent makes one.

For when the Lord wished to destroy even the impious with visible punishment, He Himself separated the righteous from them by a warning, just as Noah with his household from those whom the flood was about to destroy, just as Lot from those whom fire was about to consume, just as His own people from the synagogue of Abiram, which He was soon to destroy. Therefore also that man who did not have a wedding garment was ordered to be bound and cast out not by those who had invited him, but by the Lord Himself, whose banquet it was. For neither was He, like a fish, under the waves, and thus could not be seen by the inviters as a fish is by fishermen. Hence, lest it be thought, as these people think, that He had secretly crept in, as it were, one among the crowd, unknown to them, the Lord immediately, in that very one whom He ordered to be cast out from that banquet into the outer darkness with hands and feet bound, did not delay to signify that a great multitude of the wicked was to be understood, among whom the fewer good live in the Lord's banquet. For after He said: "Bind his hands and feet and cast him into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth," He immediately added: "For many are called, but few are chosen." How is this true, when rather one out of many had been cast into the outer darkness, unless because in that one a great body of all the wicked mingled with the Lord's banquet before the Lord's judgment was being figured?

from whom the good separate themselves in heart and in conduct in the meantime, while eating and drinking the body and blood of the Lord together, but with a great distinction, because these are clothed in the wedding garment in honor of the bridegroom, seeking not their own but those of Jesus Christ, while those do not have the wedding garment, that is, the most faithful love of the bridegroom, seeking their own and not those of Jesus Christ. And thus, although in one and the same banquet, these eat mercy, those eat judgment, because the song of that banquet itself is what I recalled above: "I will sing mercy and judgment to you, O Lord." Nevertheless, ecclesiastical discipline does not sleep, so that it may correct the restless. For we do not separate from the people of God those whom we reduce, either by degradation or by excommunication, to a lower place of penance. And where we are not permitted to do this for the sake of the peace and tranquility of the Church, we do not, however, reject ecclesiastical discipline, but we tolerate what we do not wish, so that we may reach what we wish, using the caution of the Lord's command, lest, when we wish to gather the tares before the time, we also uproot the wheat. We also use the example and precept of the blessed Cyprian, who endured his colleagues, who were usurers, defrauders, and plunderers, for the sake of peace, and did not become like them by their contagion.

Therefore, if we are wheat, we most confidently speak the words of that same blessed martyr, because, even if tares are seen to be in the Church, yet our faith or our charity ought not to be hindered, so that because we perceive tares in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church. Our predecessors would most justly and piously have spoken these words, even if they saw Caecilianus and some of his fellow bishops to be evil, whom, however, they could not separate from the Church on account of those to whom the evil could not be demonstrated and who considered them good and innocent. They would have said these words entirely, they would have felt this entirely, lest, while wishing rashly to separate the tares, they should at the same time root up the wheat. Therefore, just as a certain prophet was commanded neither to eat bread nor to drink water in Samaria, whither he had been sent, in order to rebuke those who had set up cows to be worshipped after the manner of the idols of the Egyptians, he ought to have done entirely what the Lord had commanded, who then chose to rebuke them in that way, so that the prophet he had sent should touch no food there. For is this not done daily in the Church, when we, whom we rebuke more sharply, even if we are in their possession, touch nothing of food among them, so that they may feel how much we grieve over their sins? Yet, is a division of the people therefore to be made, so that, like soft grass, the weak, who cannot judge from the hearts of men and from unknown deeds, even if these are known to us, are indiscriminately rooted out?

For in Samaria itself both Elijah and Elisha were present, even if they themselves were in solitude, yet not deviating on account of the sacraments, but because they were suffering persecution from impious kings. For they were there, certainly not in a separate solitude which Elijah himself did not know, seven thousand men who did not bend the knee before Baal. Finally, among the foremost, Samuel was considered a saint and he severely rebuked Saul, and yet with him he went without excuse to offer sacrifice to the Lord, nor was he polluted by the contagion of his sins, but remained entirely pure by the preservation of his own merits. But this question of ours, although it has been clearly resolved both in the conference and just now, let Haggai resolve it even more clearly, whose testimony they read before the others, so that they might still boast of it alone for all. The Lord reproaches through the prophet Haggai the people remaining from Babylon, where they were held captive, because they neglected the house of the Lord and cultivated their own houses, and he says that for this reason he struck their region with a plague of sterility. Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Joshua son of Jehozadak the high priest and all that people, divinely inspired, began to work in the house of the Lord their God.

For thus the same Scripture says: "And the Lord roused the spirit of Zorobabel son of Salathiel of the tribe of Judah, and the spirit of Jesus son of Josedec the high priest, and the spirit of the remnant of all the people, and they entered and performed works in the house of the Lord, their almighty God, on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year under King Darius." Behold, even the day is fixed when they entered to work in the house of God. I believe that those men and that people working in the house of God were not unclean, especially since the Lord had said to them: "I am with you," and had roused their spirit to work well in his house. Finally, see what follows. For the same Scripture continues and says: "In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the Lord spoke through the hand of the prophet Haggai, saying to Zorobabel son of Salathiel of the tribe of Judah, and to Jesus son of Josedec the high priest, and to all the remnant people: 'Who among you has seen this house in its former glory? And how do you see it now, as if it were not before your eyes? And now prevail, Zorobabel, says the Lord, and prevail, Jesus son of Josedec, high priest, and prevail, all people of the land, says the Lord Almighty, and my spirit is present in your midst.'

Be of good courage, for the Almighty says this: "Once more, I will shake heaven and earth, sea and dry land, and I will shake all nations, and all the chosen of the nations will come, and I will fill this house," says the Lord Almighty, and the rest which he adds, also prophesying future things; which are usually more rightly understood of the times of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose people is the truest and most holy temple of God, not even among those who are tolerated mixed in, but only among those who for now are spiritually separated from such by living well, and later are also to be separated bodily. Nevertheless, that people to whom this prophecy was announced and who were then working in the house of God, where there were also those two, Zorobabel son of Salathiel and Jesus son of Josedec, how they were exhorted and commended by the Lord is sufficiently clear to see in these words of the prophet, which we inserted as they were spoken. Can we therefore call this people unclean, so that if anyone approaches them they will be defiled, to which people it is said: "And now prevail, Zorobabel, says the Lord, and prevail, Jesus son of Josedec, great priest, and prevail, all people of the earth, says the Lord Almighty, and my spirit presides in your midst"? Who would be so insane as to say that this is the people to which if anyone approaches they will be defiled?

Now therefore attend to what the scripture subsequently connects after that prophecy, which was announced to this people concerning the times of Christ: "In the fourth and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year under King Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai, saying: Thus says the Almighty: Ask the priests concerning the law, saying: If a man takes sanctified flesh in the hem of his garment, and the hem of his garment touches bread or stew or wine or any food, will it be sanctified? And the priests answered and said: No. And Haggai said: If one who is unclean in soul touches any of these things, will it be polluted? And the priests answered and said: It will be polluted. And Haggai answered and said: So is this people and this nation in my sight, says the Lord, and so are the works of their hands. And whoever approaches them will be polluted because of their morning presumptions from the face of their labors, and you held in hatred (at the gates) those who reprove. Who is this people so unclean that whoever approaches them is polluted? Is it not that people to whom it was said: Prevail, and my spirit is in your midst? Far be it that it should be that people. Therefore there were two: one unclean, and another who is forbidden to approach the unclean, who exhorted them to prevail, because the spirit of God was in their midst.

If, therefore, there were two, let two temples also be shown, one into which this one entered, the other into which that one entered; let two altars also be shown, one on which this one, the other on which that one offered victims; let priests also be shown, some of this one and others of that one, who separately sacrificed for their own respective people. But if anyone who tries to affirm this is insane, then these two peoples were in one people, under one high priest, entering one temple, just as there were also under one Moses some who offended God, some who pleased God, concerning whom the apostle says: "Not in all of them was there good pleasure with God." For he does not say: 'In all of them there was no good pleasure with God,' as if all displeased God, but he says: "Not in all of them was there good pleasure with God," therefore in some, not in all. And all were under the same priests in one and the same tabernacle, offered sacrifices on one and the same altar, and yet they were distinguished by deeds, not by places; by spirit, not by temple; by customs, not by altars. Thus some did not approach others, lest they be polluted by them, that is, they did not consent to their evil deeds, lest they be equally condemned. For not even did Moses, such a great prophet, not know those evil ones, whose impious murmurings and horrible bitterness he daily endured. But let us suppose that he did not know them: did Samuel not know Saul, whom God, through his mouth, had condemned by an eternal sentence? Nevertheless, both he and the holy David entered one tabernacle of God.

among the same sacrifices, but he saw them distinctly, of course, because he saw them as distinct, and he loved one of them eternally, while tolerating the other for a time. So too Haggai knew that within one people there were two peoples entering one temple, living under one high priest, and he pointed out one as unclean, and forbade the other to approach the unclean one, and yet he separated neither them nor himself from the same temple and the same altars. Therefore, he forbade spiritual approach and agreement in deeds, which the very words proclaim, if ears are present which furious animosity does not close or the noise of vain contention does not hinder. For the prophet says: "Everyone who approaches him will be defiled." He noted the fault on account of which he forbade approach, not that he shut off people from people by physical separation. Moreover, one approaches the fault of corruption through the fault of agreement.

And lest anyone should say that the people to whom it was first said, "Prevail, for my spirit is present among you," were changed for the worse after a few intervening days, so that they deserved to hear, "Thus this people and this nation, everyone who approaches there will be defiled"—for about ninety days are counted between those words spoken well of the people and these words by which their uncleanness is commanded to be avoided—lest anyone, therefore, should think that good people had become so utterly wicked in this short interval of time, see what follows, attend to what is said on that very day, that is, the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, on which day it was said: "Thus this people and this nation, everyone who approaches there will be defiled." For when he had said this and had recounted their evils, by whose merit they were shown to be unclean, adding also and saying, "You hated those who reproved you at the gates," he immediately subjoined: "And now set in your hearts from this day onward, before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord, you who were when you put twenty sata of barley in the chest, and ten sata were produced, and you drew out fifty amphorae at the winepress, and twenty were produced. I struck you with barrenness, and with the corruption of the wind and hail all your works, and you did not turn to me," says the Lord.

Therefore, set your hearts from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, and from the day the temple of the Lord was founded, place in your hearts whether the threshing-floor will still be recognized, or whether the vine, the apple, the fig, the pomegranate, and the olive trees that bore no fruit. From this day I will bless. Behold, on that very day they also deserved to be blessed. Therefore, I think this blessing does not pertain to those whose uncleanness forbids approach, but to those good ones who are forbidden to approach. Thus, they were both united and separated in one body—united indeed by physical contact, but separated by a withdrawal of will. But Scripture speaks in its customary manner, which rebukes the wicked as if all in that people are wicked, and consoles the good as if all there are such. Therefore, on our behalf, your bishops, even in what they are said to have written after being defeated in the conference, placed the prophecy of Haggai, by which they might remind us to prove more clearly what we say: that even in one people, in one temple, under the same priests, amid the same sacraments, with men living by dissimilar will and differing in diverse customs, neither can a cause prejudice a cause, nor a person prejudice a person.

That also which they cite from the apostle’s epistle in their own writings, where he says: “Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers; for what participation has light with darkness?” and the rest, which we have mentioned above and have shown how they should be rightly understood—what else do they do but remind us to whom the apostle wrote this? For in that same people of the Corinthians we demonstrate what we say, lest they perhaps think that it was only the custom of the prophets and pertains not to the New Testament but to the Old Testament to rebuke the blameworthy in such a way as if all in that people are rebuked, and to address the praiseworthy in such a way as if all there are praised. Behold, the apostle speaks thus to the Corinthians: “Paul, called apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes, brother of the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you in the grace of God which has been given to you in Christ Jesus, because you have been made rich in all things in him, in every word and in all knowledge, just as the testimony of Christ has been confirmed in you, so that you lack nothing in any grace.

Who, hearing this, would believe that there were any reprobates in the church of the Corinthians, since these words sound as if this praise were addressed to all? And yet a little later he says: "But I beseech you, brothers, that you all say the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you." Again, as if rebuking and reproaching everyone for this horrible vice, he says: "Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" But I think that those among that people who said "I am of Christ" did not bear the yoke with those who said "I am of Paul," "I am of Apollo," "I am of Cephas," and yet all approached the same altar and communicated in the same sacraments, even though they did not share the same vices. For to these Corinthians it was also said: "He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself." For what else was the apostle thinking of but these vain talkers, so that it was not enough for him to say "eats and drinks judgment" unless he added "to himself," lest this also pertain to those who, though partaking equally, did not eat judgment?

Even among those same Corinthians there were those who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, which is the singular faith of Christians, as the apostle says to them: "But if Christ is preached as having risen from the dead, how is it that some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?" He did not say "in this land" or "in this world," but "among you," he says. For he could not have prescribed concerning the resurrection of Christ except to those who were already Christians, to whom he says concerning the resurrection of Christ itself: "Thus we preach and thus you have believed." Now let us attend to those words with which he praises the church of the Corinthians at the beginning of the epistle, saying: "I give thanks to my God always for you in the grace of God which has been given to you in Christ Jesus, because you have been made rich in all things in him, in every word and in every knowledge, as the testimony of Christ has been confirmed in you, so that you lack nothing in any grace." Behold, they were so enriched in Christ in every word and in every knowledge, so that they lacked nothing in any grace, that among them there were those who still did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. I think, however, that those who lacked nothing in any grace did not bear the yoke with those who did not believe that the dead would rise. Behold, how the faithful do not bear the yoke with the unfaithful, although they are mixed with the same people and are initiated under the same priests with the same sacraments.

Finally, the apostle himself, lest they consent to this unfaithfulness—those whose faith already held to the resurrection of the dead—did not command them a physical separation; for there were many, not like that one man who had his father’s wife, whom he judged worthy of a freer reproof and excommunication; far otherwise is that one, far otherwise must a faulty multitude be treated and healed, lest, if the people be separated from the people, even the wheat be uprooted through the sin of schism. Therefore, those who already believed in the resurrection of the dead, from those who in the same people did not believe it, the apostle does not separate physically, but yet he does not cease to separate them spiritually, saying: "Do not be led astray; evil conversations corrupt good morals." He fears not their meeting, but their consent, lest they lend faith to evil conversations, which corrupt good morals; thus he admonishes them to be separated by morals, not by altars. Finally, before the apostle wrote these things to them, in the same church there were those who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, in which there were those to whom nothing was lacking in any grace, and those did not defile these with their unfaithfulness, because these did not consent to them in that same unfaithfulness. Behold how that one is not approached, lest whoever approaches be defiled; behold how there is no participation of light with darkness; behold how, although both kinds of fish swim within the same nets, neither does cause prejudice cause nor person prejudice person.

Since this is the case, what so raw a stupidity, what so iron a sleep of the heart cannot be shaken off, so that one might at last perceive that the case of Caecilianus cannot prejudice the Catholic world, with which the Donatist party does not communicate, if the case of Maximianus—or rather the case of Felicianus and Primianus, now joined together, though shortly before they had mutually condemned each other—does not prejudice the Donatist party? It is certainly sufficient, to speak in their own terms, that bad fish lurking under the waves do not pollute fishermen who are unaware of them, although the question is not about the fishermen, whom perhaps in that similitude the Lord intended to be understood as angels. For it is more to be attended to that within the nets themselves good fish cannot be stained by bad ones. For they themselves do not see each other swimming together, just as they are not seen by fishermen placed within the water. But, as I have said, it is sufficient for our case that the wicked do not pollute those whose evil deeds are unknown.

There were certain peaceable men in the time of the blessed Caecilianus who, even if he were not innocent, knowing this, would tolerate him for the sake of catholic unity; and when they saw him, through so many unknown peoples among whom that unity itself is spread, cohering with them by the communion of participating in the sacraments, and that such a man as they themselves knew him to be could not be shown to them, they would defend themselves against these calumnies with the words of the blessed and peaceable Cyprian, and would cry out confidently and say: therefore we do not abandon unity on account of Caecilianus, because, even if there appear to be tares in the Church, nevertheless neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that, because we perceive there are tares in the Church, we ourselves should depart from the Church. To this peaceable patience of theirs would befit that most illustrious praise with which the angel of the Church which is at Ephesus is praised, whom no one understanding rightly doubts bears the person of that Church itself, to whom the Spirit says in the Apocalypse: I know your works and your labor and your patience, and that you cannot bear the wicked, and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and you have found them liars; and you have patience, and you have borne them for my name's sake, and you have not failed.

Thus let those be praised who lived in the time of Caecilianus, who, for the sake of the Lord’s name, which like a poured-out ointment was already fragrant throughout the whole world among innumerable nations, would not fail, most patiently enduring even one whom they knew to be evil, if that man were evil, who could not be shown to others by their judgment and be torn away and separated from them. Our case is different; we ought not arrogate to ourselves the praise of this patience. For we cannot say that we tolerated for the sake of peace what could not possibly have come to our knowledge. For us, the case of Caecilianus was beneath the waves. Our voice is such as that of the other Christian peoples, against whom these men found nothing at all to say. Nevertheless, we rightly believe the unknown case of Caecilianus to be good, whom, once condemned by the faction of his enemies, we read was thrice acquitted by the very same accusers. Or let these men believe the approximately one hundred bishops of the Donatist party concerning the crimes of Primianus, and then let them compel us to believe their seventy elders concerning the crimes of Caecilianus. But as for what they say, that Caecilianus, by being silent when absent, confirmed the crimes charged against him in that council, then Primianus also confirmed the crimes charged against him by one hundred bishops, which he is not even shown to have refuted afterwards.

But obviously neither does a cause prejudice a cause, nor a person a person, so that the Donatist party may be diminished; rather, it prejudices so that Christ’s inheritance may be divided. Or does the cause of Caecilianus not prejudice the Catholic unity, which we hold and whose fellowship we enjoy, since Caecilianus was bishop of Carthage, and yet the cause of Novellus of Tizica and Faustinus of Tuburbo does prejudice it—men whom they later did not even think to accuse as they did Caecilianus and Felix, whose names, or rather the names of the cities in which they were, are not known to all Africa, or perhaps not even to the whole proconsular province? Behold, these little fish, even if they were bad, lying hidden in such deep water, they want the cause of such a great fishing to be prejudiced by them—a fishing whose full nets have been spread throughout the whole world, and which could scarcely be known to fish swimming nearby. But why should we not believe that even these men were innocent, when, as I said, they later did not even deserve to be accused by them, and that man could be cleared whom their elders, in the hostile conspiracy of that council, called the source of all evils?

But whatever sort of men they were, what is that to us? For they do not truly deny to us that the cause and person of these unknown individuals does not prejudice the cause and person of the Catholic Church, if neither cause prejudices cause nor person prejudices person; and yet they still cast it up to us, in order to deceive you, that we gave gold to the judge so that he would pronounce sentence for us against them. Tell us, if you can, how much we ought to have given to the chosen defenders, your bishops, so that they would say or bring forward so much against themselves and for us, so that they would plead our cause and destroy their own in this way. How much ought we to have paid, so that after the words of Primianus, in which he said: "It is unworthy that the sons of martyrs and the offspring of traitors should come together," they would nevertheless come together with us into one, which they had said was unworthy? How much ought we to have paid, so that, in the manner of forensic advocates, they would attempt to prescribe to us concerning times and days, and also concerning persons, and thus show clearly enough to all men, even to those who could not understand our disputations, how bad a cause they had, which they feared to bring forward and plead before that judge, whose kindness and justice towards themselves they had praised with such great acclaim, and whose hostility towards themselves they had not yet felt?

How much should we have paid, so that they themselves would then demand that the case should not be conducted by forensic formulas, but rather by divine testimonies, and would promise that they too would respond from the holy scriptures; and when the mandate of the Catholic council, which we had offered, had been read out, and it had become clear in it, even with them confessing, that we had not wished to conduct the case of the Catholic Church by testimonies of the holy scriptures, they would again, as if forgetful of what they had said pleased them, return to the same forensic prescriptions with perplexing and odious contentions? How much should we have paid, so that, moved by the number of our subscriptions, which were shown in the same mandate, they would demand the presence of our entire council, from which council only eighteen of us were present according to the judge's edict, and would bring a charge of falsity, that others could have subscribed in place of others?

Thus it came about that their number too was reviewed, and they themselves were caught in the very falsehood which they had wished to cast suspicion upon us, so that not only were certain persons read in their mandate as having subscribed for absentees who had not even come to Carthage, but also, when a certain man was read out and did not respond, and they said he had died on the journey, and it was asked of them how he could have subscribed at Carthage if he had already died on the journey, after great distress of their confusion and their inconsistent and varied response, they insisted not that he had not come, but that after he had subscribed, while returning to his own place, he had died on the journey. Then, when questioned under divine testimony whether it was established that he had been at Carthage, they were more vehemently disturbed and said, “What if someone else put himself forward in his place?” And thus by their own words they confirmed that the falsehood which they had charged against us had appeared and been proven in their own mandate.

How much should we have paid, that when they wished to boast of their numbers, they might also in this matter expose their own lies? For when a somewhat larger number of our own had been present, and it had been said by us that about a hundred other Catholic bishops, partly hindered by old age, partly by ill health, partly by various necessities, had not come to Carthage, upon hearing this they said that far more of their own had not come; just as even now, boasting that they are more than four hundred throughout all Africa, they forgot what they had set down in their own mandate, namely that all of them had come to Carthage to such an extent that, with the sole exception of those whom either in their own sees or on the journey bodily illness had detained, not even the most grievous old age and the labor of a long journey could hinder them. And their subscriptions were read in their mandate, and when the count was made, the office replied that there were two hundred and seventy-nine, including even those in whom falsehood was detected and who had subscribed for absentees, whom illness had prevented from coming to Carthage. How then is it true that they are more than four hundred, when they said that only those whom bodily illness hindered had not come to Carthage, and even for some of these others subscribed, not to mention that this was done for all the sick? Or had pestilence so suddenly struck them down that it prostrated a third part of them?

But they had been summoned by their primate through a tractatorial letter, so that, setting everything else aside, they would hasten to assemble at Carthage, in order that they might know they had deceived themselves regarding what was best in their case, whoever had been unwilling to come. This, of course, was what was best in their case: that their vast number should appear, as if a greater multitude of blind seekers were proportionally more helpful for finding something more easily. How much should we have paid, so that on the following day, with both sides consenting, the hearing having been postponed, they would request on the previous day through a notice that our mandate be published for them by the official staff, so that, thus informed, they could be present, alleging that the official staff could not manage to draw up the proceedings in such a short time? For it happened that on the following day of the hearing, although they justly sought and received a postponement—those who, having considered the case, which was entirely contained in our mandate, were suffering great distress—they were nevertheless convicted of coming against their own. For what is more just than to seek a postponement when disturbed by such firmness of truth? Would that it had profited them, so that, having considered our mandate, to which they were utterly unable to respond, they might have preferred to correct their perversity rather than to increase it for the worse.

Therefore, they were justly seeking a postponement, but on the previous day they ought not to have said in their notoria that our mandate should be read to them so that they might come prepared on the appointed day, because the notaries could not appear with the written record of the proceedings, and on the very day of the action, again concerning those same notaries, because they had not appeared, they wished to raise a complaint—what compelled them to this except vehement agitation, when they saw that the case had been conducted by us in the writing of the mandate in such a way that they could find no response? For how valuable it was that they sought that postponement and received six days, so that no one could say they were prevented by lack of time from being able to respond to our mandate! On the third day of our conference itself, how valuable it was that, by the most empty and superfluous interposition of delays, they showed in every way that they did not wish to come to the case, and they proclaimed by their very fear how bad a case they had, although their fear also burst forth into the testimony of a most evident voice, when they said: 'We are being gradually led into the case,' and in another place: 'Your power sees that we are being gradually led into the inner part of the case.' O violence of truth, stronger than any rack, any claws, for extracting confession! So many bishops from all over Africa gather, they enter Carthage with such pomp of a splendid column that they turn the eyes and attention of so great a city upon themselves.

Those who speak for all are chosen by all; a place worthy of such a great matter is procured in the middle of the city; both sides convene; a judge is present; the records are open; the hearts of all are suspended, awaiting the outcome of such a great conference. Then, by the most learned and eloquent men, with as much effort as ought to have been expended on something, so much is expended that nothing is accomplished. They seek to examine persons in the manner of the forum, a question in which litigants are accustomed to waste even years. In that action, indeed, the Catholics confessed that they had composed their mandate with divine testimonies rather than forensic formulas, and similarly promised that they would respond from the Scriptures. And because, by a wonderful assistance, God willed that, when they sought the person of the petitioner to avoid coming to the case, that very inquiry into the petitioner suddenly thrust the case into the midst, the illustrious men, who seemed chosen to act and who testify that they were chosen rather not to act, cry out and complain jealously to the judge that they are being gradually led into the inner parts of the case, as if anything else, with all else set aside, ought to have been done than that which, so late, they were unwilling to do even then, because they never at all wished to do what they feared to lose. Who would extract the most open voice of this fear from their closed breast, I do not say if we were to enrich them with the most lavish gifts, but if we were to torture them with the most cruel punishments?

For when they were inquiring into the status of the petitioners with forensic experience and wished to show that we were the petitioners, so that they might be permitted to legally examine our persons and find the most protracted delays, they read our petition once given to the proconsul, by which we had sought to meet with them, so that the very conference between us might then take place, which we have now obtained from the emperor to be held, and by that petition they showed us to be, as it were, the petitioners. It was answered by us that we had always wished the conference to take place, not so that we might bring charges of crimes against them, but so that we might clear ourselves of those things which they are accustomed to charge: for this reason indeed they are heretics and separated from the unity of the Church, because they bring charges of crimes which they cannot prove. Then, because the judge seemed to follow the order of times, so that he preferred our petition produced by them to the records which we had brought forward, where they themselves had sought a conference before the prefects, since those prefectural records were earlier in time, we very easily and most justly, by this opportunity offered, obtained from the judge that, if he preferred those things which were found to be earlier in time, he should rather order that to be recited where they themselves, before the emperor Constantine through the proconsul Anullinus, accused Caecilian, whose crimes they charge against our communion, which we wished to clear in that conference.

Therefore, after the reading began, since they were being most openly defeated on every point there, they began to shout: 'We are being gradually drawn into the case,' and again: 'Your power sees that we are being gradually led into the internal matters of the case.' O great, but not surprising, confusion! For when would a demon fear an exorcist as they feared that those documents might be read, where it appeared that Caecilianus had been accused by their predecessors before the emperor and acquitted in so many judgments, not only episcopal but also imperial? When, or at what price, could we have purchased that, disturbed by that very fear, they even dared to return to the prescription of that time, where they had said that the case had already lapsed and that after four months had elapsed it could no longer be pursued at all? What is this? What more suitable judge of their mind can be found than that fear thus expressed, thus open, so that, although fear usually takes away freedom, they feared so freely that they did not conceal their judgment about their bad case even by silence, but betrayed it with the most open words? O vehement trembling to extort a confession! So strong a fear leaped forth from their mouth that shame fled from their brow by its force.

If those things were not read, by which Caecilianus was shown to have been accused and cleared, the petitioners were being sought out for the purpose of conducting the case, the persons were being examined, and, although snares of delays were being woven in a tergiversating manner, lest the case itself be reached, nevertheless for the purpose of conducting the case even these things seemed to be demanded as if by right: after the excellent case of Caecilianus was brought forward to be recited, the defeated and refuted objection is recalled, and it is shouted that the day for conducting the case has already passed. Why do you still wait, what the judge has pronounced for you, when you see what the fear of your bishops has pronounced against themselves? The judge himself had certainly given the power to appoint another judge with him, whom they wished, which they refused, because if they had chosen someone, they could not lie to you that even he had been corrupted by us. But they did what they refused: they absolutely appointed with him another judge, not just any outsider, but their own intimate. Behold, their own fear was that other judge. Certainly he received nothing from us and freely judged for us: he did not gratify the persons of those to whom he was internally attached. From whose secret chamber he proceeded, and before the case was stated, he judged first, because he knew it first in their own heart. Finally, that one proceeded to learn the case, this one proceeded who already knew it; that one judged by standing, listening, speaking, this one merely by coming forward into the midst.

I think they were saying it was better that the case should no longer be conducted; for how much more quickly did the fear of the litigants end it than the labor of the judge! He was seeking what might be read from their documents; that one indicated what was going on in their hearts. But since they had come terrified by those things which had been produced for recitation, to the point of saying that the case was already lost by lapse of time and could not be conducted, they proposed to us what had already been transacted before: that if we were dealing with the holy scriptures, those things should by no means be read; but if we chose to have those things recited, they had a valid prescription, so that they would not allow a case lost by lapse of time to be conducted at all, although they themselves had not kept what they had previously promised: that by our mandate, where they confessed that we had conducted the case of the church with the testimonies of the scriptures, they would similarly respond with the testimonies of the scriptures—they who contended that the persons of the petitioners were to be examined, not in the manner of disputants, but in the manner of litigants. We therefore answered them that, if they wished nothing else to be conducted except that it be asked which or where the catholic church is, we would conduct its case only by the divine testimonies by which it was foretold; but if they were objecting some crimes to men, since they themselves could not show those by divine testimonies, but by some other such documents, we would also clear them by such documents.

Thus, as they persistently repeated their empty claims, these points were most steadfastly reiterated by us; thus truth overcame them and, refuted and defeated, it compelled them to hear what we had set forth. For they saw that if they brought no charges against Caecilianus that could be leveled against our communion, nothing would remain for them by which they could in any way excuse their separation from unity; but if they did bring charges against Caecilianus, they could neither assert them except by such documents, nor could we defend ourselves otherwise. But as for that point amid their most contentious clamor—how much was it worth to have gained that, when we said we were proposing that they should prove, if they could, the charges they usually bring against our communion, which is spread throughout all nations, so that from this it might be known whether their separation was just—they replied that we were trying to plead another’s cause, that is, the cause of the transmarine churches, to which they do not bring these charges, since this dispute is among Africans, and that those churches ought rather to wait for those who have prevailed in this conference to join themselves to them, and that they themselves should have the Catholic name together with them? What then do you still seek, and what do you doubt, as to which church you ought to hold? Behold, you have the church against which your bishops confessed they had no case, the church to which our communion is joined, from which their communion is separated.

For if they said that she ought to be waited for now, so that whoever among us should conquer might be joined to her and with her hold the Catholic name, then certainly our ancestors already conquered their ancestors long ago; therefore those who were joined to that church held the Catholic name in her unity. But if these men were already conquered in their ancestors by our ancestors, why do they still contend with us to this day? If, however, they were not conquered, why do they not communicate with that church, which, being unable to deny that she is Catholic, they confessed they have no case against her? Behold the Catholic church across the sea, spread among so many nations, which they said ought to be waited for so that she might join to herself those who conquer—how ought she to wait to join to herself those who conquer, unless she is innocent of the crimes with which we are concerned among ourselves? For if she is not innocent of these crimes, then she herself, being guilty, conquered along with the conquered—how is she to join the victors to herself? Moreover, if she is innocent of these crimes, as they admit, then we too are innocent, who are united to her by communion. For if, because of this communion, another's crime contaminates us, then the crime of us contaminates her to whom we communicate. But they confessed that she is not polluted by the crime of the Africans, even though they are joined to her by communion of the sacraments. Therefore they were convicted on that point: that we could not have been polluted by the crime of those with whom we are joined by communion of the sacraments, because we are involved in no bond of consent.

And yet the victorious cause of Caecilian himself is very easily demonstrated by the same words of these men. For if, when we were in conflict, the transmarine church, innocent of these crimes, ought to wait, so that it might join to itself and to the Catholic name those who conquered, then it was waiting when the ancestors of these men were fiercely contending with Caecilian. Therefore, he then conquered, whom that church, which had waited for this, joined to itself after the conflict. Or if it could both join a polluted man to itself in the communion of the sacraments and, as they have already confessed, remain unpolluted by these crimes, then we have conquered all the more, thereby showing that each one bears his own burden and that neither does the cause prejudice the cause, nor the person prejudice the person. Now, as for our mandate, in which we had embraced the entire case, and they thought that they should respond not with impromptu words but with a written letter—how much would it have been worth to buy that? For thus it became clear that they could not respond to all those things which were set forth in our mandate, and they did not wish to touch upon them at all in their own letter. For no one can say that they could not retain our presentation from memory and therefore did not wish to respond to all the necessary matters. Our mandate was published to them by a notice at their own request, and they themselves alleged this, so that, being instructed, they could respond to everything.

and when already seven had been chosen by the rest, who would act on behalf of all, they nevertheless brought forward those same letters, by which they attempted to respond to our mandate, in the name of their entire council, as if it were a letter given by all of them to the judge. If we had been unwilling to admit them, we would have done so with full right. For it was not in order that, after the case had been entrusted to seven men, anything should be transacted except through those who had been chosen. But lest we seem to have feared their letters because of our own letters, we admitted them to be read and presented without any hesitation. For it was to be desired, and as I said, to be bought, that after the delay of so many days, which we had granted at their request, they should bring forth a laboriously composed work, in which it would be apparent to those reading both letters that they had not responded to our mandate, and it would be established that we had soon responded to those same letters of theirs without any delay. For if men are of such slow understanding that they think they have said something in those places of our mandate where they were unwilling to be silent, I think there is no one so stupid as to believe that they have responded anything even in those places where they were altogether silent. For these are not small or, as it were, contemptible matters, since the whole case consists rather in them.

For the testimonies of the Scriptures, by which we have asserted that the Church with which we are in communion began from Jerusalem and is spread throughout the whole world, they passed over as though they had never been uttered at all, overwhelmed by the great weight of divine authority. Likewise, what was set forth in our mandate concerning the blessed Cyprian—who both admonished by precept and confirmed by his own example that the wicked in the Church are rather to be tolerated than that the Church should be deserted on account of them—they did not dare to touch at all, I believe because they understood that, if they attempted to undermine Cyprian’s authority in any writing of his, they would also admit that we rightly do not yield to his authority in that matter in which they are accustomed to bring forward his opinions or decrees concerning the repetition of baptism. Moreover, they did not even wish to mention openly Cyprian’s own opinion on baptism, knowing that if they did so, they would also there suffer shipwreck, since Cyprian did not abandon unity and remained with those who held a different view on this matter. Hence, either the Church must be said to have perished then, and there was no longer a Church from which their Donatus could arise, or, if the Church endured—which is true—the wicked do not contaminate the good within it, as Cyprian himself also judged, who remained with those holding different opinions in the same universal body. And by this, these men have clothed themselves in the detestable sacrilege of schism, who, on account of the unproven crimes of certain persons—even if they were true—ought in no way to have separated themselves from the unity spread throughout the whole world.

They, foreseeing this as far as can be understood, passed over in complete silence that testimony of Cyprian which was mentioned in our mandate. Also that which, in the case of the Maximianists, they themselves declared by their own judgment: that unity should not be abandoned on account of the wicked; that the associates of Maximian were not polluted by Maximian, and they received those whom they had condemned back into full honor; and that the baptism of Christ, even if given outside the Church, was to be acknowledged rather than destroyed—since they did not dare to rebaptize those baptized by Felicianus in schism and later received back together with him. Therefore, when they read this in our mandate, they judged it better to be silent and pass over it than to revive it by any contradiction. Also, the case of Caecilian, which was distinguished from the case of the Church in our mandate and yet fully defended on every side, they did not touch at all by responding. Who, then, would think that they responded to that mandate of ours, when against all these things they made no word, nor even attempted any shadow of a response? But what they did seem to respond, let whoever wishes read and judge, comparing their letter to that same mandate of ours, apart from the response we immediately gave, by which all the contrivances of their vanity were overturned.

Now that—if we were to give golden mountains, when could we purchase it?—that, with the case of Maximianus set before them, so that they might understand that the council had not harmed Caecilianus in the way in which seventy bishops pronounced whatever they wished against him in his absence, just as it did not harm Primianus when, similarly, about a hundred bishops condemned him in his absence for Maximianus, they, violently disturbed and driven into dreadful straits, replied that neither does a case prejudice a case nor a person prejudice a person, by these very few words affirming that our entire case, with which we were previously contending against them, was altogether invincible? For what else were we doing, showing by so many testimonies of the holy scriptures, by such great authority of prophets, apostles, bishops, and of the adversaries themselves, that good men are not polluted by the communion of the sacraments of evil men, if they have different cases in heart, will, morals, and works, and bear different persons? For what else were we laboring, except that it might appear that neither does a case prejudice a case nor a person prejudice a person? This they themselves, compelled by extreme necessity, briefly said, because, when it was long spoken by us, they were unwilling to yield to the truth.

Also, with what treasures, what wealth, what heaps of precious stones was it to be purchased, that their predecessors, before the emperor Constantine, not only did not hesitate to confess, but even to profess and boast, that they had persecuted Caecilianus, and that they even attempted to assert, by lying, that he had been condemned by the emperor? Where is that cry with which they are accustomed to deceive you, stirring up ill will against us, that we plead the cause of the church before the emperor? Where are the words of Primianus, expressed in the official records of the magistrate of Carthage: "They carry the sacred letters of many emperors; we offer only the Gospels"? Where is that famous praise with which they exalt their separation, saying that it is the church of truth which suffers persecution, not which inflicts it? Surely it is crushed, surely it is prostrate. Their statements are read; they cannot deny them, because their signatures are also read. We hold them confessing, professing, boasting that their predecessors severely persecuted Caecilianus before the emperor; we also hold that Caecilianus was condemned by the emperor while they were persecuting him. Therefore, let them no longer cry out that their separation is the church of truth because it does not inflict persecution but suffers it, or let them admit that it was not the church of truth when Caecilianus was suffering persecution from their predecessors.

If indeed those who suffer persecution are immediately good, then Caecilianus was good when he was suffering. If, however, it is possible that the wicked also suffer persecution, but the good cannot be those who inflict it, then their ancestors were not good when they were persecuting Caecilianus. Moreover, if it is possible that both the good inflict and the wicked suffer persecution, then we are not to be blamed for that reason, nor are they to be praised for that reason, because they suffer something of the kind which they boast that Caecilianus suffered at the hands of their ancestors. And yet it has not been established at all that Caecilianus was condemned by the emperor, but in his absolution and purgation, which had been established by the recitation of the episcopal and imperial judgment, nothing could afterwards be proved to have been altered. Thus it came about that, with the condemnation of Caecilianus removed—a condemnation about which they lied—the persecution which they confessed their ancestors had inflicted remained. It was not enough that they dared to boast, by lying, that Caecilianus had been condemned by the emperor, and could not prove it by assertion. In addition, they even proved and more strongly supported our evidence in that matter, that the absolution of Caecilianus remained most firm, not, as they had lied, changed by a later judgment of the emperor to the contrary. For first they demanded that Optatus, the Catholic bishop of the Milevitan church, be read aloud, promising that from this they would prove that Caecilianus had been condemned by the emperor. When that reading was recited more against them, no one could contain their laughter.

Yet that laughter could not, in any case, have been added to the record of the proceedings and would have remained entirely hidden, had they not themselves prevented it from being hidden by saying: 'Let those who laughed hear.' This indeed was written and subscribed. For what they wanted to be read on their behalf was ambiguous. Hence, when the judge most rightly ordered the passage a little earlier to be recited, so that those words might become clear if possible, what was recited was what they did not want—that is, that Caecilianus had been cleared, whom they had previously presented for reading not, as they boasted, as condemned, but as retained at Brixa for the sake of good peace. When it was said to them that with those words Optatus had wished to minimize the condemnation of Caecilianus, they were told to recite from elsewhere an evident condemnation of Caecilianus, so that it could be shown that Optatus had minimized it—Optatus, who had written most clearly that Caecilianus had been cleared. Since they could not do this at all, after the insertion and completion of all superfluous circumlocutions of delays, they began most openly to help us. For, as if they had been instructed by us, or as if they had been chosen along with us to defend and declare the innocence of Caecilianus, when it was asked of them that, if they could, they show what they were saying—that Caecilianus had been condemned by the emperor in a later judgment, whose emperor's letters we had read that had shown him acquitted—they produced a petition of their elders given to the same emperor Constantine, by which they most openly demonstrated that it was they who had been condemned by his judgment.

For it happened to them before the imperial power what happened to the enemies of the holy Daniel, who suffered from those same lions what they had wished the innocent man to suffer. When I had briefly reminded them that that document had been recited by them for us rather than against themselves, they added another point, producing letters of the same emperor addressed to Verinus the vicar, in which he severely denounced them and, leaving them to the judgment of the Lord, who had already begun to take vengeance on them, released them from exile by a most disgraceful pardon. Thus it became most manifestly clear not only that no condemnation of Caecilian had ever followed, but also that his acquittal and vindication had been confirmed both by their punishment and by that detestable pardon. These such excellent documents—it must be admitted—we did not have in our hands, but perhaps, if we heard that they were somewhere, and that they could not be given to us for free, we would go to any reward to have them allowed to be copied for us. How much, moreover, would we give, if they were offered for sale, that they should be read even by our adversaries on our behalf?

What more could now seem possible to be added, so that they might assist us more abundantly? And yet they added more. For they brought up the case of Felix of Aptunga, by whom Caecilian had been ordained, and against which Felix they had leveled the charge of traditio. But after Caecilian had been acquitted, when the completion of unity was being pressed, they stirred up a question about this Felix, thinking that in this way Caecilian, already cleared, could be entangled by the crimes of others. Therefore this case of Felix as well was examined in a proconsular hearing, where the innocence of Felix appeared most clearly. But since a certain Ingentius, who in that same hearing confessed that he had borne false witness against Felix, could neither be easily punished where the case of a bishop was at issue, nor could he be easily dismissed by the proconsul, being accused of so great a crime, without consulting the emperor, at whose insistence all those proceedings were being conducted, the proconsul reported the matter to the emperor, and the emperor replied in a rescript that this same Ingentius should be sent to his court, wishing the leaders of those men, by whom he was daily being importuned, to be refuted in his presence, yet having no doubt about the purgation, but rather confirming it by the very expression of his words, as his rescript shows. We had all these documents of the case of Felix in our hands, and we had arranged to hand them over to be read aloud.

In this they anticipated us, and they themselves first produced and read aloud the same imperial letters concerning Ingentius, which they sent to themselves—letters which perhaps we would not have read, because we thought it sufficient that the case of Caecilian had been so concluded that nothing more seemed to be required. But since our adversaries were acting so that the persecution which their ancestors had brought before the emperors against our ancestors, and their calumnies, might appear more fully overcome, what were we to do but gladly accept what was offered and give thanks to the Lord in all things? Therefore, they themselves produced the letters of Constantine, they themselves read them aloud. It seems incredible what I say, but the official records bear witness: their statements were written down, their subscriptions are preserved. They themselves, I say, read aloud that Constantine had subscribed that Aelianus the proconsul had provided a competent hearing in the case of Felix, and that it had been established that Felix was innocent of the crime of traditio, but that he had wished Ingentius to be sent to his court for this reason, so that, as he says, "those who are now acting and do not cease to interpellate daily, being present and standing before them, it might be made apparent and known that they have vainly stirred up envy against Caecilian and wished to rise up violently against him." They themselves read it. Who among us would have dared to hope that those whom iniquity had made our accusers, truth would make our defenders?

Thus also that Balaam, whom iniquity hired in ancient times to curse the people of God, was compelled by truth to bless. But as the order of consuls shows—which at that time the pressure of time did not allow us to consider, for neither were the booklets called consular lists at hand, nor would anyone have believed that they would bring up such a vain matter as to demand that we answer what was done when Ingentius was sent, or whether Ingentius was sent at all, since the proconsular sentence had declared Felix innocent, and the same sentence was confirmed by the emperor’s response, which they themselves produced and read aloud, and they would certainly have produced it themselves if they had confidence that anything had been done in their favor when Ingentius was sent—therefore, as the order of consuls declares, first Caecilianus was acquitted by the episcopal judgment of Miltiades, then not long afterward Felix was proven innocent by proconsular judgment, and thus later Caecilianus was also cleared by the emperor judging between the parties, and then after several years his adversaries were released by that disgraceful indulgence. For Miltiades judged when Constantine was consul for the third time and Licinius for the second, on the sixth day before the Nones of October. Aelianus the proconsul heard the case of Felix when Volusianus and Annianus were consuls, on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of March, that is, after about four months. Constantine wrote to Eumalius the vicar concerning the purgation of Caecilianus when Sabinus and Rufinus were consuls, on the fourth day before the Ides of November, that is, after nearly two years and eight months.

And the same emperor gave letters to Valerius the vicar concerning the release of their exile and the surrender of their madness to God as avenger, in the consulship of Crispus and Constantine for the second time, on the third day before the Nones of May, that is, after about the fourth year and the sixth month. Hence, without any ambiguity, it is perfectly clear that, whether Ingentius was sent to the court or not, nothing was afterwards judged against Caecilian; on the contrary, he was later declared by imperial judgments as well to be the victor over his adversaries and persecutors. Let the Donatist party, so often reproved, so often slanderous, so often lying, so often refuted, so often overcome and confounded in every way, now boast that the judge was corrupted by us. As if the defeated ever have any other cry! The judge would indeed have had to be corrupted, so that his authority could invalidate what they themselves had done well. But I would not say that they acted badly; on the contrary, they acted extremely well, who spoke so much truth against their own errors. For if their case is considered, it was truly against themselves; but if their pleadings are read, the judge decided more in accordance with them. Or would that mediator in the case have opposed us, in which those who stood on the opposite side said, produced, and recited so much in our favor? What should we have had to buy from the judge, when we did not buy from our adversaries those things which would compel the judge, even if he had taken money from them, to give sentence in our favor?

even if we did not know him as a God-fearing man, a lover of justice, and a stranger to all such filth, we ought to direct such suspicion against him who, with excessive patience, when he saw them crushed by the truth and did not wish to seem opposed to them, bore too patiently men wandering through empty things and saying so many superfluous things and returning so often to the same refuted points, that the proceedings, burdened with such great volumes, almost everyone was reluctant to unroll and to learn by reading how the case was conducted. Whether they did this more from lack of truth or from cunning craftiness I do not know. Yet from this alone they were able somehow to assist such a very bad case, which they ought rather to have abandoned. Finally, if others turn the accusation against those who conducted it and assert that they were corrupted by us, so that by so many prosecutions or readings produced by themselves they thus assisted our case and thus destroyed their own, I do not know how they can defend themselves and clear themselves of this suspicion, unless perhaps they say: 'If we had been corrupted, we would quickly have ended such a bad case, convicted both by ourselves and by them. But now, believe from this at least that we were present in good faith and wished to be of some use, because by speaking much we acted so that what was done would not be easily read and it would be quickly recognized that we were defeated.

If this were not done by them, perhaps neither their oaths nor ours would be believed—that they, who said so many things and read so many things on our behalf against themselves, did all this for us gratis. Yet we give thanks not to them, but rather to God for this. For, in bringing forth and disclosing all those things either by speaking or by reading on behalf of our cause, it was truth that twisted them, not charity that invited them. Therefore, brothers—if, however, you are not angry because we call you brothers; for when they heard this from us, they said in the official record that an injury was done to them, and, not reminded by our mandate, where this testimony from the prophet is placed, they could not recall that God commanded: say 'you are our brothers' to those who hate you and who detest you, so that the name of the Lord may be honored and appear to them in joy, while they themselves blush—therefore, now, brothers, may the name of the Lord, which has been invoked over us and whose sacraments we both carry, appear to you in joy, so that we are not undeservedly called brothers. Now love peace; abandon the litigious and calumnious habit, now at least convicted and confounded; and do not hate those who, corrected, cross over to us, but hate them when, persisting in nefarious error, they still seduce you up to now. And let them not think themselves great because we bestow upon them in unity the honor which they possess for being freed; for, having this outside unity, they are all the more to be condemned for it.

Military standards, indeed, are more dangerously held by usurpers than if they were not held at all; yet when these men are corrected and brought back into the emperor's camp, those standards are not broken or abolished, but begin to adorn and strengthen those whom they previously betrayed and punished. Why do you still pay attention to their insane complaints and empty lies? The case was concluded by night, but so that the night of error might end; the sentence was pronounced by night, but shining with the light of truth. They complained that they were shut in as if in a prison; we were there as well: either an injury was done to both, or care was shown to both. But how can we call it an injury, when we recall that we were in such a spacious, bright, and cool place? Or how was it a prison, where the judge was also present? Finally, we who were inside together did not know that we were shut in. How do they know, unless perhaps they wanted to flee? But who does not see that they would not say these empty and ridiculous things—more to be laughed at than refuted—about such a judge, if they could find something valid to say for their own cause? We know how many of you, and perhaps all or nearly all, are accustomed to say: 'Oh, if only they would come together in one place, oh, if only they would confer sometime and truth would appear through their disputation!' Behold, it has been done; behold, falsehood has been refuted; behold, truth has appeared. Why do you still flee unity? Why do you still despise charity? Why must we be divided by the names of men?

The one God who created us is one, the one Christ who redeemed us is one, the one Spirit who ought to unite us is one. Let the name of the Lord now be honored and appear to you in joy, so that you may recognize your brothers in his unity. Now in the prosecutions of your bishops, the error that separated us has been conquered: let the devil also be conquered sometime in your hearts, and may Christ, who commanded this, be propitious to his flock, gathered and pacified. AUGUSTINE'S RETRACTATIONS, BOOK II, CHAPTER LXVI (XL) (PAGE 178, EDITION KNOELL). AFTER THE CONFERENCE, ONE BOOK AGAINST THE DONATISTS. I also wrote a rather large book, as I think, diligently for the Donatists themselves after the conference which we held with their bishops, so that they might no longer be led astray by them. In it I also responded to certain vanities of theirs that were able to reach us, which, when defeated, they boasted about wherever and however they could, besides those things I said about the acts of the conference, from which it might be briefly known what was done. I treated this much more briefly, however, in a certain letter to the same people again, but because it pleased all of us who were there in the Council of Numidia that this be done, it is not among my letters. It begins thus: Silvanus the elder, Valentinus, Innocentius, Maximinus, Optatus, Augustinus, Donatus, and the other bishops from the Council of Zerta to the Donatists.

This book begins thus: "Why are you still being led astray, Donatists?