Veterum Fragmenta De Donastistis

A.D. 340. 39. Pope Leo I. To the Bishops of Mauretania Caesariensis. (From the first letter.) As for Maximinus, who was reprehensibly ordained from the laity, nevertheless, if he is no longer a Donatist and is alien from the spirit of schismatic depravity, we do not repel him from the episcopal dignity, which he has obtained in whatever manner: provided that he himself, by a libellus presented to us, manifests that he is catholic. 40. Fastidiosus the Arian. (In Fulgentius, Epistle 9.) The Donatists also preach that the good are polluted by communion with the evil. And later. For Donatist vanity does not attend to the fact that the benefit of baptism was conferred upon men for this purpose: that those who are burdened by original errors foreign to them, having been relieved by the aid of healing grace, would thereafter bear only their own [burdens], and that it is not the communion of the sacrament, but the consent to sin, that condemns each one. 41. Saint Peter Chrysologus. Archbishop of Ravenna. (Sermon 13.)

His own counsels betray the devil. He casts you down. He seeks the fallen, commands precipices, and by such counsel makes martyrs throughout Africa, saying without a shout: 'If you wish to be a martyr, throw yourself down,' so that he drives them from a height to death, not raising the lowly and elevating them to the crown. XLII. CASSIODORUS. (On Psalm 60.) Let the Donatists hear the Church crying out from the ends of the earth, and let them at once cease calling it local. Against the voice of the world, who can be heard? It is most shameless to speak against the testimony of the whole world, and they do not blush to be impudently armed against the general sentence. Why do they weary souls with new inventions? Let them certainly accept what they may believe, not what they pervert by their own iniquity. The faithful people pray from the ends of the earth, asking what has become of the Lord, their hope, and afterwards they rejoice with life-giving exultation that they are heard, since they will continually appear in the sight of the Lord. What more is needed, if this does not satisfy? We see daily what he promised come to pass: we see the world coming together under the rules of the Christian faith. And alas! falsehood strives to conceal what truth has decreed to reveal.

In the Year of the Lord 602. XLVI. Gregory the Great. (Book I, Letters, Indiction IX, Letter 72.) Gregory to Gennadius, Patrician and Exarch of Africa. Just as your Excellency, in hostile wars, the Lord has made shine with the light of victories in this life, so also must you oppose the enemies of His Church with all liveliness of mind and body: so that His reputation may shine forth more and more with both triumphs, since you both vehemently resist the adversaries of the Catholic Church in forensic battles and, as warriors of the Lord, you fight strongly in ecclesiastical combats. For it is well known that men of heretical religion, if, God forbid, the license to harm is available to them, rise up vehemently against the Catholic faith, so that they may transfuse the poisons of their heresy to corrupt the members of the Christian body. For we have learned that they are raising their necks against the Catholic Church, with the Lord opposing them, and wish to bend the faith of the Christian name. But let your Eminence suppress their efforts, and press their proud necks under the yoke of righteousness.

XLIV. The same to the same, in Book of Letters, Letter 75. Gregory to all the bishops of Numidia. You have indeed requested, through Hilarus our chartulary, from our predecessor of blessed memory, that all the customs of past times be preserved for you, which long antiquity has kept inviolate from the beginnings of the ordinations of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, up to the present. And we, in accordance with the tenor of your report, grant that custom—provided it is not found to usurp anything against the Catholic faith—shall remain unchanged, concerning the appointment of primates and other matters, except for those who have come to the episcopate from the Donatists. We absolutely forbid them to be advanced to the dignity of the primacy, even if the order of the clergy should bring them to that same position. Let it suffice for them to exercise only the care of the people entrusted to them, and not also to surpass those bishops whom the Catholic faith has taught and brought forth in the bosom of the Church, in attaining the summit of the primacy.

XLV. The same, in Book II, Letter 33. Gregory to Columba, bishop of Numidia. It is well known, dearest brother in Christ, that the ancient enemy, who cast the first man from the delights of Paradise into this wretched life by cunning persuasion, and even then inflicted the penalty of mortality upon the human race, now with the same cunning attempts to infect the shepherds of the Lord’s sheep, so that he may more easily seize the flock, by means of transfused poisons, and justly claim them for his own power. But we, who, although unworthy, have taken up the governance of the apostolic see in the place of Peter, the prince of the apostles, are compelled by the very office of the pontificate to oppose the universal enemy with whatever efforts we can. Therefore, through the petition presented to us, the bearers of this letter, Constantius and Mustellus, have informed us and assert that the deacons of the church of Pudentiana, established in the province of Numidia, have allowed Maximianus, the bishop of that same church, corrupted by a bribe from the Donatist bishop, to become a bishop with new license in the place where he lives; although even if earlier usage permitted this, the Catholic faith would forbid it to remain and persist. For this reason, therefore, we have deemed it necessary to exhort your fraternity by the present letter, so that when our chartulary Hilarus comes to you, in a universal council of bishops assembled, with the terror of the coming judge before your eyes, the same case should be investigated with subtle and skillful inquiry.

And if this chapter is proven to the aforementioned bishop by the present bearers with suitable documents, he shall be degraded in every way from the dignity and office he holds: so that he may return to the gains of penance through acknowledgment of his offense, and others may not presume to attempt such things. For it is just that he who, as is reported, sold our Lord Jesus Christ to a heretic for money—that is, from the mysteries of His sacred body and blood to be handled—be removed from them. But if there is any dispute among them beyond this crime concerning certain damages or private matters, as the petition of the deacons themselves contains, your fraternity, together with our aforementioned chartulary, shall investigate it in a private hearing and decide it, with justice proceeding, between both parties. Moreover, from the insinuation of the present bearers, we have learned that the heresy of the Donatists is daily spreading due to our sins, and that very many, by permission given through venality, are being rebaptized by the Donatists after Catholic baptism. How serious this is, brother, we must consider with the full intention of our mind. Behold, the wolf is tearing apart the Lord's flock not secretly by night but in broad daylight, and we see him raging in the slaughter of the sheep, and we meet him with no concern, with no darts of words. Therefore, what fruits of the multiplied flock will we show to the Lord, if we see with idle mind the very flock we have undertaken to pasture being devoured by a beast?

Let us therefore be watchful, lest anything perish; and if anything should be captured, let us bring it back to the Lord’s flock by the voices of divine utterances, so that He who is the shepherd of shepherds may deign, in His mercy, to approve by His judgment that we have watched over His flock. It is also necessary for you to attend diligently to this: that if any just petition against the bearers of this letter from the same bishop should be made, it must be examined with subtle inquiry; and if perhaps they themselves, by reason of their own fault, deserve to be struck by law, we by no means judge that they should be spared. In the year of the Lord 600. XLVI. The same, Book III, Letter 32. Gregory to Pantaleon, Prefect of Africa. How the law more urgently pursues the most abominable depravity of heretics is not unknown to Your Excellency. Therefore, those whom both the integrity of our faith and the severity of worldly laws condemn, it is no light sin if they find in your times the license to creep forth again. In those parts, as we have learned, the audacity of the Donatists has so increased that not only do they expel priests of the Catholic faith from their churches with pestilential authority, but they do not fear to rebaptize those whom the true confession had cleansed by the water of regeneration; and we greatly wonder, if indeed it is so, that it is permitted to such depraved men to transgress while you are stationed there. First of all, consider what judgment of you is left to men: if those who were suppressed by just reason in the times of others, under your administration, find a way for further excess.

Then know that our God will seek the souls of the lost from your hand, if you neglect to correct such great wickedness to the extent that your ability demands. XLYU. THE SAME, Ibid., Epistle XXXV. Gregory to Victor and Columba, bishops of Africa. We have learned that the goads of the Donatists have so disturbed the Lord’s flock in those parts, as if it were governed by no shepherd’s guidance, and it has been reported to us—what we cannot say without deep grief—that many of them have already been torn by venomous teeth. Moreover, they are said to have driven out canonical priests from their churches with the most wicked temerity, and to have killed many, whom the water of regeneration had provided with salvation, by rebaptizing them with the most nefarious depravity. This matter greatly saddens our minds, because it has been permitted to you, placed there, to perpetrate such a crime of condemned presumption. Concerning this, we exhort your fraternity by the present letters that, after holding a discussion and convening a council, you should oppose this still nascent disease with all your strength and zeal, so that it may neither gain strength through neglect, nor inflict the damages of pestilence upon the flock entrusted to you.

In the Year of the Lord 596. XLVIII. THE SAME, Book V, Epistle XXXVI. Gregory to Columbus, bishop of Numidia. Moreover, a matter altogether harsh and hostile to the right faith has reached us—namely, that which it is a crime to say: that catholic men and religious persons, and what is worse, consent to have their children and slaves, or others whom they hold in their power, baptized in the heresy of the Donatists. And therefore, if this is true, let your Fraternity strive with the utmost effort to correct it, so that the integrity of your faith may remain unsullied through your diligence, and that innocent souls, which could be saved by catholic baptism, may not perish through the infection of heretics. Therefore, whoever among those persons whom we have mentioned above has allowed any of his own to be baptized among the Donatists, let him strive with all his might and with all urgency to recall them to the catholic faith. But if anyone of such persons in the future permits this to happen to any of his own, under any excuse whatsoever, let him be alienated from the clergy in every way.

XLIX. THE SAME, ibid., Epistle LIIII. Gregory to Mauricius Augustus. Amid the cares of arms and the countless anxieties which you sustain with tireless zeal for the governance of the Christian republic, it is a great cause of joy to me, together with the whole world, that your Piety always watches with particular solicitude over the guardianship of the faith, by which the empire of our lords shines. Hence I am wholly confident that, just as you defend the cause of God with the love of a religious mind, so God protects and aids your Majesty with His grace. Moreover, how your Serenity’s Piety has been moved against the most shameful depravity of the Donatists by consideration of justice and the zeal of the most sincere religion, the tenor of the directives sent most clearly indicates. But the most reverend men, bishops coming from the province of Africa, assert that these matters have been so set aside by incautious dissimulation that neither is the judgment of God held in fear there, nor have the principal orders so far obtained effect; they also add that in the aforementioned province, with the pressures of the Donatists prevailing, the Catholic faith is publicly put up for sale. On the other hand, the glorious man Gennadius complained to me of one of them who was complaining of similar things, to whom also two others certain in the same matter bore witness.

But because a secular judge had an interest in that case, I thought it necessary to direct those same bishops to the footsteps of your Piety, so that they might themselves suggest to your most serene ears what they confess to have endured for the Catholic faith. For this reason I beseech that the Christianity of our lords, for the sake of the soul’s salvation and the life of their most pious offspring, may order that those whom it knows to be such be punished with strict vengeance, and may stay the ruin of the perishing with a rescuing hand, and apply the medicine of correction to insane minds, and expel from them the diseases of errors: so that, by the remedy of your pious provision, the darkness of pestilential wickedness may be dispelled, and true faith may there scatter the rays of its serenity, a heavenly triumph may await you before the eyes of our Redeemer: because those whom you defend externally from the enemy, you also free internally from the poison of diabolical deceit, which is more glorious.