Libellus Adversus Fulgentium Donatistam

The little book which your Piety, brother Fulgentius, sent to me, I received without disdain; whether you dictated it yourself or sought it from elsewhere, I no longer much care. For this too is a duty of our religion: not to fix our attention on persons, but to seek the truth in all things, to recognize it when found, and to preserve it when acknowledged. For thus the Apostle Paul says: "Test all things; hold fast what is good; abstain from every evil appearance." Briefly, then, I shall say what you have set forth more ingeniously in your writings. You said that there is one baptism, which the Samaritan, that is, the heretic, did not deserve to have; one enclosed garden, which is the Church, having a sealed fountain, from which no outsider draws; one oil, which is the most holy chrism, which dying flies corrupt and which sinners will not give at all. Against these things a response must be prepared for me with the help of the Lord, and it is to be taken from nowhere else than from divine reading. Let us therefore now take up the beginning of the word; rather, let us hold the Word itself, the beginning, the Lord, the leader and prince of the heavenly host; let us wage wars, and with His consecrated trumpet let us assail the most powerful walls of the wicked city of Jericho—that is, let us surround the height of worldly wisdom with the Lord's testaments, let us resound with the voices of truth and liberty, let us compel the adversaries to take refuge in the house of Rahab—that is, the Church, which receives His messengers—on account of the destruction of the world, let us condemn the obstinate with anathema, so that we may be victors up to this point.

Thus you have taken from the law against the law, from the testament of God against the testament of God, from the fountain of truth against the fountain of truth—perhaps as an objection at first glance—as if truth could be overcome by itself or the glory of light be darkened by its own radiance. The Donatist said: Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the teacher and guardian of the one baptism, lest thirsty souls be led into error through arid pools of the mind, proclaimed that perennial draughts were to be had from him in his Gospel, testifying thus: "Whoever thirsts, let him come and drink; whoever believes in me, as Isaiah says." The Catholic replied: It does not have "as Isaiah says," but "as Scripture says." But I shall disregard such obstacles, lest I exclude the reader's benefit with a lengthy discourse. The Donatist said: "Whoever believes in me, as Isaiah said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly." And lest it be said that it could be drunk everywhere and anywhere, he himself distinguished the merits of the waters, condemning the origin of apostasy in Samaria at its own spring: "Whoever drinks," he says, "from this water will thirst again; whoever drinks from the water that I give will never thirst, but in him will become a spring of water gushing forth into eternal life.

The Catholic replied: You have set these things forth, of course, in order to show us Catholics as if we were Samaritans and without baptism. Now, therefore, begin to look at the Donatists in the Samaritans. The dogma of the Samaritans, as the book of Kings teaches, was this: they feared God and at the same time worshipped images; they kept the divine law and did not at all abandon the errors of their fathers; they had the sign of circumcision and did not hold the fellowship of the Israelites. This you also do. You fear God and at the same time worship the earthen image of Donatus—for he too was formed from earth; you keep the divine law and do not abandon the error of your parents; you have the sacrament of baptism and do not wish to have the fellowship of Catholics. Behold, you resemble them in all things. Therefore, just as the circumcision of the Samaritans could not be given a second time, so now the baptism of the Donatists ought not to be repeated, with the Lord Christ teaching: he who has once been washed has no need of washing again. For the circumcision of the Samaritans signifies the baptism of the Donatists, as the apostle says: you have been circumcised with a circumcision not made by hand in the stripping off of the body of flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ, buried together with him in baptism. But what the Lord said: he who drinks from this water will thirst again, he spoke not about baptism, but about a material element. For if he wished to indicate baptism here, he would in no way ask for a drink from the Samaritan woman.

Finally, that well was not called the well of Samaria, but of Jacob, and Jacob was certainly not a heretic, but beloved of God, always dear, and he himself drank from it, and his sons and his cattle. The Donatist said: Therefore the spirit of the Church never allows to be joined what the divine mouth has deserved to be defamed, the herald of the law forewarning: two two, one against one, and the Lord in the Gospel: then, he says, there will be two in the field; one will be taken up, and one will be left. Two grinding at the mill; one will be taken up, and one will be left. You see therefore that there are two kinds of baptisms and two rewards of merits, while one is burned up by the heat of a deadly disposition and a thirsty drought bakes out perpetual draughts, the other, which once for all through the channels of those who are to drink, satiates the thirst of life with everlastingness. Indeed, in the dug-out whirlpools it shows perpetual aridities, and with them it closed the merit of life, opened the entrance of death, as Jeremiah says: This people does two evil things. They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns which cannot hold water, and again: All who abandon you are confounded, those who withdraw from you are written in the book of death; because they have abandoned you, they are confounded, withdrawing from you, the fountain of life.

The Catholic replied: You set one against one; I assert many baptisms against one. For the pagan baptizes, and the Jew baptizes, and the Sadducee baptizes, and many outside the rule of the given law do not cease to baptize. But that one is what is true, that true which is of Christ, that of Christ which is of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is true, this is salutary; to this none is to be compared. He who does not receive this has closed off to himself the merit of life and opened the way to death. The Donatist said: But if, as you claim, one faith consists in both, why did he make a just separation between faithful water and faithless water, as the Lord testifies through Isaiah: "Who told you that fire burns? Who told you of that eternal place? One who walks in righteousness, preaches the straight path, hates crime and injustice, keeps his hands from gifts, weighs down his ear so that it does not hear judgment of blood, and compresses his eyes so that they do not see iniquity—he will dwell in high hope; strong bread will be given to him, and his water faithful." From whose faith, separating the faithless, he set it down as Jeremiah testifies: "Why do those who wrong me prevail? My wound has become solid: whence shall I heal? It has become to me like mendacious water having no faith.

The Catholic replied: All heretics, although they disagree among themselves in their own disputation, nevertheless agree in the solemn word of the tradition of baptism, just as circumcision was one, but varied in faith, as it existed among the Jews and the ancient Samaritans. Therefore it is necessary that, just as then, so also now it ought to happen for converts, that what is punished by disputation alone should be resolved by disputation alone, so that they may be able to hear from the Lord: “You are now clean because of the word that I have spoken to you; remain in me, and I in you.” For all things happened to them in figure, but they are written for our correction, into whom the ends of the ages have come. The Donatist said: Ezekiel also says this: “And they saw that many turned away the water of the ancient pool, and they did not look to the one who made it from the beginning, and they did not see the one who established it.” Unheard-of madness of the faithless, neither wishing to believe the divine words nor to preserve the simple teaching of the apostle for the jaws of their error!

The Catholic replied: Far be it, far be it from us to draw the water of the ancient pool into a faction, as you do, or not to believe the divine utterances. What we read, we believe; and what we believe, we proclaim. Hear what our origin is and where its water is spread. In Zechariah you have this: Living waters will go forth from Jerusalem; half of them to the eastern sea, and half of them to the western sea—that is, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth; they will be there in summer and winter—that is, they will be there at all times; and the Lord will be king over the whole earth—that is, Christ will rule over the whole earth, not Donatus. This is the possession, this is the inheritance of Christ, which is cultivated by the saints and watered by a perennial spring, concerning which it was said to him: I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession. Whoever is in it is enrolled as an heir; whoever is not in it is already condemned and destined for death, as Scripture says: Whoever goes out of the doors of your house will himself be guilty.

The Donatist said: Hence God proclaims that baptism is unique, hence the Apostle confirms that he said one thing to all, with God approving through Solomon: an enclosed garden, my sister my bride, a sealed spring, a well of living water, a paradise with fruit of apples. The Catholic replied: Remember the law and attend diligently and see that from this paradise, from this enclosed garden, from this sealed spring, the wave of salvation also runs outside, which goes against the Assyrians, that is against you Donatists. For from the Assyrians are born those Samaritans who are compared to you. It is, says Scripture, the river which goes against the Assyrians, against the people hostile to God. It does not go for them, but against. For some there is the odor of death in death, for others the odor of life in life. For just as he who eats and drinks the blood of the Lord unworthily eats and drinks judgment for himself, so he who receives baptism unworthily receives judgment for himself, not salvation. For even the traitor Judas received the good body and Simon Magus received the good baptism of Christ, but because they did not use the good well, they were destroyed by using the evil evilly. Baptism is good, the blood and body of Christ are good, and the law is good, but if one uses them lawfully. Neither because it is outside is it not divine, nor because it is held by aliens will it be considered alien, nor because it is unjustly treated by the wicked will it be justly condemned by us. The water of paradise is the water of the Trinity.

When we recognize this [baptism], we do not deny it to be of paradise; when we do not perceive it, we by no means call it of paradise. Whatever has arisen outside is in no way to be called of paradise: for example, Manichaeus, because he was never in paradise nor, like you, went out from the church, is not to be considered water of paradise, since he arose outside. He has need to live, lest he die forever, but to live lawfully in that same [paradise], lest he eat and drink judgment. The Donatist said: On the contrary, the Apostle testifies, having said: one God, one faith, one baptism. There is no variety in divine teaching; in all things the servant follows the Lord, in nothing does the disciple differ from the master. The Catholic replied: Whom do you follow, whom do you imitate, whom do you consider the author of this outrage? Show me any of the saints after the Trinity rebaptizing, as you do. Read to me not those scriptures by whose authority I am not bound, but those of the New and Old Testament, to which we are both subject. If baptism is one, why do you duplicate the one? For you do not repeat something other than what you find to be true. Since, therefore, you rebuild what you have destroyed, as he said, you show yourselves to be transgressors.

The Donatist said: Or if you think that the sacrament of baptism, joined by some mixture with guilty persons, is one and the same, listen to the prophets by whom it is rightly administered, as Solomon says: "The fountain of life is in the hands of the just." The Catholic replied: The Lord spoke well of you, who foresaw your error beforehand: you who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts, because what is high among men is abominable before God. If you are just and the fountain of life is in your hand, you are not a man, but God. Let refuge be taken to you, let trust be placed in you, let every hope of life be set on you, let baptism itself be given in your name and the Lord be kept silent. Do you wish to know where to seek this fountain of life? In the Psalm you have: "With you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light." Have you not read: "A bad son has proud eyes, a bad son declares himself just, but he will not wash away his own sins"? Unless you recognize that you are a guilty man, unless you cry out with a truthful heart that you are a sinner, you cannot be justified at all, as the prophet says: "Speak your iniquities, that you may be justified." And the apostle John: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

The Donatist said: And David says: "But the oil of a sinner shall not anoint my head." The Catholic replied: Then give me someone of yours whom you can prove not to be a sinner, so that your oil cannot be the oil of a sinner, since it is written: "There is no one among men who does not sin." The translator is poor; read from above, so that you can grasp the meaning. Thus it says: "The just man will correct me in mercy and will rebuke me; but the oil of a sinner shall not anoint my head." That is: A merciful rebuke is better than smooth flattery, just as also this: "The wounds of a friend are better than the willing kisses of an enemy." The oil of a sinner is the flattery of an adulator, concerning which it says elsewhere: "His words were softer than oil, and they are themselves darts." The oil of the just is the Spirit of God, as Peter says: "Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit." Therefore, stop calling the Holy Spirit the oil of a sinner, lest you begin to assert that God is a sinner.

The Donatist said: The open confection of the perfidious is shown in this passage, which is polluted by the criminal presumption of contact with a wicked priest, whose sacrifice is rejected like oil by the divine voice. "A criminal," he says, "who sacrifices to me a calf as if he were killing a dog, and who offers fine flour as if it were pig's blood, and who offers incense at a memorial as if he were a blasphemer." The Catholic replied: It is certain that God execrates and despises the holocausts of both priest and people, if a good conscience is not present. Or if you wish this to be understood only of priests, how among you is the confection of priests not polluted by criminals? You say: "As long as the wicked are hidden, they cannot pollute, because it is written: 'What is hidden is for me; what is manifest is for you.'" If, therefore, as long as the wicked are hidden they cannot pollute, why do you not fear to rebaptize nations far away, to whom the name of Donatus and Caecilianus is unknown? Which of you has ever had any knowledge of the evils of some among them? And if he had had knowledge and had not proved it, it would in no way be harmful, according to that saying: "What is hidden is for me; what is manifest is for you.

The Donatist said: The prophet Habbakuk further reveals his waters by the Spirit: "You set," he says, "your horses upon the sea, troubling many waters. The city of Galaad despised me, which foolishly works, troubling the waters. And your strength is like that of a pirate." The Catholic replied: Recognize your own weapons turned against you, as it is written: "Let their sword enter their own hearts, and let their bow be broken." Your strength, Donatist, is like that of a pirate, who by force you rebaptize, by force you fight in the water, by force you kill in the water. Bearing these things, you, a pirate, will be captured and killed, unless, converted, you repent and serve King Christ in the Catholic Church. The Donatist said: If, therefore, the Church glories in a single font, then it is a cave of traitors, which is puffed up in a multitude of waters and, confused by the drunkenness of its own baptism, fornicates with kings, as John says: "Come, I will show you the condemnation of the great harlot sitting upon many waters, and all the inhabitants of the earth are made drunk from the wine of her fornication." I ask, what are the many waters but many baptisms? What is the fornicating woman but the cave of traitors, which serves the pleasures of kings, being subject to them, from whom, drinking the cup of persecution, she mixes it for the peoples in blind drunkenness and leads into madness those whom she has watered? The wisest Solomon forbade her approach: "Abstain," he says, "from alien water, and do not drink from an alien font, that you may live a long time, and years of your life will be added to you.

The Catholic replied: As I see, wherever water was named, whether in a good or bad sense, you have taken it to mean baptism. If in a good sense, you wanted to attribute it to yourself; if in a bad sense, to me, so that what the apostle Paul said might be fulfilled concerning you: "not knowing either what they say or what they affirm." For just as Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these resist the truth. The angel says: "The waters which you saw are peoples, crowds, and nations." And you resist the angel who is explaining, and you say: "I ask, what are the many waters if not multiple baptisms? What is the harlot woman if not the cave of the traditors?" If you also wish to learn the names of the traditors, you have your own: Silvanus of Cirta handing over the sacraments to the curator Felix; you have Marianus from Aquis Tibilitanis offering three codices to the curator Romanus; you have Victor of Rusiccaze burning the four Gospels as if they were rubbish—men who dared to condemn the innocent Caecilian in his absence.

This is the den of thieves, this the brood of traitors, this the whorish woman who, having abandoned Christ, prostituted herself to Donatus in brothels; whose house, according to Solomon, is a retreat of death; whose ways are those of hell; who calls herself clean while she is full of filth; who proclaims herself innocent while she is entangled in crimes; who commits shameful acts and imputes her own deeds to another, lest she be the first to hear what she has done. For you defame Catholics with your own deeds, so that you may separate the people from the Lord. Therefore, when you exhort your own, as it were, to abstain from our water, and say: "Abstain from another's water, and do not drink from another's fountain. Let the fountain of your water be private to you: let no outsider share with you," who does not see that the prophet commended chastity to spouses, and that you have strayed far from the truth? Or if no outsider ought to share in your fountain, why do you seek outsiders, why do you rebaptize Catholics?

The Donatist said: "It is clear, therefore, that among the traitors there is a multitude of waters, where the diverse seeds of schisms, where the manifold plagues of heretics, where the detestable filth of the Manichaeans—either the foul dregs of a muddy whirlpool, or those snatched into eternal death, Charybdis saw and the oil of destruction animated with devouring flames." The Catholic replied: "O to prove, O to err, O to rave! It is clear, therefore, that among the traitors there is a multitude of waters, where the diverse seeds of schisms, where the manifold plagues of heretics, where the detestable filth of the Manichaeans? How do you prove that the manifold plagues of schismatics are with us? If they were with us, they would not be heretics, but Catholics." The Donatist said: "Hear Solomon speaking: 'Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment.' The genuine sweetness of oil, therefore, if violated by improper touch, becomes spoiled by a foul mixture. And rightly the Holy Spirit equated traitors with unclean birds, because they fall improperly upon another's table and foul the sweetness of oil with unclean touches.

The Catholic replied: Who violates it with an impure touch? He who preserves what he finds, or he who shamelessly destroys what has been made? When did we touch your oil, when did we drive away the Holy Spirit by defiling it? Show that any of us has fallen impurely upon the oil of the divinity or unlawfully violated the baptism of the Trinity as you have. The dying flies of the Donatists buzz around the limbs of the whole body; wherever they find wounds, they sting the healthy, lick the sick, and pour forth the worms of sins from their ulcers, which gnaw at the conscience, which finish off the soul, which nourish putrefaction, which spare not even the dead corpses themselves. The dying flies, when they destroy the oil, are destroyed by the oil; for you do not live, you who breathe out the Holy Spirit. The Donatist said: This is what the most holy David, supplying the rule of our faith, specifically teaches: that the oil of the sinner brings no salvation and ought not to touch anyone’s head. “The oil of the sinner,” he says, “does not anoint my head.” Therefore, the person of the sinner must be examined with careful scrutiny, if the Lord did not speak concerning a sacrilegious priest, as the profane assert.

The Catholic replied: Since you are conscious of sin, do you dare to say, 'The person of the sinner must be considered'? Hear what this person of the sinner is. The apostle said: All have sinned and are in need of the glory of God; and Solomon: There is no one among men who does not sin; and Job: If he finds depravity among his angels, how much more among the sons of men, who have an earthly dwelling! This is the person of the sinner, that is, every man is a sinner. If you are a priest, you are a man; and if you are a man, you are a sinner. What do you make of yourself? You have said that you alone are holy, alone just, alone without sin, alone without stain. You have said that your baptism is yours, your holy oil is yours, your Lord's table is yours, all those things that are divinely granted to the faithful are yours. What remains, except that you wickedly and impiously declare yourself to be God? But hear what the head of pride deserved to hear: How you fell from heaven, Lucifer, who used to rise in the morning, who wounded the nations, who said in your heart: I shall ascend above the sky, I shall exalt my seat above the stars of God. I shall sit on the mountain of the covenant on the northern sides, and I shall be like the Most High. Nevertheless, you will descend into hell and into the depth of the abyss. Therefore, unless you repent, unless you are converted, unless, with pride laid aside, you beg for forgiveness of sins, you will hear what he heard, because, though you are a man, you make yourself God.

The Donatist said: Similarly, the Lord demonstrated through the prophet Haggai that the touches of the unclean bring defilement and that no polluted person can sanctify, if by unlawful presumption he attempts to touch what he sees is kept holy, as he showed by a wholesome exposition, when for our sake he presented the prophet as cautious: Ask, said the Lord, the priests, saying: If a man binds holy flesh in the hem of a garment and the hem of the garment touches any creature of bread or wine or oil, is it sanctified? And the priests answered and said: No. And the Lord said: If an unclean person touches any of these things in their soul, will it be defiled? And the priests said: It will be defiled. And the Lord said: So also this people and so also this nation: Everyone who approaches there will be defiled. The Catholic replied: You have used this testimony against yourself, you who place the gift of God in your own will. For if the touch of a holy person does not remove the defilements of the unclean, then what you carry, what you prepare, what you wash is vain. If, he says, what is holy touches the creature of bread or wine or oil, will it be sanctified? And the priests answered and said: No. Where is what you boast of, that your sanctity confers purity? Or if that moves you which says: So this people and so this nation: Everyone who approaches there will be defiled, teach that Haggai, who taught these things, went out from among that same people, lest he be polluted among them. That touch signifies works.

If a holy man, he says, touches an unclean thing, he will not be sanctified; if an unclean man touches a holy thing, he will be defiled, that is: a holy man who is joined to this most wicked people is more easily corrupted than that people is changed for the better, because the inclination to imitate evil is run to more swiftly than the mind is roused to the virtues of good men, just as a very small amount of wormwood thrown into a great deal of honey draws it into swift bitterness, but even if a double portion of honey is thrown in, its sweetness cannot prevail. We must depart from the midst of evil men in mind, not in flesh, in works, not in bodies. The apostle says: Do not communicate with the unfruitful works of darkness. He says works, not 'altars'. For it is written in Isaiah: Those who say: Depart from me, do not approach me because you are unclean, they will be smoke in my wrath, a burning fire all day long. If the words of men do not terrify you, at least let the threatening wrath of God turn you.

The Donatist said: A thief never brought his plunder into the light; the workers of night have always more savagely shuddered at the light, which is welcome to all good men; only a traitor is neither broken by the threats of the Lord and shamelessly boasts in another’s garment. Against him the Lord proclaims through Zephaniah and is not heard: “It shall be,” he says, “on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, and I will take vengeance on the princes and on all who are clothed in another’s garment.” The Catholic replied: I do not fear your charges, because my conscience is fortified. Show the name and place of the traitor whom you accuse of having handed over the scriptures. You will never be able to show this, just as you were not able to before. But even if you produce someone, it cannot harm me, since the Lord says: “The soul of the father is mine, the soul of the son is mine. The soul that has sinned will die alone.” I, however, do not rejoice in another’s garment, I who always exult in the Catholic faith. That is the one I have, with which the merciful and kind father clothed me in splendor on the day of redemption: “Bring,” he says, “that first robe and clothe him, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life, was lost and has been found”—that robe, namely, of which the apostle Paul said: “As many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.” This I have, in this I rejoice, in this I will always appear more glorious. This is the one which you either have stolen like thieves or defile in your wretchedness.

The Donatist said: For to the extent that wickedness seeks to build up deviant errors with others’ goods and tries to cover false catholic things with the clouds of lies, it proceeds through winding hills, to which the Lord, through Jeremiah, stood as a contradictor: Do not, he says, trust in false words, because they will avail you nothing in all things, saying: The temple of the Lord is the temple of God. And the Lord in Deuteronomy: Take heed to yourself, lest you offer sacrifices in every place you see, but in the place which the Lord your God has chosen in your tribe, in this you shall offer sacrifices and there you shall do all things which I command you today. The Catholic replied: You have set forth a testimony very well and very fitting for your own salvation: Take heed to yourself, lest you offer sacrifices in every place you see, but in the place which the Lord your God has chosen in your tribe, in this you shall offer sacrifices and there you shall do all things which he will command you. Hear, therefore, what the chosen place is and which tribe of the Lord is proclaimed. In Psalm 131 you have: Because the Lord has chosen Sion, he has chosen it as a dwelling for himself; this is my rest forever and ever, I will dwell here, because I have chosen it. Likewise in Psalm 121: Our feet were standing in your courts, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which is built as a city. For there the tribes ascended, the tribes of the Lord, the testimony of Israel.

This is the chosen place, this the sanctified mountain, this the city set upon a mountain so that it cannot be hidden, this the Catholic root, this the fruitful vine spread far and wide, which cries out in Ecclesiasticus and says: “I am founded in Sion, and my power is in Jerusalem.” For thus it was fitting that Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all peoples, beginning from Jerusalem. You would rightly rebuke me, if you remained in this inheritance. But since you do not remain in this inheritance of God the Father, since you do not serve in this tribe of Christ the King, why does a deserter rebuke a soldier, why does a guilty man reproach an innocent? And I say to you: take heed to yourself, lest you offer sacrifice in every place—that is, in every heresy—and say, “Here is God and there is God,” but in the place which the Lord your God has chosen in your tribe—that is, in his tribe—there offer your holocausts, and there do all things that have been commanded you. Do this, and you will live.

The Donatist said: Therefore, what the crowd of waters scattered, what malice separated from the fountain of the Church, what the sterile wave dried up, what saw neither an angel nor a prophet who could heal it, cannot be called baptism—just as in the fourth book of Kings, the most holy Elisha healed the lethal waters by dispelling death and allowed them, through a fertilizing word, to flow into abundant offspring. And the men of the city said to Elisha: "Behold, the dwelling of the city is good, as you yourself, lord, see, but the waters are bad and sterile here." And Elisha said: "Bring me a clay vessel and put salt in it." And they brought it, and he came to the outlets of the waters, threw in the salt, and said: "Thus says the Lord: I have healed these waters, and there will be no death in them nor sterility." And the waters were healed unto this day. The Catholic replied: Thanks be to God the Father, who faithfully fulfilled in us what he showed would come. Thanks, I say, to God the Father, who sent to us not only angels, not only prophets, as before, into our Jericho, that is, into this world, but his own Son, the lord of angels and the prince of prophets, to heal the sterility of the waters, that is, the barrenness of the nations, by dispelling death.

He received a clay vessel, that is, the body of human frailty; he put in salt, that is, he filled it with divine wisdom; he threw it into the water, that is, he descended into the Jordan; he healed the waters by his descent, that is, he redeemed the nations by his coming; and by his fertilizing word he gathered the Church from the nations and spread it far and wide into abundant offspring. He who does not see this fulfilled in us is blind; he who does not believe it is insane. Behold the abundant offspring; tell me where this Church is not; tell me where yours is found, except in a corner of Africa, poorly gathered like a useless vine-shoot. From this root, where it was cut off, it remained; it could not extend further, because, cut off from the root, it immediately withered. The Donatist said: One city received the substance of the Savior’s water; it also received the gifts of oil, a widow together with her children; nor did the prophet entrust the divine benefit indiscriminately except to her whom he knew to have one vessel of oil, as the truth of the Books of Kings attests: and one woman among the women of the prophets cried out after Elisha, saying: “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant was a God-fearing man. And behold, those to whom I am indebted have come to take my two sons as slaves.” And Elisha said: “What shall I do? Tell me what you have in your house.” And she said: “Your maidservant has nothing in the house except one vessel of oil.

And Elisha said: “Go, ask for vessels from outside from all who are dwelling with you, many vessels, and you will enter and close the door upon yourself and your sons, and you will fill the vessels with oil and repay the debt.” For Elisha worked through the lineaments of true baptism. For because I do not approve of yours, I therefore blow away your faithful. The Catholic replied: For all do what you also do. All the faithful blow away, while they claim for themselves the unique sacrament of baptism. When you find such a one, will you not seize him, not hold him, not bind him with that bond, but, having recognized the pirate sign, will you let him go safely, so that he may practice his art with you? Fulgentius said: Far be it that I should let him go, since God said: “Compel all to enter, so that my house may be filled.” He who said “all” excepted no one. Augustine replied: What then will you do? Fulgentius said: I will teach him that my church is the most certain.

Augustine replied: In what? Will you show that Christ, who received all nations from the Father, remained only in the African little part? Fulgentius said: I will say what consists in a few. Augustine replied: What if he also has his few? For all have few in comparison with the Catholic. Fulgentius said: I will show that this is the true church, which suffers persecution, not which inflicts it. Augustine replied: What if his church did not inflict persecution at all? Fulgentius said: I will set forth according to the Apostle that my church alone has no wrinkles and spots. Augustine replied: It will immediately be proved to have them. For it is written: No one is clean from filth, even if his life on earth were of one day. But why more? By whatever ingenuity you will catch and hold, how do you receive one whom your faithful perhaps re-baptized, who extinguished the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer?

Fulgentius said: I constrain him, I blow him away, and I baptize him with true water in the remission of sins. Augustine replied: How do you forgive his sins, when it is written that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven in this world? But let us set that aside and consider another point. Say also to the Maximianist, your rival, what you said to me: 'How can another have it, if it is granted to me alone? Or if you claim it is entrusted to your right, why do you approve another's?' That Maximianist will also reply: 'How can another not have it, when you have proved that it is granted to me as to you? For you received my Christians and clergy, baptized or ordained outside your church, without any change of baptism or rank, in their entirety! This was objected to you in the Gesta of Marcellinus, and you were in no way able to refute it.' Likewise Augustine replied: If you are just, why is your judgment inconsistent? Why do you receive the Maximianist and blow away my faithful?

Fulgentius said: Because he was mine. Augustine replied: And you were mad. Why do you persist as merciful toward your own schismatic, but impious and implacable toward a Catholic? Fulgentius said: You have sinned more, and therefore a different penalty is exacted from you. Augustine replied: What then? Do you set baptism in place of vengeance, and is what is promised for salvation given by you as a punishment? If in baptism you do not forgive offenses, but punish sins, if in the water you do not liberate, but scourge, you openly show yourself to be a pirate. But still, what more have I sinned, what have I done? Fulgentius said: You handed over the codices and sacrificed to idols. Augustine replied: Prove it. I did not do it; you are attributing your own deeds to me. Fulgentius said: Your father did it. Augustine replied: I know no father except God. For it is written: Do not call anyone on earth your father; for your only father is the heavenly one. Fulgentius said: I mean your father Caecilianus. He handed over, he burned incense, he committed all the evil deeds.

Augustine replied: Read—who accused him, who convicted him, who condemned him when he was present? Granted, he did what he did not do: shall the son be condemned for the father, when it is written: “The soul of the father is mine, and the soul of the son is mine. The soul that has sinned shall die alone”? Fulgentius said: You, his son, did not indeed hand him over, but you made persecution against us. Augustine replied: I indeed did not do it, yet I believe that my people could have done it. I ask the reason why. What if you deserved it? For it is not a sin to persecute the wicked. For we read that even the saints, and the Lord, the Holy of Holies, persecuted the wicked. For the demons, not bearing the persecution of the Lord, cried out: “What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come to destroy us?” And Paul avenged Elymas the magician with blindness and handed over a blasphemous man to Satan, and Peter killed Ananias and his wife Sapphira, who were liars, and persecuted Simon the magician until he destroyed him by death. But also David, in the person of Christ, cries out and says: “I will pursue my enemies and seize them, and I will not turn back until they fail. I will afflict them, and they will not be able to stand.” Therefore, not everyone who has suffered persecution is immediately to be considered just, but he who has suffered for the sake of justice is indeed blessed, as Peter says: “For what glory is it, if you suffer those who sin and strike you? But if you suffer while doing good and bear it patiently, this is grace before God.

Fulgentius said: The saints you mention did not deserve the edicts of secular judges, which your people obtained. Augustine replied: Whether it is permitted or not permitted. If it is permitted, it is not fitting to murmur about what is permitted; if it is not permitted, correct your own crime while it is permitted. For, as the records show, you persecuted your own Maximianist schismatics with the authorities of secular judges, the assistance of various orders, and the execution of diverse soldiers, through the appointed defenders of the church, so that you drove them from their basilicas. Why do you rebuke me, when you do not first correct yourself? Fulgentius said: We took the basilicas from our schismatics in order to restore them to the true church. Augustine replied: Our people also did this to you; they took them from their schismatics and handed them over to the Catholic mother. What your people did for the peace of Donatus, our people did for the peace of the body of Christ. Fulgentius said: You are the schismatics, you who both burned incense and handed over the scriptures.

Augustine replied: We become weak with the weak, so that we may win over the weak. I see that this cannot be done. The Donatist party has conquered the whole of Christ, the African corner has shut out the whole world, one single people has condemned all peoples, a twig has cut itself off from the vine—and has lopped off the little branches of the trees. At least you would observe the decrees of your own predecessors concerning us: you would not rebaptize, but would free the souls of those in error, as you consider them, through penance. Reread the decrees of your fathers and see what they decreed ought to be done about traditors, thurificati, and schismatics, when they had conspired and come against Caecilian at Carthage. Your Marcian, among others, delivered such a sentence, which, of course, the seventy who were present approve by not disapproving. (In the Gospel, he says, the Lord says: I am the true vine, and my father is the farmer. Every branch that does not bear fruit in me he will cut off and throw away, and every one that remains in me and bears fruit he prunes. Therefore, just as unfruitful branches are cut off and thrown away, so thurificati and traditors, abhorrent to God, cannot remain in the Church of God unless, having recognized their own howling, they are reconciled through penance. Hence, one ought not to communicate with Caecilian, who was ordained in schism by traditors.)

This is the fixed judgment of your fathers. Behold—though may it not happen—we have handed over, we have burned incense, we have committed schism: why do you transgress the mandate of the elders, so that you establish your own traditions? Just as unfruitful branches, he says, are cut off and cast away, so those who have burned incense, the traditors, and those who are ordained in schism by traditors cannot remain in the Church of God unless, having recognized their own howling, they are reconciled through penance: through penance, not through rebaptism. If you deign, let even your own leaders overcome you. Either confirm their decrees and set aside your own fabrications, or if you wish your own statutes to prevail, pronounce them to be in error. If truth reigns among you, why does your tradition disagree? The Savior says thus in his Gospel: Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste. And therefore, since your kingdom is divided in religion, it is necessary that destruction follow upon the division. Amen.