Augustine the bishop, to the most beloved brothers who belong to the care of our stewardship: may the salvation that is in Christ and the peace of his unity and love be with you, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept whole unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1. 1. You recall, brothers, that a very small part of the Letter of Petilian, the Donatist bishop of Constantine, once came into our hands, and that I wrote to your Charity what I had replied to that little portion. But afterward, when the whole and complete letter was sent to us by the brothers who are there, I decided to reply to it from the very beginning, as though we were dealing with each other in person, in the way you always know we have wished to deal with them: so that, without any zeal for contention, what is said either by them or by us might, through a shared disputation, be plain to all.

For we have learned that this letter is in the hands of many, who even hold much of it by memory, supposing that he said something true against us. But now, if they are willing to read what we have replied, they will surely understand what they must throw away and what they must hold on to. For these things are not ours, as they themselves can consider if they are willing to judge without partisan zeal; for they are all set forth and proven from the holy Scriptures in such a way that no one can deny them except one who professes himself an enemy of those Scriptures. But concerning that work of ours I see what the most stubborn defenders of so bad a cause can say: that I replied, of course, to a letter in the author's absence, where he could not hear my words so as to answer them at once. Let him therefore defend the words of his letter and, if he can, show that they were not refuted and convicted by my replies; or, if he will not do this, let him himself do to this letter of mine what I have done to that letter of his, to which I have already replied. For he wrote it to his own people, just as I have written this to you.

And to this letter too let him reply, if he wishes.

2. 2. The question certainly at issue between us is where the Church is: whether it is with us or with them. It is surely the one Church that our forefathers named "Catholic," so that by the very name they might show that it exists throughout the whole; for "according to the whole" is in Greek kath' holon. Now this Church is the body of Christ, as the Apostle says: For his body, which is the Church (Col 1:24). From this it is plainly manifest that one who is not among the members of Christ cannot have Christian salvation. But the members of Christ are joined to one another through the love of unity, and through that same love they cohere with their head, which is Christ Jesus. The whole, therefore, that is proclaimed concerning Christ is head and body. The head is the only-begotten Jesus Christ himself, the Son of the living God, himself the Savior of the body (Eph 5:23), who died for our trespasses and rose again for our justification (Rom 4:25); his body is the Church, of which it is said: that he might present to himself a glorious Church, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph 5:27). Now between us and the Donatists the question is where this body is, that is, where the Church is. What, then, shall we do? Are we to seek it in our own words, or in the words of its head, our Lord Jesus Christ? I think we ought rather to seek it in his words, who is the Truth (See 1 John 5:6) and knows his own body best; for the Lord knows those who are his (2 Tim 2:19).

2. 3. But what our own words are, in which it ought not to be sought, mark and see; and see also, even there, what difference there is between our words and theirs; and yet, even in our words, we do not want the Church to be sought. Whatever we throw at one another about the handing over of the divine books, about offering incense, about persecutions, these are our words.

And in such matters we hold to this rule: that either both charges be reckoned true, those said by us and those said by them, or both false, or ours true and theirs false, or ours false and theirs true; and in all these cases we show that there is no crime on the part of the Christian world, with which we are in communion.

For if the charges are true, both those that we bring against them and those that they bring against us, let us do what the Apostle says: Forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us (Eph 4:32), so that wicked men neither those who perhaps were or are among us, nor those who either were or are among them may hinder our concord and the bond of peace, once their one crime is corrected, namely, that they have separated themselves in vain from the unity of the whole world, even while they had such men among them. But if both sets of charges are false, whether what we bring against them or what they bring against us, whether about handing over the books or about the persecution of the innocent, I see no ground for the dispute, except that there is ground for them to correct themselves, who have separated themselves without cause.

But if we are speaking the truth since we confirm the records that we produce both by the letters of the emperor to whom they wrote at first and then later appealed and by the communion of the whole world, while what they say is convicted of falsehood precisely because, at those very times, when the same question was being aired, they were utterly unable to make good their case then there appears in them a greater madness of sacrilegious animosity and a persecution of innocent souls than if they were held by the crime of schism alone. And those other charges let them assign not to all but to whichever of their own people they wish; the schism, however, is the crime of them all.

Furthermore, if they want the crimes of handing over the books and of persecution to be true when they bring them, and false when they are brought against them, even so they are not cleared of the crime of schism; for those charges can pertain to certain individuals, not to the whole Christian world. And if they suppose that this world has perished by contagion I forbear to mention how many evils, even known evils, the saints have tolerated for the good of peace within the fellowship of men this I do say: let these men show how they have not perished by the contagion of those whom they either now do not know, or once did not know, to be lurking, or to have lurked, among them sacrilegious violators of the consecrated chastity of women.

They are surely going to say that by this very fact they are uncontaminated namely, that they did not know. How, then, is the world contaminated, which to this day does not know whether the things they say are true? Let us suppose them now to be proven to us, now to be demonstrated: what do we do about so many nations? They are abandoned without knowing; therefore the innocent are abandoned and, since that is no crime of theirs, this begins to be our most wicked crime. Or ought we to run and teach them what we know? To what end this?

If they are innocent, they are innocent even while they do not know; for we guard our innocence not by knowing the misdeeds of men, but by not consenting to those we know, and by not rashly judging those we do not know. And by this, as I have said, the whole world is innocent, which is ignorant of the crimes that these men allege against certain persons even if those crimes are truly alleged; but from these innocent people the ones who separated themselves have lost their innocence by that very crime of separation and schism. And now they would teach us that they speak the truth against certain persons, in order to separate us from those against whom they have nothing true to say.

2. 4. For this is what the whole world says to them which in words is very brief, but in truth most strong: the African bishops, of course, were in conflict among themselves. If they could not settle the dissension that had arisen among them so that, whether by concord once the matter was composed or by the deposition of those who were contending wrongly, those who had the good cause might remain in the communion of the whole world through the bond of unity it surely remained that the bishops across the sea, among whom the greatest part of the Catholic Church was spread, should judge concerning the dissensions of their African colleagues, at the urging, of course, of those who were charging others with the crime of unlawful ordination.

If this was not done, the fault belongs to those by whom it ought to have been done, not to the whole world, which did not know what had not been brought before it. But if it was done, what did the ecclesiastical judges do wrong, who in no way ought to have condemned crimes that, even if true and brought before them, were nonetheless not proven to them? Surely the wicked could not pollute those to whom they could not be made manifest?

But if they were made manifest to them, and the judges, out of some sloth or connivance, were unwilling to remove such men from communion and even, by a perverse judgment, pronounced sentences in their favor what did the whole world do wrong, which did not know that that case had had bad judges, and which believed those to have judged well of whom it could not itself judge? For just as the crime of the accused, if it was hidden from the judges, did not contaminate the judges, so too the crime of the judges, if there was any, since it was hidden from the whole world, surely could not contaminate the world.

With these innocent people, therefore, we innocently remain in communion to this very day, not knowing what was done back then. Wherefore, even if today we should learn that what they say against certain persons is true, there is no reason why we should withdraw from the innocent who do not know these things, and cross over to those who, for this very reason, are all entangled in the crime of schism: that they did the very thing they urge us to do not, after the example of the apostles, to tolerate the wicked, but, after the example of heretics, to forsake the good. But let us suppose what cannot be the case that the whole world could today, together with us, come to know clearly that the crimes of certain persons whom these men charge are true: could the world thereby become more innocent than it was before it knew? For just as unknown evils could not stain those persons even if they were still in this life, so those who have already departed from this life cannot stain anyone even when known.

If, then, such is our case in the matter of our own words concerning the crimes of certain persons which we throw back and forth at one another that it remains unbeaten even if we should today learn that what we say against certain of them is false and that what they say against certain of us is true what have they to answer, whether what we say is rather the truth and what they say is false, or both are false, or both are true since even there they are defeated in the very thing they desire with all their prayers, namely, to be believed?

3. 5. But, as I had begun to say, let us not listen to "This you say, this I say," but let us listen to "This says the Lord." There are surely the Lord's books, to whose authority we both consent, to which we both yield, which we both serve: there let us seek the Church, there let us examine our case. Here perhaps they will say: "Why do you seek in the books that you handed over to the flames?" To this I answer: "Why are you afraid that these books should be read, if you kept them from the flames?"

Surely the one who is convicted, when those books are read, of not consenting to them is to be believed to have handed them over. Or if perhaps these books point out the one who handed them over, just as the Lord pointed out Judas, let them read in the books, by name and expressly, that either Caecilian or his ordainers were to be the betrayers of those same books; and if I do not anathematize them, let me be judged, along with them, to have handed the books over.

But neither do we find in those books the ordainers of Majorinus pointed out as betrayers, although we recite these things from elsewhere. Let those things, then, be removed from our midst, which we recite against each other not from the divine canonical books, but from elsewhere. But if they do not want them removed, let them see that even if both sets of charges are true, there was no cause for their separation, that they should flee those whom they had; and if both are false, there was no cause for their separation, that they should flee those whom they found in no crime; and if ours are true while theirs are false, there was no cause for their separation, since they ought rather to have corrected themselves and remained in unity; and if ours are false while theirs are true, there was no cause for their separation, since they ought not to have forsaken the innocent world, to which they either would not or could not demonstrate these things.

3. 6. Perhaps someone will ask and say to me: "Why, then, do you want these things removed from our midst, when your communion, even if they are produced, is unbeaten?" Because I do not want the holy Church to be demonstrated by human documents, but by divine oracles. For if the holy Scriptures had marked out the Church in Africa alone, and among the few Cutzupitans or Montenses at Rome, and in the house or estate of a single Spanish woman, then whatever else might be produced from other papers, no one would hold the Church except the Donatists.

If holy Scripture defines it as being among the few Moors of the province of Caesarea, then one must cross over to the Rogatists. If among the few Tripolitans and Byzacenes and provincials, then the Maximianists have reached it. If among the easterners alone, then it must be sought among the Arians and Eunomians and Macedonians and any others there may be there. But who could enumerate the several heresies of the several nations?

But if the Church of Christ has been marked out by the divine and most certain testimonies of the canonical Scriptures as being among all nations, then whatever those people may bring forward, and from wherever they recite it, who say, Behold, here is the Christ; behold, there he is let us rather listen, if we are his sheep, to the voice of our shepherd saying, Do not believe it (Matt 24:23). For those individual churches are not found among the many nations where this Church is, whereas this Church, which is everywhere, is found even where those are. Therefore let us seek it in the holy canonical Scriptures.

4. 7. The whole Christ is head and body. The head is the only-begotten Son of God, and his body is the Church bridegroom and bride, two in one flesh (See Eph 5:23, 30-31). Whoever dissent from the holy Scriptures concerning the head himself, even if they are found in all the places in which the Church has been marked out, are not in the Church.

And again, whoever consent with the holy Scriptures concerning the head himself, yet do not hold communion with the unity of the Church, are not in the Church, because they dissent from the testimony of Christ himself concerning the body of Christ, which is the Church. For example, those who do not believe that Christ came in the flesh, of the Virgin Mary, from the seed of David which Scripture, the word of God, most plainly declares or that he did not rise in that very body in which he was crucified and buried, even if they should be found throughout all the lands through which the Church extends, surely are not in the Church, because they do not hold the very head of the Church, which is Christ Jesus; nor are they deceived by some obscurity of the divine Scriptures, but they contradict their most well-known and most plain testimonies.

Likewise, whoever do indeed believe that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, as has been said, and that he rose in the same flesh in which he was born and suffered, and that he is the Son of God, God with God and one with the Father, the unchangeable Word of the Father through whom all things were made (See John 1:3) but who nevertheless so dissent from his body, which is the Church, that their communion is not with the whole wherever it is spread, but is found in some part separated off it is manifest that they are not in the Catholic Church.

Wherefore, since our question with the Donatists is not about the head but about the body that is, not about the Savior Jesus Christ himself, but about his Church let the head himself, about whom we agree, show us his body, about which we disagree, so that through his words we may at last cease to disagree. Now he is the only-begotten Son and the Word of God, and therefore not even the holy prophets could have spoken the truth unless it had been made manifest to them by the truth itself, which is the Word of God, what they should say, and unless they had been commanded to say it. Accordingly, in earlier times the Word of God resounded through the prophets; then through his very self, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14); then through the apostles whom he sent to preach him (See Matt 28:19-20), that there might be salvation unto the ends of the earth. In all these, therefore, the Church is to be sought.

5. 8. But since slanderers often twist many things said against others, or for another purpose, so as to apply them to whomever and to whatever they wish; and since many things, set down figuratively and obscurely in order to exercise rational minds, are sometimes believed, through the image of a riddle or the double sense of an ambiguity, to chime in and agree with a deceitful interpretation for this reason too I declare and propose that we choose whatever is open and manifest. For if these were not found in the holy Scriptures, there would be no way at all to open what is closed and to illumine what is obscure.

For example, see how easy it is either for us to say against them, or for them to say against us, what the Lord said to the Pharisees: You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful to men, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity (Matt 23:27-28). Whether these things are said by us against them or by them against us, who of even moderately sound mind does not know that, unless it is first proven by the most manifest documents who they are who, being unjust, pretend that they are just, the saying is uttered rather by a reviling levity than by a convincing truth?

For the Lord said those things against the Pharisees in one way, namely as the Lord that is, as one who knows the heart and all the secrets of men (See Dan 13:42), both witness and judge. But we must first find and show what we are censuring, lest we ourselves rather be charged with the very grave crime of insane rashness. To be sure, if they first prove us to be such, we ought by no means to refuse to be reproved and battered by such words of the holy Scriptures; likewise, if we prove them to be such, it will be in our power, in the same way, with what rebukes of the Lord we may strike those who have been shown and convicted.

5. 9. So too those things are for the time being to be set aside which, set down obscurely and wrapped in the veils of figures, can be interpreted both according to us and according to them. It belongs, to be sure, to keen-witted men to discern and decide who interprets them more probably; but we do not want to commit our disputation to these contests of wits in a case that concerns whole peoples. None of us doubts that, while preserving the truth of the deeds as recorded so that, the sinners being destroyed, the house of the righteous man was delivered from the flood the Church too was figured by the ark of Noah; and this might perhaps seem a conjecture of human ingenuity, were it not that the apostle Peter says so in his letter (See 1 Pet 3:20-21).

But what he did not say there if any of us were to say it namely, that all kinds of animals were there because the Church was being foretold as destined to be among all nations, the Donatists might perhaps see it otherwise and wish to interpret it otherwise. Likewise, if they too should interpret something set down obscurely or ambiguously in favor of their own opinion, while it is open to us to draw from it something else that sounds in our favor, what end will there be?

For a certain bishop of theirs, when as we have heard he was delivering a sermon to the people here at Hippo, said that the ark of Noah was pitched on the inside so as not to let out its own water, and pitched on the outside as well so as not to let in water from elsewhere. By this interpretation he meant to establish that baptism can neither go out beyond the Church, nor be accepted if it has been given outside it.

He seemed to be saying something, and he was applauded by those who listened gladly and did not carefully consider what they had heard so that they might notice what was easy enough: that it cannot be that a framework of timbers should let in water from outside if it does not let it out from within;

but that if it lets it out from the part that is within, it follows that it also lets it in from the part that is without. But even if what he said about the joined timber were true, who would forbid me, from an ark pitched on both sides, to say if I could something else, so that it would be uncertain which of these things, or perhaps some third thing, that object signified?

For it is said not absurdly, and indeed much more probably, that by the pitch since it is a violent glue and a most fervent substance love was signified. For why is it said in the Psalm, My soul clings close after you (Ps 63:8 (62:9)), except by a most ardent love? And because it is commanded that this love be in us toward one another and toward all, therefore the ark was pitched both within and without.

Or certainly, because it is written, Love bears all things (1 Cor 13:7), the very force of endurance, holding fast to unity, was signified by the pitch with which the ark was smeared within and without, because both within and without the wicked must be borne, lest the framework of peace be dissolved. In this disputation of ours, then, let us spare such interpretations and seek something open by which the Church may be made manifest.

5. 10. Indeed it is written in the book of Judges: And Gideon said to the Lord: Since you will save Israel by my hand as you have said, behold, I lay a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; and if there is dew on the fleece, but on all the ground drought, I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said. And it was so. And Gideon rose early the next morning and wrung out the fleece, and the dew ran down from the fleece, a basin full of water. And Gideon said to the Lord: Let not your anger be kindled against me, Lord, and I will speak yet once and test yet once with the fleece: let there be drought on the fleece only, but on all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night, and there was drought on the fleece only, but on all the ground dew (Judg 6:36-40).

I do not see what else is here figured and foretold, except that we should understand the threshing floor to be the whole world, and the place of the fleece to be the people of Israel. For we know that that nation was once, as it were, drenched with the heavenly dew of the grace of the divine mystery; and of this gift there was, as it were, a drought among all the nations round about, because they were without it. But among that people this gift was in the fleece that is, in a veil and as if in the cloud of a secret because it had not yet been revealed.

But now we see the whole world fattened, the dew now revealed, through the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which was then figured in that covering while that nation, having lost the priesthood it had because it does not understand Christ in the Scriptures, has remained, as it were, in the dry fleece. And yet, even in such figures of things although I do not see what else can be understood here I do not want us to seek the Church.

Whatever needs some interpretation, or such an interpretation, let us set aside for now not because the things are false that are unraveled by interpreting in this way, as though from such wrappings, but because they require an interpreter. I do not want our wits to be matched against one another in them; rather, let the open truth cry out, let it shine, let it break into stopped-up ears, let it strike the eyes of those who pretend not to see let no one seek, in its hidden places, a lodging for his own false opinion confound every attempt at contradiction, crush every brow of shamelessness.

6. 11. O Donatists, read Genesis: By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: because you have done this thing and have not spared your most beloved son for my sake, in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore, and your seed shall possess by inheritance the cities of its adversaries, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice (Gen 22:16-18).

What do you say to this? Do you contend with us in the perversity of the Jews, so as to say that the seed of Abraham is to be understood only in the people born of Abraham's flesh? But the Jews do not read in their synagogues the apostle Paul, whom you read in your meeting-houses. Let us hear, then, what the Apostle says for we are now asking how the seed of Abraham is to be understood: Brothers, he says, I speak after the manner of men. Yet no one annuls or adds to even a man's testament once it has been ratified. To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one: "And to your seed," which is Christ (Gal 3:15-16). Behold the seed in which all nations are blessed; behold the testament of God open your ears: No one, he says, annuls or adds to a man's ratified testament. Why do you annul the testament of God by saying it has not been fulfilled among all nations, and that the seed of Abraham has now perished from the nations in which it was? Why do you add to it by saying that Christ remains heir in no lands except where he could have Donatus as coheir? We begrudge no one. Read this to us from the Law, from the Prophets, from the Psalms, from the Gospel itself, from the apostolic Letters. Read it, and we believe just as we read to you, both from Genesis and from the Apostle, that in the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, all nations are blessed.

6. 12. Hear this same testament made to Isaac too, the son of Abraham: Now there was a famine in the land, besides the famine that had occurred before in the time of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar. And the Lord appeared to him and said: Do not go down into Egypt, but dwell in the land of which I shall tell you, and dwell in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your seed I will give all this land, and I will establish my oath which I swore to Abraham your father, and I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give to you and to your seed all this land, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because Abraham your father obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws (Gen 26:1-5). Answer these things. For the seed of Abraham is the same seed of Isaac too, which is Christ. For how Christ came in the flesh from the tribe of Judah, through the Virgin, what Christian of any kind does not know?

6. 13. Hear this same testament made to Jacob: And Jacob went out from the well of the oath and set out for Haran. And he came to a place and slept in that place, for the sun had set. And he took a stone from the stones of the place and put it at his head, and slept in that place. And he saw a vision; and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending by it.

And the Lord leaned upon it and said: I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; do not fear; the land on which you sleep, to you I will give it and to your seed. And your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and it shall be multiplied toward the sea and toward the southwest and toward the north and toward the east; and in you and in your seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with you, keeping you in every way wherever you go, and I will bring you back into this land, for I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken to you (Gen 28:10-15).

Behold the promise you resist, behold how firm a testament you annul! The Lord says, I will not forsake you until I have done all that I have spoken to you, and you contradict him, saying that we should rather believe you about whatever crime you charge against a world unknown and unknowing, and not believe God who says, I will not forsake you until I have done it.

6. 14. Read to us from the canonical Scriptures that those whom you accuse by name handed over the divine books. Read something as open as these things that we have read to you from Genesis. We do not ask of you what that stone signifies which Jacob put at his head when he slept, what the ladder set up on the earth whose top reached to heaven, what the angels of God ascending and descending by it. Let the more prudent and more learned inquire into these things, and let them expound them among a peaceable people, where no shameless contradiction is clamoring, arming its own shamelessness from the obscurity of the mystery and the riddle of the reading.

There is no lack of hearts of the faithful which the Lord may remind of this, from the Gospel where he says, when he had seen an Israelite in whom there was no guile (See John 1:47) for Jacob, who saw these things, was himself called Israel; there is therefore no lack of those whom the Lord himself may thereby remind.

For there he says: You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man (John 1:51) that is, upon the seed of Abraham in which all nations are blessed. But I do not press these things upon those who refuse them. Behold what you should hear: Your seed shall be as the sand of the earth, and it shall be multiplied toward the sea and toward the southwest and toward the north and toward the east; and in you and in your seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed (Gen 28:14).

Give me this Church, if it is with you. Show that you are in communion with all the nations, which we already see being blessed in this seed. Give us this Church, or, laying aside your fury, receive it not from me, but from him in whom all nations are blessed. Let it suffice to have recalled these things from the first book of the Law; more will become known, without impious contention and with devout love, to those who read.

7. 15. What of the prophets? How many and how manifest are the testimonies of the Church spread among all nations throughout the whole world! From these I will recall a few, leaving more to the leisure of those who read with diligence and the fear of God. Let us receive the divine answers through the mouth of the holy Isaiah, and let us inquire of his lips as of the oracles of God. Let the spirited and ruinous contests of human contentions be silent.

Let us incline our ear to the word of God; let Isaiah tell where, by God's revelation, he foresaw the holy Church, so that in the words of one foretelling the future we may now see it as present: The whole earth is filled, he says, so that they may know the Lord, as the many waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, and one who shall arise to rule over the nations; in him shall the nations hope (Isa 11:9-10).

That the root of Jesse is Christ, born of the seed of David according to the flesh, no Christian of any kind is ignorant; and if anyone is contentious, let him contend with the Apostle, who uses this testimony in his letters (See Rom 15:12). Likewise he says: Israel shall sprout and flower, and the whole world shall be filled with his fruit (Isa 27:6).

For Israel was the son of Isaac, the grandson of Abraham, to whom it was promised that in his seed all nations would be blessed which seed the Apostle interprets as Christ. Now Christ came from the seed of Abraham, through Isaac and through Israel and so on, as the Evangelist weaves together the generations pertaining to the birth of Christ (See Matt 1).

Whoever, then, wishes to dispute against this, let him contradict the Gospel, let him deny that Christ came from the seed of Israel, that he may be able to deny what Isaiah says: Israel shall sprout and flower, and the whole world shall be filled with his fruit. Likewise he says: I, God, am the first, and in the things that are to come I am. The nations have seen and the ends of the earth have feared (Isa 41:4-5).

This is what Scripture says elsewhere: The first and the last (Rev 22:13), that he may be the Alpha and the Omega, which are the letters in the sign of Christ known to all. For instead of what is there, the last, here is set, And in the things that are to come I am. To this manifestation, then, they contradict who refuse to believe nay, who refuse now to see fulfilled what follows: The nations have seen and the ends of the earth have feared.

Likewise a little after: Jacob is my servant, I will uphold him. Israel is my chosen, my soul has received him. I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not cry out nor cease, nor shall his voice be heard outside. A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, but he shall bring forth judgment with truth. He shall shine and shall not be broken, until he set judgment on the earth, and in his name shall the nations hope (Isa 42:1-4). This testimony is to be understood of Christ and is set down in the Gospel (See Matt 12:18-21). Let him who dares contradict it; but let him who does not dare hope in him together with the nations, and not withdraw from the unity of the nations that hope in him or, if he had withdrawn, let him return, lest he perish.

7. 16. Likewise Isaiah says: And now thus says the Lord: He who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to gather Jacob and Israel to him. I shall draw near to him and be honored before the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said to me: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob and to turn back the offspring of Israel. And I have set you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations, that you may be salvation unto the ends of the earth (Isa 49:5-6). And a little after: Thus says, he says, the Lord of Israel: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you (Isa 49:8).

Surely, when the apostle Paul recalled these words, he showed them fulfilled only in Christians. For he joined them on, saying: Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2). Let us hear, then, what Isaiah adds: I have given you, he says, for a covenant of the nations, that you may inhabit the earth and possess the inheritance of the desert (Isa 49:8). And then, after some intervening words, he joins on and says: Behold, these shall come from afar, and these from the north and the sea, and others from the land of the Persians. Rejoice, O heaven, and be glad, O earth. Let the mountains send forth joy, for God has had mercy on his people and has comforted the humble of his people. But Zion said: The Lord has forsaken me, and God has forgotten me. Will forgetfulness take hold of a woman concerning the son of her womb, or can it be that she will not have mercy on the offspring of her womb? Now behold, even if she should forget, yet I will by no means let forgetfulness take hold of me concerning you, says the Lord. Behold, on my hands I have inscribed your walls, and you are in my sight forever, and shortly you shall be built up by those by whom you were overthrown (Isa 49:12-17).

Since, then, by the apostolic voice we are not permitted to understand this of the people of the Jews, but of the Christians, what are we to understand in what Isaiah says here, And shortly you shall be built up by those by whom you were overthrown, except the kings of the earth who at first persecuted the Church, and afterward, as was foretold so long before, were to help it? But because many of them were going to die in their iniquities, he adds and says: And those who laid you waste shall depart from you (Isa 49:14).

Then, because all nations were to be joined to the Church, it follows and says: Look around everywhere with your eyes and see them all. As I live, says the Lord. With all these you shall clothe yourself, and you shall array them as the ornament of a new bride, since the places that were deserted in you and ruined and fallen down shall now be in the greatest crowding because of those who dwell there; far from you shall be made those who swallowed you up. For your children whom you had lost shall say in your ears: The place is too narrow for us; make us therefore even now a place in which we may dwell. But you shall say in your heart: Who has begotten these for me, since I know that I am without children and a widow? Who, then, has reared these for me? For I was left alone; but these where were they? Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will lift up my hands to the nations, and to the islands my standard, and I will bring your sons in my bosom; your daughters too they shall carry upon their shoulders, and kings shall be your foster fathers, and the queens your nurses; bowing their faces toward the earth they shall beseech you and shall lick the dust of your feet, and you shall know that I am the Lord, and you shall not be put to shame.

And a little after he adds and says: Hear me, hear, O my people; you kings too, give heed to me, for the law shall go forth from me, and my judgment for a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near speedily, and my salvation shall go forth, and in my arm shall the nations be saved (Isa 49:18-23). Concerning this arm, let us consult the apostolic Scriptures. For when the apostle Paul had set down a testimony of the same prophet concerning the unbelief of the Jews namely, that Christ had not been revealed to them he set down this: Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? (Rom 10:16; John 12:38; Isa 53:1) Then in what follows Isaiah adds and says: Let the deserts of Jerusalem break forth together into joy, for he has had mercy on her and has delivered Jerusalem, and the Lord shall lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the nations to the ends of the earth shall see the salvation that is from God (Isa 52:9-10). Who is so deaf, who so mad, who so blind in mind as to speak against these so evident testimonies, unless one who does not know what he is saying?

7. 17. But let us come to things more manifest. We know surely from the Scriptures the most sacred marriage, the bridegroom and the bride, Christ and the Church. Isaiah describes both, lest perhaps we err in either of them which, whoever suffers it, loses both since concerning this marriage it has been said, as a mystery, as the Apostle testifies: The two shall be one flesh (Eph 5:31).

So, then, the bridegroom himself is first described. After the many things that Isaiah says of him in such a way that the Jews themselves are struck dumb, lest it be long to recall them all, mark this little: their sins, he says, he himself shall bear; therefore <he> shall possess many by inheritance and shall divide the spoils of the strong. Because his soul was handed over to death, and he was reckoned among the wicked, and he himself bore the sins of many, and for our iniquities he was handed over (Isa 53:11-12).

These things, foretold and prophesied so long before concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, you confess. This bridegroom, then to what end was he handed over to death, to what end was he reckoned among the wicked? With so great a lowliness of his loftiness, what did he accomplish, what did he acquire? Who is so deaf as not to hear these things, who so dull as not to understand, who so blind as not to see? Therefore, he says, he himself shall possess many by inheritance and shall divide the spoils of the strong. Because his soul was handed over to death, and he was reckoned among the wicked. What is it, heretics, that you glory in fewness, if for this reason our Lord Jesus Christ was handed over to death, that he might possess many by inheritance? And who are these many, or how widely do they occupy the earth? Let us hear what follows.

. . . let the Bride too come forth in the words of Isaiah.

7. 18. The bridegroom having been foretold and set forth, let the bride too come forth in the words of Isaiah. Let us read her in the truth of the holy pages, and let us recognize her in the whole world. This testimony, foretold concerning the holy Church, the apostle Paul too set down; there is no way for the contentious evasion of the heretics to flee. Rejoice, O barren one, he says, who do not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in travail, for many are the children of the desolate woman, more than of her who has a husband (Isa 54:1; Gal 4:27).

Where, I ask, is that wherein you glory of your fewness? Are these not the many of whom it was said a little before, Therefore he himself shall possess many by inheritance? For what is his inheritance except his Church? Many, he says, are the children of the desolate woman, more than of her who has a husband wishing the Synagogue of the Jews to be understood as the one having a husband, since she had received the law. From this it can now be judged what we are saying.

Let these men compare their multitude, set up among the Africans or in Africa, with the multitude of the Jews scattered throughout all lands wherever they are dispersed, and let them see how very few they are by comparison with the Jews. How, then, will they apply to themselves what was said, Many are the children of the desolate woman, more than of her who has a husband?

Again, let them compare the multitude of Christians throughout all the nations with which they are not in communion, and let them see how few all the Jews are by comparison; and let them at last, at some point, understand that in the Catholic Church spread throughout the whole world this prophecy has been fulfilled: Many are the children of the desolate woman, more than of her who has a husband. But to which woman having a husband this desolate woman was preferred in the multitude of children let it be obscure, let it be in a riddle; that this is nonetheless the Church of Christ, of which it was said, Many are the children of the desolate woman, more than of her who has a husband whoever contradicts this, contradicts not me, but the Apostle.

7. 19. But from where she was to have many children, he consequently adds and says: For the Lord said: Enlarge the place of your tent and of your courts; fix them do not spare make your cords long, and strengthen your stakes; stretch out yet to the right and to the left. And your seed shall possess the nations, and you shall inhabit the deserted cities. Do not fear, for you shall prevail; nor be afraid that you were detestable. You shall forget eternal confusion, you shall not remember the disgrace of your widowhood. For I am the Lord who made you the Lord is his name and he who delivered you, the God of Israel, shall be called the God of the whole earth (Isa 54:1-5).

Behold how far she was commanded to stretch out her cords until her God, the God of Israel, is called the God of the whole earth. For concerning her, and to her, it is said in another place through the same prophet: For Zion's sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until my righteousness go forth like light. And my salvation shall burn like a torch, and all the nations shall see your righteousness, and kings your honor. And he shall call you by your new name, which the Lord shall name, and you shall be a crown of beauty in the sight of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God, and you shall no longer be called forsaken, and your land shall not be called desolate. For you shall be called My Will, and your land the whole world (Isa 62:1-4). What more manifest must still be demanded to be said?

Behold from one prophet how many things, how clear! And yet it is resisted and contradicted not any man, but the Spirit of God and the most evident truth; and yet by those who want to glory in the Christian name, the glory of Christ himself is begrudged, lest these things, foretold of him so long before, be believed to be fulfilled when now they are not being foretold, but shown, seen, held. But if I should wish to gather into this one letter the testimonies of all the prophets concerning the Church foreshadowed which, as we read, we behold I fear that I myself might seem to judge those things few which are so many that, if from this Isaiah alone I should wish to gather them all, I would exceed the measure of a fitting discourse.

8. 20. Now, then, let us hear a few things from the Psalms, sung so long before, and now let us see them being fulfilled with great joy. And first that very thing which I do not know with what face Petilian set down in his letter let them hear and judge. The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession (Ps 2:7-8).

For what Christian has ever doubted that this was foretold of Christ, or has understood this inheritance to be anything other than the Church? And because she was to have both good and bad within the same nets of the mysteries: You shall rule them, he says, with a rod of iron, and like a potter's vessel you shall shatter them (Ps 2:9). For by the same firm and inflexible righteousness the good are ruled, the bad are shattered.

8. 21. Who is so wayward and so estranged from the divine words as not to recognize the Gospel itself when that Psalm is sung in which it is written, They pierced my hands and feet, they numbered all my bones. They themselves looked and gazed upon me, they divided my garments among themselves, and over my clothing they cast lots (Ps 22:17-19 (21:17-19); John 19:24) seeing that the Evangelist too, when he narrated that this had been done, was mindful of this testimony? And what was purchased by the price of this cross, what by so great a lowliness of so great a loftiness, what by that most innocent and divine blood, except what is said there in what follows: All the ends of the earth shall be reminded and shall be turned to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship in his sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he shall rule over the nations (Ps 22:28-29 (21:28-29))?

Did not the Apostle expound what is written, Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Ps 19:5 (18:5); Rom 10:18), as said of the preachers of the New Testament? And of whom other than Christ is this understood: The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion is the form of his beauty (Ps 50:1-2 (49:1-2))? Whose voice but Christ's is this: I slept troubled? And from what was he troubled? It follows and says: The sons of men their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword (Ps 57:5 (56:5)).

Whose teeth but theirs who cried out, Crucify, crucify (Luke 23:21)? To what end all this? For whose good, for whose gain? Hear what follows: Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and let your glory be over all the earth (Ps 57:6 (56:6)). Behold, you have Christ asleep in his Passion and ascended above the heavens in his Resurrection. And from where is his glory over all the earth, except because his Church is over all the earth? In these two very brief sentences I question you, heretics, about the whole of what is being dealt with between us. Be exalted, he says, above the heavens, O God, and let your glory be over all the earth: why do you preach the Lord Christ as exalted above the heavens, yet do not share in his glory over all the earth?

8. 22. The seventy-first Psalm is entitled for Solomon. But because the things said there are such as cannot fit that temporal king who afterward sinned grievously, they are most invincibly defended as foretold concerning Christ, even against the Jews themselves. And no Christian denies this; for such things are said as cannot be doubted to pertain to Christ. There too these things are said, where the Church is acknowledged as spread throughout the whole world, with all kings too subjected to Christ. And he shall have dominion, he says, from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth (Ps 72:8 (71:8)). From the river, surely, where the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove and the voice from heaven made him manifest.

Then it follows: Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down, and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and the islands shall offer gifts, the kings of the Arabs and of Sheba shall bring presents. And all the kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him (Ps 72:9-11 (71:9-11)).

And a little after: And in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, all nations shall magnify him. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things, and blessed be the name of his glory forever and unto the age of the age, and the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. So be it, so be it (Ps 72:18-19 (71:18-19)). Go now, Donatists, and cry out: "So be it not, so be it not." The word of God has defeated you, saying, So be it, so be it. Behold, the Church spread throughout the whole world is made manifest in the Psalms, the Church upon which rests the glory of her king.

Whence she herself too is the queen, his bride, of whom it is said to him in the forty-fourth Psalm: The queen stood at your right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety (Ps 45:10 (44:10)), and the divine word is at once directed to exhorting her: Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house, for the king has desired your beauty. For he himself is your God (Ps 45:11-12 (44:11-12)). Mark from what the divine prophecy began to address the bride of Christ: Hear, it says, O daughter, and see. But you neither wish to hear these things foretold, nor to see them fulfilled and yet, unwilling, you both hear and see them. Hear, then, what is said to her a little after; hear how it is foretold from the divine page, and see how it is fulfilled in all the earth. Instead of your fathers, he says, sons are born to you: you shall set them as princes over all the earth (Ps 45:17 (44:17)).

How many testimonies of the Scriptures on this matter I pass over, those who read know, and I know; but I do not want to burden a letter to which I demand a reply.

9. 23. What will they say to these things that we have recalled from the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning the Church of Christ which is spread throughout the whole world, which they prefer to fight against, unrepentant, rather than to be in communion with, corrected? What, I say, will they say? Either that these things are false or that they are obscure? But they do not dare say they are false; for they are pressed by the weight of so great an authority.

These things, then, since they confess them to be true, they contend cannot be fulfilled as if it were one thing to charge a prophecy with the crime of falsehood, and another to say that what it foretold cannot be fulfilled; for this is to say that it is not a prophecy, but rather a false prophecy. And when you ask them why these things cannot be fulfilled, they answer: "Because men are unwilling. For man was created with free choice and if he wills, he believes in Christ; if he does not will, he does not believe; if he wills, he perseveres in what he believes; if he does not will, he does not persevere."

"And therefore, when the Church had begun to grow throughout the whole world, men were unwilling to persevere, and the Christian religion failed among all the nations except the party of Donatus." As though, forsooth, the Spirit of God did not know the future wills of men: who could say a thing so utterly insane? Why, then, did he not rather foretell what he knew would come to pass concerning the wills of men? For in the way these men suppose these things to have been foretold, anyone at all who wished could be a prophet, so that, when what he had foretold was not fulfilled, he might answer: "Men were unwilling; for they are Christians by free choice."

In this way someone could prophesy that Christ would not suffer on the cross, but would die by the sword, so that, when it happened otherwise, he might answer: "What have I done?

Men, set in free choice, were unwilling to do to him what I had foretold, and did this which they themselves willed." To whom now does it not occur how many things could in this way be prophesied, or even can be, by any men whatever? For who would doubt that Judas, had he not willed it, would surely not have betrayed Christ, and that Peter, had he not willed it, would not have denied the Lord three times? But there was a sure prediction concerning these things, because God foresees even future wills.

10. 24. Yet, although these things are plain even to slow hearts (Luke 24:38), let us hear here too the voice of the Word himself, uttered by the mouth of his own flesh. Surely, when after the Resurrection he offered himself to be handled and touched by the hands of his doubting disciples, and when he had taken in their presence and eaten what they offered him, he said to them: These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me had to be fulfilled (Luke 24:44).

And of whom were those things written which we too have recalled from the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, except of him, as I have shown point by point? Since, then, he himself who is the Truth (John 14:6) says, All things had to be fulfilled, how do these men deny it, except because they are enemies of the truth? But if they still say these things are obscure, let us hear here too the head himself, the most truthful demonstrator of his own body.

For when he had said, that all things written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me had to be fulfilled, then as if we were asking whether in his saying concerning me the Church too should be understood there, because of what is written, The two shall be one flesh (Eph 5:31), so that we might hold sure divine oracles not only concerning the head but concerning the body as well the Evangelist follows on and says: Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and he said to them: For so it is written, and so it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day (Luke 24:45-46).

Here the head himself is shown the head that offered itself to be handled by the hands of the disciples. See how he adds concerning the body, which is the Church, so that he may not permit us to err either in the bridegroom or in the bride. And that there be preached, he says, in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). What is more truthful than this voice, what more divine, what more manifest? I am ashamed to commend her with my own words, and the heretics are not ashamed to assail her with theirs.

10. 25. Let them say that the testimonies I have set down from the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms are obscure and figuratively spoken, and can be understood otherwise although in them too I have labored, as far as I could, so that they should not dare even to say this but, behold, let them say: was this too spoken obscurely, or shadowed by the veil of a riddle, which Christ himself said: For so it is written, and so it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise on the third day, and that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47)?

If I slept troubled is obscure, is that Christ had to suffer obscure (Ps 57:5 (56:5))? If Be exalted above the heavens, O God (Ps 57:6 (56:6)) is obscure, is And to rise on the third day obscure? Likewise, if Your glory is over all the earth (Ps 57:6 (56:6)) is obscure, is And that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations obscure? If The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting (Ps 50:2 (49:2)) is obscure, is that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations obscure? For the earth was called from the rising of the sun to its setting in the same way as he himself says: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. If Out of Zion is the form of his beauty (Ps 50:2 (49:2)) is obscure, is beginning from Jerusalem obscure? For Zion is the same as Jerusalem. But what is that to me? Let them say that the things I have set down from the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms do not pertain to these words of the Lord that are read in the Gospel: I do not care, I do not resist.

Yet surely, unless this had been foretold in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms whether in the testimonies that I myself have adduced or in others the Lord would by no means have said, All things must be fulfilled that are written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me (Luke 24:44), and then, having opened their understanding so that they might understand the Scriptures, would not have taught those very things that are written of him in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms in such a way as to say, For so it is written, and so it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise on the third day, and that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46).

I might not have been able to recognize these things written in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms; nevertheless, that this is written there is said by him who is the Truth (See John 14:6). But even if he had not said these things were written there, it would beyond doubt suffice for Christians that Christ himself had said that there must be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

But his disciples, doubting although his body had been seen and handled he willed to confirm by the greater proof of the Scriptures than by the fact that he was presenting himself, visible and palpable, to the senses of mortals. Let us hold, then, the Church marked out from the mouth of the Lord: from where she was to begin and how far she was to reach to begin, namely, from Jerusalem, and to reach unto all nations.

10. 26. Here now whoever shall say that Jerusalem is to be understood not as that visible city, but as set down figuratively, so that the whole eternal Church in heaven, and in part a pilgrim on earth, may be understood can also say that this too was said figuratively: that Christ had to suffer and to rise on the third day (Luke 24:46) and whoever says this is not to be held a Christian in any way. As, then, that was set down in its proper sense, so too was what was joined to it concerning the Church of all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

For the Lord expounded that these things had been said of him in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, and surely that very exposition could not be figurative; otherwise it would not be an exposition. Then, if Jerusalem, set down figuratively and understood spiritually, signifies the universal Church, how does the universal Church begin from the universal Church as though Jerusalem began from Jerusalem?

It is manifest, therefore, that it was set down in its proper sense concerning that city, from which the Church is proven also to have begun he himself again and again making it manifest and leaving no lurking-place for ambush to heretical cunning. For thus it follows and says: And you are witnesses of these things, and I send my promise upon you; but sit in the city until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:48-49). In which city, surely, he commanded them to sit until they were clothed with power from on high that is, with the Holy Spirit, whom he had promised to send he foretold that the Church would begin from that city. But if they think it is not Jerusalem, let them hear what follows: And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, that he departed from them. And they returned with great joy to Jerusalem, and were always in the temple praising God (Luke 24:50-53). Behold where that city is shown in which he commanded them to sit until they were clothed with power from on high.

11. 27. And here indeed how many days he was with them after he had shown himself alive to their eyes and hands following his Passion is passed over. But it is not left untold in the Acts of the Apostles, where again, by the same manifestation of the Lord's words, the Church to come throughout the whole world is foretold. There let no one at all be permitted to doubt unless one who doubts the trustworthiness of the holy Scriptures that that Jerusalem is the visible city from which the Church began after the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that he wished to show nothing else than the places of this earth from which he would give it its beginning, and how he would spread it from there through all things. For thus it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: The first account I made, O Theophilus, of all the things that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day on which he chose the apostles through the Holy Spirit, charging them to preach the Gospel; to whom also he showed himself after his Passion in many signs, appearing to them for forty days and speaking of the kingdom of God; and while he conversed with them, he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await his promise, which you have heard, he said, from my mouth: for John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom also you shall receive not many days hence. But they, coming together, asked him, saying: Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And answering them he said: It is not yours to know the times that the Father has set in his own power, but you shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth (Acts 1:8). Behold, here too it is made manifest from where the Church was to begin and how far it was to reach.

11. 28. What do they say to these things, who most proudly call themselves Christians and most plainly contradict Christ? We hold this Church; against these divine voices we admit no human accusations. For it moves us greatly that our Lord whom not to believe is sacrilege and impiety in his very last words, which he had on earth, left these salutary and final teachings to the primitive Church. For when he had said these things, then, just before he ascended into heaven, he willed to fortify our ears against those whom he had foretold would arise in times to come and would say, Behold, here is the Christ; behold, there he is (Matt 24:23), whom he warned us not to believe. And we have no excuse if we should believe against the voice of our shepherd so clear, so open, so manifest that no one, even dull and slow of heart, can say, "I did not understand." For who would not understand: So it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise on the third day, and that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47)? Who would not understand: You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth. When he had said these things, he was lifted up, and a cloud received him, and they saw him going into heaven (Acts 1:8-10)? What is this, I ask? When the last words of a dying man about to go to the dead are heard, no one says that he lied, and the heir who chances to scorn them is judged impious.

How, then, shall we escape the wrath of God, if, whether by not believing or by scorning, we have rejected the last words of the only Son of God, our Lord and Savior, about to go into heaven and from there to look down on who neglects them and who observes them, and from there to come to judge concerning all?

I have the most manifest voice of my shepherd commending the Church to me and expressing it without any ambiguity. I shall lay it to my own charge if, away from his flock, which is the Church itself, I should be willing to be led astray and to wander through the words of men especially since he has warned me, saying: My sheep hear my voice and follow me (John 10:27). Behold his voice, clear and open. Having heard this, whoever does not follow him, how will he dare to call himself his sheep?

Let no one say to me: "Oh, what did Donatus say, oh, what did Parmenian or Pontius or any of them say?" For not even Catholic bishops are to be agreed with, if perchance they somewhere err, so as to hold any view against the canonical Scriptures of God. But if, while keeping the bond of unity and love, they fall into this, there will come to pass in them what the Apostle says: And if in anything you are otherwise minded, this too God will reveal to you (Phil 3:15).

But now these divine voices concerning the universal Church are so manifest that against them none can bark but heretics, with spirited perversity and blind fury.

11. 29. But we have demonstrated that the Church was foretold in the word of God, her bridegroom whether through the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms or through his own mouth as beginning from Jerusalem and reaching unto the ends of the earth. But how it began from Jerusalem and, spread thence among all nations, bears fruit, is also demonstrated in the same word of God through the apostles, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles which I have already recalled that the Lord said: You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth (Acts 1:8).

Then it follows: When he had said these things, while they looked on, he was lifted up, and a cloud received him from their eyes. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white garments, who also said: Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up into heaven from you, shall come in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey.

And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were dwelling: Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these were continuing with one accord in prayer with the women, and Mary who was the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. In those days Peter, standing up in the midst of the disciples, said and there was a crowd of about a hundred and twenty persons (Acts 1:5-15).

Then it is narrated how, as Peter was making his speech, Matthias was chosen in place of Judas the betrayer of the Lord; and after his ordination Scripture follows, saying: And when the days of Pentecost were fulfilled, they were all together in one place; and suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting, and there appeared to them tongues distributed as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in various tongues, as the Spirit gave them to utter. Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven; and when this sound was made, the multitude came together and was confounded in mind, because each one of them heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and marveled, saying to one another: Are not all these who speak Galileans? And how have we heard, each one, the language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and those who dwell in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and the Romans here as visitors, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs we hear them speaking in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another: What does this mean? But others mocked them, saying: They are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven disciples, lifted up his voice and spoke, saying: Men of Judea, and all you who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you (Acts 2:1-14) and the rest, by which he exhorted them to faith.

And when he had finished this, Scripture follows, narrating thus: When they had heard these things, they were pricked in heart, and said to Peter and to the apostles: What shall we do, brothers? Show us. And Peter said to them: Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to us and to our children and to all who are far off, whomever the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words he testified to them, saying: Be saved from this crooked generation. And they who received this word believed it and were baptized, and there were added in that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:37-41). Behold how it began from Jerusalem, the Church going thence through all tongues which was also foreshadowed in those who, established there, having received the Holy Spirit, spoke in all tongues.

11. 30. Now let us see how it went among the other nations which Peter too had foretold when he said, The promise is to us and to our children and to all who are far off, whomever the Lord our God shall call (Acts 2:39). For there are narrated, consequently, the things that were then done at Jerusalem, up to the Passion of the deacon Stephen, where Saul too is recalled as consenting to his killing. When this is finished, it is then narrated thus: Now there arose on that day a great persecution against the Church that was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles, who remained at Jerusalem (Acts 8:1). See how there is fulfilled, step by step, what the Lord had said in order: You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth (Acts 1:8). Already it had been done in Jerusalem; there followed Judea and Samaria, because those men were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. For this is at once said of them: But they who had been scattered went about through the cities and villages preaching the word of God (Acts 8:4). But because the apostles too had gone, having heard that Samaria had received the word of God when, by the laying on of their hands, the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit it is said thus of Peter and John: But Peter and John, having testified the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and as they passed through they preached the Gospel in many villages of the Samaritans (Acts 8:25).

Then it is narrated concerning that eunuch who, returning from Jerusalem, was baptized by Philip; and of Philip himself it is said: But the angel of the Lord caught Philip away from him, and the eunuch saw him no more; but he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found to have come to Azotus, and going about from there he preached the Gospel through all the cities until he came to Caesarea (Acts 8:39-40). So, then, the Gospel is found to have been preached through the cities of Judea and Samaria as well. It remained, therefore, that it should be preached, in order, among all nations also (Luke 24:46), as the Lord had said, unto the whole earth (Acts 1:8).

Saul, then, is called from heaven, becomes a preacher instead of a persecutor, and the Lord says of him to Ananias: Go, for he is a chosen vessel to me, to bear my name before the nations and kings and the children of Israel to be magnified; for I will show him how much he must suffer for my name (Acts 9:15-16).

So now we hold the Church in Jerusalem and throughout all Judea and Samaria, whence it is most plainly said a little after: The churches throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being built up and confirmed in the fear of the Lord, and were filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31).

Then, after a few things intervene, we come to that place where the centurion Cornelius believed and, with his household, was baptized all of whom were uncircumcised gentiles. Before this happened, Peter saw, in a trance of mind while he was praying, heaven opened and a certain vessel bound at four corners, like a clear sheet, in which were every kind of four-footed beasts and wild animals and birds of the air. And there came a voice: "Peter, rise, kill, and eat." But Peter said: "Lord, I have never eaten anything common and unclean." And again the voice came to him: "What God has cleansed, do not you call common" (Acts 10:11-15). But that by this vision the nations who were to believe were signified, there is no need for us to conjecture; for the apostle himself expounds what was shown to him in that vessel. For when he had entered the house where Cornelius was, and many had come together, he said to them: You know better how it is an abomination for a Jewish man to associate with or to approach a foreigner; but God has shown me to call no man common or unclean (Acts 10:28). Thus he expounded that voice which he had heard concerning the animals shown in that sheet: What God has cleansed, do not you call common (Acts 10:15). Now to whom is it not evident that by that vessel the whole world with all its nations was signified? Whence too it was bound at four corners, because of the well-known four quarters of the world the East and the West, the South and the North which Scripture very often commends.

But now to recall what places Paul, sent to the nations, went about, sowing the word of God and confirming the churches that were born, would be long. When the Jews had resisted him at Antioch, he and Barnabas said to them: It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you; but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the nations. For thus the Lord has commanded us: I have set you for a light of the nations, that you may be for salvation unto the end of the earth (Acts 13:46-47; Isa 49:6). And it follows, saying: And when the nations heard this, they received the word of God, and as many believed as were appointed to eternal life (Acts 13:48). Behold, here too there is recalled a testimony from the prophet Isaiah which we too have set down that there might be salvation unto the end of the earth.

12. 31. So then, not to recall the nations that believed and joined the Church after the times of the apostles, let those very churches alone which we find in the holy writings, in the Acts and in the Letters of the Apostles and in the Apocalypse of John, which both of us embrace and to which both of us submit let these tell us how they perished through an African sedition. For we have received these not from councils of contending bishops, not from disputations, not from the records of law courts or municipalities, but from the holy canonical writings. The church of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians (See Acts 11:26) how could it perish by the crimes of Africans? What southwest wind, however violent, could scatter so far away a pestilence carried off from a place where not even the names of those through whom, or about whom, this evil arose could be known at Athens, Iconium, Lystra? Who has destroyed the churches founded by apostolic labor? In the last part of the Letter to the Romans the same Apostle, the teacher of the nations, says: But I have written to you somewhat boldly in part, as reminding you, because of the grace given to me by God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus among the nations, consecrating the Gospel of God, that the offering of the nations may be acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit. I have therefore glory in Christ Jesus before God; for I do not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought through me for the obedience of the nations, by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fulfilled the Gospel of Christ (Rom 15:15-19). Seek, Donatists, if you do not know, seek from Jerusalem by the roads of the earth, round about as far as Illyricum, how many stopping-places there are: if we count up so many churches, tell us how they could perish through African quarrels.

To the Corinthians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Thessalonians, to the Colossians you retain only the letters of the Apostle in your reading, but we retain both the letters in reading and faith, and the churches themselves in communion. And now Galatia is not one church, but in that region there are countless churches.

But see how he greeted the Corinthians: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy the brother, to the Church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia (2 Cor 1:1). How many churches do you think there are in the whole of Achaia? Perhaps you do not even know where Achaia is, and of a province so unknown you judge with such blindness that you say it has perished by the crimes of Africans.

Are not all the places that Peter names full of most flourishing churches Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (See 1 Pet 1:1)? What of this?

Those to whom John wrote Smyrna, Pergamum, Sardis, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Laodicea, which are churches (See Rev 1:11) for we have already mentioned Ephesus let some one of you tell me where they are, how far apart they are from one another.

Perhaps you are only now seeking to learn this by reading or hearing. Learn, then, also how far they are removed from Africa, and tell us why you accuse, with such sacrilegious rashness, churches utterly unknown to you and made manifest in the apostolic writings, and why with such madness you say they have perished by the crimes of Africans. Finally, what is written of them in the holy canonical books I know; what you say of them I do not know. Surely, just as we read them to be churches of Christ from the books that you too venerate, so do you, from the books that we too venerate, read to us how they have perished. Or does it please you that, against churches which are members of the one Church spread throughout the whole world, which the Holy Spirit has commended and handed down to us through his Scriptures, we should believe whatever slanders of men, produced from wherever? This indeed pleases you, but it does not please us.

But what may more justly please you too see; yet, overcome by animosity, you are unwilling to be overcome by the truth.

Behold, there are the Scriptures of God; behold, in them are the churches, both designated and expressed by the universal name of the whole world and by name.

What your forefathers charged against their colleagues, they did not know; what judges that case had, they did not know: how, then, did they perish? Behold, there are the Scriptures that I believe; behold, there are the churches with which I am in communion: where you read me their names, there read me their crimes.

12. 32. But if you cry out or recite from elsewhere, we do not admit, do not believe, do not accept your voice after the voice of our shepherd, declared to us most plainly through the mouths of the prophets, through his own mouth, through the mouths of the Evangelists. My sheep, says the heavenly shepherd, hear my voice and follow me (John 10:27). His voice concerning the Church is not obscure. Whoever does not want to wander from his flock, let him hear this voice, let him follow it.

His most faithful steward (See Luke 12:42), the teacher of the nations in faith and truth (1 Tim 2:7), because Christ himself spoke in him, says this: I marvel that you are so quickly turned away from him who called you in the grace of Christ to another gospel, which is not another; only there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so now I say again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema (Gal 1:6-9).

The Church to come throughout the whole world was preached to us. That this was foretold in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, the Lord himself testified, who foretold that it would begin from Jerusalem and pass through all nations, and who, as he was now ascending into heaven, foretold that there would be witnesses to him in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth. The deeds followed these words: how it began from Jerusalem and then proceeded into Judea and Samaria and thence into the whole earth, where the Church still grows, until at the end it obtains the remaining nations too, where it is not yet, this is consequently shown, with the holy Scriptures as witnesses. Whoever preaches anything else, let him be anathema.

13. 32. But he preaches something else who says that the Church has perished from the rest of the world and has remained, in the party of Donatus, in Africa alone. Let him therefore be anathema or let him read this to me in the holy Scriptures, and let him not be anathema.

13. 33. "I do read it," he says. "For Enoch alone among all men pleased God and was translated (See Gen 5:24), and afterward, when the whole world was destroyed by the flood of waters, Noah alone, with his wife and sons and daughters-in-law, merited to be delivered in the ark (See Gen 7:1)."

They add also the case of Lot, that he alone with his daughters was delivered from Sodom (See Gen 19:12); and of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob themselves, that those who pleased God in a land given over to idols and demons were few. Finally, when the people of Israel had now been multiplied, in the times of the kings, in the land of promise that had been distributed to all twelve tribes, they recall that ten tribes were divided off and handed over to Solomon's servant, while two remained to Solomon's son, for the kingdom that was Jerusalem (See 1 Kgs 11:11-13). "So now too," they say, "the whole world has apostatized, but we, like those two tribes, have remained in the temple of God, that is, in the Church. The Lord Jesus Christ too, when very many disciples followed him, when the seventy-two apostatized, was left with only the twelve."

By these and similar examples the heretics try to commend their fewness, and they do not cease to blaspheme the multitude of the saints of the Church spread throughout the whole world. But I ask them: if which God forbid I were unwilling to believe that those very examples they recall are true, how would they convince me?

Surely from the holy Scriptures, where they are read with such manifestness that whoever receives those writings in faith cannot but confess these things too to be most true? Furthermore, if I were compelled to believe these examples true because they are written there, where I cannot say that what is written is false why do they themselves not also believe, from those same Scriptures, in the Church spread throughout the whole world?

Behold, we believe all those things. Let them too believe what the Lord says: that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47); let them believe what, as he was about to ascend into heaven, he said last: You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth (Acts 1:8).

Let both those and these be believed to be true, and no contention will remain between us, because neither are these hindered by those being true, nor those by these being true. "We too," they say, "believe these things and confess that they have been fulfilled; but afterward the whole world apostatized, and the communion of Donatus alone remained."

Let them read this to us, as they read of Enoch, of Noah, and of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and of those two tribes that remained when the ten were separated off, and of the twelve apostles who remained when the rest apostatized. Let them read this in like manner, and we offer no resistance. But if they do not read these things from the holy Scriptures, but try to persuade us of them by their own contentions I believe those things that are read in the holy Scriptures; I do not believe these things that are said by vain heretics.

But since they think themselves to be compared to those two tribes that remained with Solomon's son, let them read and they will regret having made this choice. For those two peoples are recalled in the Scriptures in this way: the part that was at Jerusalem is named Judah, but that other part, which was separated off with Solomon's servant in a larger number, is called Israel (See 1 Kgs 12:20).

Let them read what the prophets say of both how they call Judah worse than Israel, so that they call apostate Israel justified by the sins of transgressing Judah (See Jer 3:11), that is, that the sins of the latter are so grave that, in comparison with them, the former must be called just. Yet neither the sins of the latter nor of the former harmed in any way the righteous who are found to have been both here and there. For even in that part which they set forth as an example of perdition, that is, in Israel, there were holy prophets. There was that memorable Elijah, to say nothing of others, to whom it was even said: I have left myself seven thousand men who have not bowed their knees before Baal (1 Kgs 19:18). Therefore that part of the people is by no means to be reckoned as having been a heresy. For God had commanded those tribes to be separated not that religion, but that the kingdom should be divided, and that in this way it should be punished in the kingdom of Judah. But God never commands a schism or a heresy to be made. For not because in the world too kingdoms are often divided is Christian unity therefore divided, since in either part the Catholic Church is found.

13. 34. I have thought this concerning Judah and Israel must be recalled chiefly so that these men may be warned that whatever is said against those very peoples, on account of the multitude of the impious, does not harm the righteous set in the midst of the impious so that they may cease to gather testimonies, whatever ones are found said, whether through the prophets or through the mouth of the Lord or through the Evangelists, against the tares or the chaff of the whole world.

For very often the divine word so reproves the impious throngs of the Church which are not reckoned to be in the Church, yet on account of the mysteries which they have in common with the saints, because there is in them a certain form of piety whose power they deny, as the Apostle says, Having a form of piety but denying its power (2 Tim 3:5) it so reproves them, I say, as though all were such and no good person at all remained. For from this we are warned that they are all said to be, in a certain reckoning of theirs that is, all the children of hell to which God foreknew them to belong.

These men, then, acting either ignorantly or deceitfully, gather from the Scriptures such things as are found said either against the wicked mingled with the good until the end, or concerning the devastation of the former people of the Jews, and they want to wrench them against the Church of God, so that it may seem to have failed and perished from the whole world.

Let them therefore cease to bring forward such things, if they wish to reply to this letter. For we do not so say that the Church is spread throughout the whole world as to say that within its mysteries there are only good people and not bad ones too and these far more numerous, so that in comparison with them the good are few, though by themselves they make up a vast number.

14. 35. We have countless testimonies both concerning the mingling of bad with good in the same communion of the mystery as Judas, bad from the beginning, lived among the eleven good men and concerning the fewness of the good by comparison with the greater number of the bad, and again concerning the multitude of the good when considered in itself.

Of these, not to be long, I recall a few. There is in the Song of Songs what every Christian acknowledges to be said of the holy Church: As a lily among thorns, so is my neighbor among the daughters (Song 2:2). Why does it call them thorns except because of the wickedness of their ways, and why does it call those same ones daughters except because of the communion of the mysteries? Ezekiel too sees certain ones marked, lest they perish together with the bad, of whom it is said to him: Those who groan and mourn over the sins and iniquities of my people that are done in their midst (Ezek 9:4). He would not call his people those whom he soon commands to perish, with only those untouched ones spared, unless it were that people which bore his mysteries. The Lord too says concerning the tares sown over: Let both grow until the harvest (Matt 13:30), that is, the wheat and the tares; and he himself interprets the harvest to be the end of the world, and the field, where both were sown, to be the world. It is necessary, therefore, that both grow throughout the world until the end of the world. Whence these men are no longer permitted to suspect or to assert what they say, that all the good have failed from the world, so that they alone remained in the party of Donatus. For they try to speak against the most plain statement of the Lord, who says: The field is the world, and: Let both grow until the harvest, and: The harvest is the end of the world (Matt 13:38, 30, 39).

There is also another most plain similitude concerning the mingling of good and bad within the same communion and connection of the mysteries, which the Lord himself both sets down and expounds: The kingdom of heaven, he says, is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers fish of every kind; and when it was full, they drew it to the shore and, sitting down, chose the good into their vessels, but threw the bad away. So shall it be at the consummation of the world: the angels shall go forth and shall separate the bad from the midst of the just and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 13:47-50). No mingling of the bad, therefore, should so terrify the good that they want, as it were, to break the nets and to go out from the gathering of unity, lest they suffer in the fellowship of the mysteries men who do not belong to the kingdom of heaven seeing that, when the shore that is, the end of the world is reached, the due separation will be made not by human rashness, but by divine judgment.

14. 36. But concerning the fewness of the good the Lord himself says most plainly: Enter through the narrow gate. How broad and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and many are they who go by it; how narrow the gate and confined the way that leads to life, and few are they who enter by it (Matt 7:13-14). The Donatists think themselves to be these few, and therefore they say that the world has perished and that they themselves have remained in this fewness which the Lord praised.

And when these are compared with them, we set against them the far fewer Rogatists or Maximianists who separated themselves from them if they think they ought to glory in fewness. Nevertheless, that this fewness was commended by the Lord in comparison with the multitude of the bad, while the Scriptures did not pass over in silence the multitude of the good when it is considered in itself let them read and see how many more testimonies are found.

For why is the very seed of Abraham promised as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea (See Gen 15:5; 22:17) except because of an innumerable multitude,

since the Apostle says it was said for this reason: In Isaac shall your seed be called, because not the children of the flesh, but the children of the promise are reckoned as the seed (Rom 9:7-8)? Whence: Many are the children of the desolate woman, more than of her who has a husband (Isa 54:1)? Whence: Many shall come from the East and the West and shall recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall go into outer darkness (Matt 8:11-12), that is, the impious Jews?

Whence does the Apostle say: That he might cleanse for himself, he says, an abounding people, zealous of good works (Titus 2:14)? Whence does the Apocalypse say that there are thousands of thousands of the holy children of the Church (See Rev 5:11)? Behold, the very ones who are called many are also called few. Why, except that they are many considered in themselves, but few in comparison with the wicked?

15. 37. "Of us," they say, "it was said: They shall be first who were last (Matt 20:16). For the Gospel came to Africa afterward, and therefore nowhere in the apostolic writings is it written that Africa believed. But of the easterners and the other nations, which are recalled in the holy books as having received the Christian faith, it was said: They shall be last who were first, because they were going to fall away from the faith."

Is this not the cunning of the heretics that must be guarded against, of those who want to turn the words of God from the truth for which they were spoken to the perversity in which they themselves are? For why do we not rather understand this of the Jews, who were made last when they had been first, and of the Christians from the nations, who were made first when they had been last? And if I could not prove this understanding by some more certain document, it ought to have sufficed for a hearer judging well that I have found a way out in these words, by which it appears that these men have brought forward nothing for themselves as certain and beyond doubt; because, even if there were no Jews and nations of whom I might understand this said, some barbarian nations believed even after Africa, whence it is certain that Africa is not last in the order of believing.

To this is added that the Lord himself expounded of whom he had said this and stopped the mouths of slanderers. For speaking to the Jews, who would say to him, You taught in our streets, he says: When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves cast out. And they shall come from the East and the West and the North and the South, and shall recline in the kingdom of God. And behold, there are last who shall be first, and there are first who shall be last (Luke 13:26, 28-30). Here surely no contradiction is found.

15. 38. Likewise they say that what the Lord said was spoken concerning the apostasy of the whole world: When the Son of man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8) This we understand to be said either because of the very perfection of faith, which is so difficult among men that even in those admirable saints, such as Moses himself, something is found where they trembled, or could have trembled; or because of that abundance of the wicked and fewness of the good, of which we have said enough. For this reason the Lord said this as though doubting. For he did not say, "When the Son of man comes he will not find faith on the earth," but, Do you think he will find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8)

For him, surely, who knows and foreknows all things, to doubt about anything is unfitting; but his doubting figured our doubting, because, on account of the many scandals springing up around the end of the world, this was what human weakness was at some point going to say. Whence it is said in the Psalms: My soul has slumbered for weariness; strengthen me in your words (Ps 119:28 (118:28)). Why, My soul has slumbered for weariness, except because of what the Lord says: Because iniquity has abounded, the love of many shall grow cold (Matt 24:12)? And why, Strengthen me in your words, except because of what follows: But he who perseveres to the end, he shall be saved (Matt 24:13)?

There are, then, throughout the whole world those in whom, because iniquity abounds, the love of many shall grow cold; and there are again, throughout the whole world, those who, persevering to the end, shall be saved, because, he says, Let both grow until the harvest, and: The harvest is the end of the world, and the field is the world (Matt 13:30, 38-39). Of this human weakness is that voice too: Save me, O Lord, for the holy one has failed, for truths are diminished from among the children of men (Ps 12:2 (11:2)). And yet among these there is one heart and one soul toward God of the faithful, crying out: Save me, O Lord. For because this one man who says Save me, O Lord is one in such a way that he consists of many, a little after, in the same psalm, it is said: Because of the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor, now I will arise, says the Lord (Ps 12:6 (11:6)).

And again, a little after, it is said in the plural: But you, Lord, will preserve us and will keep us from this generation and forever (Ps 12:8 (11:8)). From what generation, except that of which it was said above, The holy one has failed and truths are diminished from among the children of men (Ps 12:2 (11:2))? But both these kinds exist throughout the whole world until the end, because, he says, Let both grow until the harvest, and: The field is the world, the harvest the end of the world (Matt 13:30, 38-39). For that one man himself, which is the body of Christ consisting of many, shall, like Enoch pleasing God, be translated, and, like Lot from Sodom and like Noah from the flood, be delivered (See Gen 5:24; 7:1; 19:12).

In him is the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor, because his soul slumbers from weariness when it asks to be strengthened in the words of God. And in that Psalm he says whence that weariness comes: Weariness, he says, has held me, because of the sinners who forsake your law (Ps 119:53 (118:53)). He likewise cries out when his heart is straitened with the same weariness; but let them see from where he cries out: From the ends of the earth, he says, I have cried out to you, while my heart was straitened (Ps 61:3 (60:3)). He truly suffers persecution for the sake of righteousness, not only if he suffers bodily torments for this is not always the case but in that he always, as long as iniquity passes by, suffers the torments, namely, of his heart, when weariness holds him because of the sinners who forsake the law of God.

For Lot too suffered no small persecution in Sodom, where nevertheless, as he dwelt there, no one troubled him with bodily punishments, but that righteous man, dwelling among them, day after day tormented his righteous soul by sight and hearing at the wicked deeds of others (2 Pet 2:8). Of this the Apostle says: But all who want to live devoutly in Christ shall suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12). But of those who forsake the law of God—of whom that same body of Christ says, I saw the senseless and I pined away—he says: But the wicked, he says, and seducers shall go from bad to worse, themselves erring and leading others into error (2 Tim 3:13). But both these kinds exist throughout the whole world until the end, because, he says, Let both grow until the harvest: the field is the world, the harvest the end of the world (Matt 13:30, 38-39).

15. 39. Nevertheless, I marvel that these men do not attend to what they say, when, as if in their own favor, they recall what the Lord says: When the Son of man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8) as though Africa were not earth. For if he said this as though he would find faith in no one at all, then either he said it of some particular land, and it is uncertain of which he said it, or he said it of the whole earth and they do not find how he did not say it of Africa. Indeed, let them see whether perhaps by the words that follow he touched upon such men as these are.

For when he had said, Do you think the Son of man will find faith on the earth? I believe that there could rise into the heart of certain proud heretics, who in some part of the lands have separated themselves from the unity of the world, a vain and inflated thought that they themselves were the righteous, while the rest of the nations through which the communion of the Church is extended were failing and perishing from the faith; and so the Evangelist at once followed: And he also told, he says, to certain ones who thought themselves righteous and despised the rest, this parable (Luke 18:9) and there follows the account of those two praying in the temple, the Pharisee and the publican, in which two are figured the proud boasting of good works and the humble confession of sins.

Let these men, then, cease if they prepare to reply to this letter to recall those testimonies which we cry out along with them, whether against the perdition of the Jews or against the tares, or the chaff, or the bad fish of the whole world; and, just as we have asserted by the most manifest testimonies that the Church is spread throughout the whole world, so let them too bring forward something manifest by which they may show that it was foretold that, when the rest of the nations perished from the faith of Christ, Africa alone would remain along with wherever bishops were sent from Africa.

16. 40. "It is written," they say, "in the Song of Songs, with the bride that is, the Church saying to the bridegroom: Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, where you lie down at midday (Song 1:7)."

This is the one testimony that these men suppose resounds in their favor, on the ground that Africa is set in the southern part of the world. From this I ask first how the Church questions Christ, that he should tell her where the Church is; for there are not two churches, but one. Or let them themselves show since they do not deny that these words are spoken by the Church to Christ which is the Church that asks, and which the Church about which it asks. For she asks where she may come to her bridegroom, and says to him: Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, where you lie down at midday.

Now it is the Church that speaks and asks where the Church is at midday. For she does not ask, Where do you pasture, where do you lie down, and have it answered to her, At midday, as though the bridegroom answered, At midday I pasture, at midday I lie down; but all these words belong to the question: Where do you pasture, where do you lie down at midday? For she still says: Lest perhaps I become as one veiled over the flocks of your companions (Song 1:7). And now he answers: Unless you know yourself, O fairest among women (Song 1:8) and the rest.

By these words, then, it is not shown that the Church is in the southern part alone, but that it is set also in the other parts of the world. She asks, perhaps, what pertains to her communion at midday, that is, where her bridegroom pastures and lies down at midday, because he pastures his own and lies down among his own. For certain of his members that is, good faithful come from the lands across the sea into Africa and, when they have heard that the party of Donatus is here, fearing lest they fall into the hands of some rebaptizer, they call upon Christ, praying and saying: Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, where you lie down at midday that is, who are the midday where you pasture and lie down, that is, who have love and do not divide unity.

And see what she adds: Lest perhaps I become as one veiled over the flocks of your companions that is, lest perhaps, as one hidden and unknown and unrevealed for this is what "veiled" means I become not over your flock, but over the flocks of your companions, who, when they were at first with you, wanted to gather outside not your flock, but their own flocks, and did not hear you saying, He who does not gather with me scatters (Matt 12:30); nor what you said to Peter, Feed my sheep (John 21:17), not "your sheep."

But she is not veiled, because she is not under a bushel but upon a lampstand, that she may give light to all who are in the house (See Matt 5:15)—and of her it was said, A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden (Matt 5:14)—but to the Donatists she is, as it were, veiled, who hear such bright and manifest testimonies, which show her throughout the whole world, and prefer with closed eyes to strike against the mountain rather than to ascend it the mountain which, when it was a stone cut from the mountain without hands, grew and became a great mountain and filled the whole earth (See Dan 2:34-35).

16. 41. Where you pasture, where you lie down at midday can also be understood in another way. For it is his voice in the Psalms, in the person of Moses the servant of God: Make known to me your right hand, and those instructed in heart in wisdom (Ps 90:12 (89:12)); for in these "midday" is so called because of the immense light of wisdom and the immense ardor of love. Whence, when the Spirit of God was exhorting a certain one to good works through the prophet, he promises him this too: And your darkness shall be as the midday (Isa 58:10).

But if some place in the world were to be understood by what was said, "at midday," nevertheless the very words, as I have said, which all make up one question, would in no way permit anyone to wrench this sentence to his own meaning; and if, as to one asking where he pastured and where he lay down, it were answered concerning an earthly place, At midday, we ought not at once to take it as Africa. For Africa is indeed in the southern part of the world, but toward the southwest, not toward the due south, where midday truly is.

For there the sun makes the middle of the day, and under that region of the sky Egypt is rather found. If, then, the bridegroom, asked by the bride as about a place fondly loved and as about some secret chamber of his own, were to answer that he is at midday, the Catholic Church would much more probably recognize this in those members of hers which are in Egypt, in the thousands of the servants of God who live through the desert in holy fellowship, striving to keep the perfection of the evangelical precept where it is said: Do you wish to be perfect? Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me (Matt 19:21).

For how much better might the Son of God be said to pasture there and to lie down that is, to rest more secretly, than amid the restless throngs of the raving Circumcellions, an evil that is proper to Africa!

For Isaiah prophesies of Egypt thus: In that day there shall be an altar of the Lord in the region of the Egyptians, and a pillar at their borders to the Lord, and it shall be for a sign forever to the Lord in the region of the Egyptians, for they shall cry out to the Lord against those who oppress them, and the Lord shall send them a man who shall save them; judging, he shall preserve them.

And the Lord shall be known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians shall fear the Lord in that day, and they shall offer sacrifices and shall promise vows to the Lord and shall fulfill them. And the Lord shall smite the Egyptians with a plague and shall heal them in his mercy, and they shall be turned to the Lord, and he shall hear them and shall heal them (Isa 19:19-22).

What do they say to these things? Why are they not in communion with the Church of the Egyptians that was foretold? Or if, by a prophetic prefiguration, Egypt signifies the world, why are they not in communion with the Church of the whole world?

16. 42. Accordingly, let them search the Scriptures and, against so many testimonies by which the Church of Christ is shown to be spread throughout the whole world, let them bring forward even one as certain and as manifest as those are, by which they may demonstrate that the Church of Christ has perished from the rest of the nations and has remained in Africa alone as though from another beginning, not from Jerusalem but from Carthage, where they first raised up a bishop against a bishop.

But if we should wish to understand Donatus as the prince of Tyre because Carthage is surnamed Tyrian what are the things prophesied against him through Ezekiel? Where he most especially designates him by what is said to him: I will show you that you are a man and not God (Ezek 28:2). For these men glory in his name more than in God's, and although God alone is without sin, and that priest who intercedes for us (See Rom 8:34) for of him too it is said, Who is over all things, God blessed forever (Rom 9:5) these imitators of Donatus want to seem so without sin that they even assert themselves to be justifiers of men, and that their oil is not the oil of a sinner (See Ps 141:5 (140:5)). Rightly is it said to the prince of Tyre: You said: I am God, but you are a man and not God (Ezek 28:9), to whom it is also said: Are you better than Daniel? (Ezek 28:3) For Daniel confesses his own sins and the sins of his people (See Dan 9:20), but these men, belonging to the prince of Tyre, say that they are heard when they pray for the sins of the people, because they themselves are without sin. Rightly is it said to the prince of Tyre: Are you better than Daniel? (Ezek 28:3) Behold, we can find something proper, namely, that this greatest evil arose from the head of Africa, that is, from Carthage for men know how fittingly Tyre is taken for Carthage and yet we do not deal with such things. For perhaps Tyre may signify something else: how much more "midday," since the very words too compel us to another understanding!

16. 43. But that they are not permitted even to seek anything by which they may prove that it was foretold that, when the rest of the nations fell away from the Christian faith, the Church would remain in Africa alone let them attend to what I have often recalled: that both grow until the harvest, and that the field is the world, the harvest the end of the world (See Matt 13:30, 38-39) not we, but the Lord himself interpreting his own parable.

There is also another most evident thing that would take away from them altogether the labor of seeking proof that the Church, the world being lost, was reduced to the Africans alone. For a thing can exist and not be found. But to not exist and yet be found is impossible. Let them therefore cease to seek what they will not be able to find not because it is hidden, but because it does not exist. For there are still some nations among whom the Gospel has not yet been preached; and it is necessary that all things foretold of Christ and the Church be fulfilled. It must therefore be preached among these too; and when this is fulfilled, then will be the end.

17. 43. How, then, do these men say that what the Lord said is already fulfilled that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47) but that afterward, when the rest fell away, Africa alone remained to Christ, when this is still to be fulfilled and is not yet fulfilled? But when it shall have been fulfilled, the end will come. For thus the Lord says: And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then the end shall come (Matt 24:14). How, then, when the faith of all nations had been fulfilled, did the perdition of the nations, Africa excepted, then follow seeing that the very faith of all nations is not yet fulfilled?

17. 44. Unless perhaps this remains for the insanity of men to say: that the preaching of the Gospel among all nations is fulfilled not from those churches which were founded by the labors of the apostles, but that, those having perished, their restoration is to come from Africa, through the party of Donatus, and likewise the acquisition of the remaining nations.

I think that they themselves laugh when they hear this; and yet, unless they say this which they blush to say they have absolutely nothing to say. But what is that to us? We begrudge no one.

Let them read this to us from the holy Scriptures, and we believe; let them read this to us, I say, from the canon of the divine books: that so many cities, which to this day have held the baptism handed down to them by the apostles, have perished from the faith of Christ because of crimes of Africans unknown to them, and must be baptized anew by the party of Donatus, and that thereafter the Gospel must be preached to the rest of the nations who have not yet heard it. Let them read this to us why do they delay, why do they shuffle, why do they hinder the salvation of the nations? Let them read this, and along with the reading let them send out new apostles to so many nations to be rebaptized and to the remaining ones to be baptized.

17. 45. But plainly let them see, when they come to the Colossians, how there they may read or hear the Letter given to them, where the Apostle says to them: We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always praying for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have toward all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it is among you too, from the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth (Col 1:3-6).

For these words agree with the Gospel, where it was said: The kingdom of heaven is like a man sowing good seed in his field (Matt 13:24), and afterward the field is expounded to be this world. For just as this, from the time it was sown, was foretold to grow until the harvest, so the Apostle too says: In all the world bearing fruit and growing, as it is among you too, from the day you heard (Col 1:6). And it grows until the end, because until the harvest; for the harvest is the end of the world (Matt 13:39). So, then, not only the Colossians to whom it was given, but all the rest too among whom this letter is read where, by the apostolic writings, it is established that the good seed was sown and even then began to grow and bear fruit will say: "What new thing do you bring us? Is the good seed to be sown again, when, from the time it was sown, it grows until the harvest?"

If you say that what had been sown by the apostles perished in those places, and therefore must be sown again from Africa, it will be answered: "Read this to us from the divine oracles." And this you surely cannot read, unless you first show that what is written is false namely, that the seed sown there before grows until the harvest (See Matt 13:30). And because the divine words in no way contradict themselves, you will in no way find in them anything you might recite against this so manifest a statement. It remains, therefore, that you say these things not from the divine books, but from yourselves. Accordingly, it will most fittingly be answered: "Be anathema!" For the churches founded by apostolic labor hold fast, since it was foretold to them with so great care: If anyone preaches to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema (Gal 1:9).

18. 46. Since, then, in the holy Scriptures the Church is manifestly known as beginning from Jerusalem and growing through the other nations, until it occupies them all unto the end of the world, and since not the wheat only but also its refuse is mentioned be first corrected, hold communion with the wheat, and then you will see what you ought to call the tares or chaff among it. Otherwise you are driven, by a detestable error, both to adorn the bad with the praises of the good, and to accuse the good with the crimes of the bad.

Indeed we carry in our hands documents by which we prove that your forefathers whose schism you follow both handed over the holy books to the flames, by municipal records, and could not deny it, by ecclesiastical records; and that those same men were among the judges who, at Carthage, passed sentences against Caecilian and his colleagues in their absence. Indeed, the same men are read in both the municipal and the ecclesiastical records as betrayers, who are afterward brought forward by you as condemners of absent betrayers. Indeed, Nundinarius, a deacon of yours at that time, before the consular Zenophilus laid open all the dealings of Lucilla, who bought the condemnation of Caecilian from bishops who had become his enemy because he preached the truth. Indeed, these men afterward gave letters to the emperor Constantine, and when arbiters bishops had been given them by him, as they had asked, they did not consent to them, and afterward accused those same men before him as unjust judges, and from others given them at Arles appealed to the emperor himself; and when he himself heard the parties, they were found to be slanderers and condemned, yet remained in the same obstinacy of fury.

Indeed, you yourselves who say that Christian holiness has been utterly destroyed from so many nations, in which the apostles left it most firmly founded, because they remained in communion with those whom your forefathers had condemned in a council of seventy bishops at Carthage do you not now hold communion with those whom you, with Maximian, condemned in the council of three hundred and ten at Bagai? Is not Praetextatus of Assuras read both as condemned in that very council, and as accused and assailed by you in the proconsular records, and yet received into the honor in which he had been condemned, and as having died in your communion? Did not Felician of Musti, in the same way, in the same case, condemned by bishops in the same council, accused before judges, afterward received by you, now live with you as a bishop?

Do not those who were baptized by these condemned men now hold communion with you in that same baptism? But, forsooth, if so many churches across the sea, founded by apostolic labor, share the mysteries with those whom they themselves neither condemned, as accused before them, and afterward heard to be cleared and absolved by others they lose salvation and the Christian religion;

but the party of Donatus both condemns whomever it wishes, and in the very condemnation so exaggerates the sacrileges of their schism that it does not hesitate to compare them to those whom the earth swallowed up alive, and again, when it wishes, holds communion with those same men received back into the same honor, and perseveres holy and whole.

O rule of Numidian law, O privileges of Bagai! And the baptism of Christ is blown away in those who received it in the apostolic churches, but in those whom "the condemned sacrileges" as it is written in the council of Bagai Praetextatus and Felician baptized, the baptism of Christ is spared not because it is the baptism of Christ, but because it was given through those who, condemned by their own condemners, merited to withdraw as bishops and to return as bishops to their own condemners.

18. 47. Indeed, all these things, which I have long been recalling, we recite as done, by royal letters and by ecclesiastical and municipal and proconsular records. Nevertheless, O Donatists, if you held the Church spread throughout the whole world, which has been marked out and expressed by the most manifest testimonies of the canonical Scriptures, all these things ought to avail nothing against you; for neither would the crimes of the chaff prejudge against you, if you were the wheat in it, nor, if you were chaff and the crimes were yours, would you prejudge anything against the wheat of the Lord's crop which has been so sown in the field of the Lord that it grows until the harvest, that is, so sown in the world that it grows until the end of the world. In that way, then, if perchance which you have never yet proven to us you held such documents against our chaff, while we did not have against you the many things I have recalled even so it would in no way prejudge against our wheat, spread throughout the whole world, whatever you might say against its chaff, however true, however manifest, however well proven.

Accordingly, let all delaying evasions be removed. Whatever is charged falsely concerning the sins of men, let the conscience be addressed and let it not be charged; whatever is charged truly concerning the sins of men, and either cannot be proven, or, when it ought to have been proven, could not be, let it not be charged; whatever is charged concerning the sins of men, both true and proven, yet pertains not to the wheat that lies hidden among the chaff, but to the chaff itself, which will be separated at the end, let it not be charged. For these things we too can charge much more abundantly and probably not with that emptiness with which they do, so as to set our case in them, but so as to show them that we are unwilling to trust such things not because we do not find such things to say, but lest we waste in unnecessary matters the time useful for necessary ones.

And this they do for this reason: because they cannot find documents supported by a strong and firm truth by which to defend their cause, and they want to seem to say something, while they are ashamed to be silent and are not ashamed to speak empty things. Let them, then, with all such things removed, demonstrate their Church, if they can not in the talk and rumors of Africans, not in the councils of their own bishops, not in the writings of any disputants whatever, not in deceitful signs and wonders, since against these too we have been made prepared and cautious by the word of the Lord but in the prescription of the Law, in the predictions of the Prophets, in the songs of the Psalms, in the voices of the one shepherd himself, in the preachings and labors of the Evangelists that is, in all the canonical authorities of the holy books and not in such a way that they gather and recall what is said obscurely or ambiguously or figuratively, which each one interprets as he wishes according to his own understanding. For such things cannot be rightly understood and expounded unless first those that are said most plainly are held with firm faith.

18. 48. Whoever, then, prepares to reply to this letter, I declare beforehand: let him not say to me, "They handed over the Lord's books to the flames, they sacrificed to the images of the nations, they made a most unjust persecution against us, and you consented to them in all things." For I answer briefly what I have often answered: "Either you speak falsely, or, if they are true, these things you say pertain not to the wheat of Christ, but to its chaff."

The Church does not perish thereby, for at the last judgment it shall be winnowed and purified by the separation of all such men. I seek the Church itself, where it is which, hearing the words of Christ and doing them, builds upon the rock (See Matt 7:24-27), and, by hearing and doing, tolerates those who, hearing and not doing, build upon the sand; where the wheat is that grows among the tares until the harvest, not what the tares themselves have done or do; where the neighbor of Christ is among bad daughters, as a lily among thorns (See Song 2:2), not what the thorns themselves have done or do; where the good fish are which, until they reach the shore, tolerate the bad fish caught together with them (See Matt 13:47-48), not what the bad fish themselves have done or do.

19. 49. Setting aside, then, these snares of delay, let him show the Church either to be retained, when so many nations are lost, in Africa alone, or to be restored and fulfilled from Africa among all nations; and let him show it in such a way that he does not say: "It is true, because I say this, or because that colleague of mine said it, or those colleagues of mine, or those bishops or clerics or laymen of ours; or it is true for this reason, because Donatus or Pontius or some other did this or that wonder; or because men pray at the memorials of our dead and are heard; or because this or that happens there; or because that brother of ours, or that sister of ours, saw such a vision awake or dreamed such a vision asleep." Let these things be removed whether the fictions of lying men or the portents of deceitful spirits. For either the things said are not true, or, if some wondrous deeds of heretics have been done, we ought all the more to beware, because when the Lord had said that there would be certain deceivers who, by doing some signs, would deceive even the elect, if it could be done, he added, strongly urging it, and said: Behold, I have foretold it to you (Matt 24:25). Whence the Apostle too, warning, says: But the Spirit, he says, says manifestly that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of demons (1 Tim 4:1).

Furthermore, if someone praying at the memorials of heretics is heard, he receives, not according to the merit of the place, but according to the merit of his own desire, whether good or bad. For the Spirit of the Lord, as it is written, has filled the whole world (Wis 1:7), and: The ear of jealousy hears all things (Wis 1:10); and many are heard while God is angry, of whom the Apostle says: God gave them up to the desires of their heart (Rom 1:24); and to many God, being favorable, does not grant what they want, that he may grant what is useful.

Whence the same Apostle says of the goad of his flesh, the angel of Satan, which he says was given to him, by whom he was buffeted, lest he be exalted by the greatness of the revelations: For this I asked the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you; power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:8-9).

Do we not read that some were heard by the Lord God himself on the high places of the mountains of Judea high places which nevertheless so displeased God that the kings who did not overthrow them were blamed, and those who did overthrow them were praised? Whence it is understood that the disposition of the one asking avails more than the place of the petition.

But concerning deceitful visions, let them read what is written; and because Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14) and because their dreams have led many astray (Sir 34:7), let them hear too what the pagans tell of the wondrous things done or seen at their temples and of their gods and yet the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens (Ps 96:5 (95:5)).

Many, then, are heard, and in many ways not only Catholic Christians, but also pagans and Jews and heretics given over to various errors and superstitions. But they are heard either by seducing spirits which, however, do nothing unless they are permitted, God judging loftily and ineffably what is to be granted to each or by God himself, whether for the punishment of malice, or for the solace of misery, or for the admonition to seek eternal salvation. But to that salvation and eternal life no one comes except one who has Christ as his head. And to have Christ as his head no one will be able except one who is in his body, which is the Church which, like the head himself, we ought to recognize in the holy canonical Scriptures, and not to seek out in the various rumors and opinions and deeds and sayings and visions of men.

19. 50. Let no one, then, who is prepared to reply to me set these things against me; for neither do I say that I am to be believed that the communion of Donatus is not the Church of Christ because certain men who were bishops among them are convicted, by ecclesiastical and municipal and judicial records, of having handed over the divine instruments to the flames; or because, in the judgment of bishops which they had sought from the emperor, they did not obtain their cause; or because, appealing to the emperor himself, they merited from him too a sentence contrary to themselves; or because among them are such leaders of Circumcellions; or because the Circumcellions commit such great evils; or because there are among them those who throw themselves over precipices, or cast themselves into fires to be burned,

fires which they themselves kindled for themselves; or who extort their own slaughter, by terrifying even unwilling men, and seek out so many spontaneous and frenzied deaths in order to be venerated by men; or because at their tombs drunken bands of vagrant men and women, in mingled wickedness, bury themselves in wine day and night and corrupt themselves with debaucheries. Let all that crowd be their chaff, and let it not prejudge against the wheat, if they themselves hold the Church.

But whether they themselves hold the Church, let them show only from the canonical books of the divine Scriptures; for neither do we therefore say that we ought to be believed to be in the Church of Christ because the one we hold was commended by Optatus of Milevis, or Ambrose of Milan, or other countless bishops of our communion; or because it was proclaimed in the councils of our colleagues; or because throughout the whole world, in the holy places that our communion frequents, so many wonders of hearings or of healings are done such that the bodies of martyrs, hidden for so many years which they can hear from many by asking were revealed to Ambrose, and at those very bodies a blind man, well known to the city of Milan for many years, received his eyes and sight; or because this one saw a dream and that one, taken up in spirit, heard whether that he should not go to the party of Donatus, or that he should withdraw from the party of Donatus.

Whatever such things are done in the Catholic Church are to be approved for this reason: because they are done in the Catholic Church; but the Catholic Church is not made manifest by the fact that these things are done in it. The Lord Jesus himself, when he had risen from the dead and offered his body to be seen by the eyes and touched by the hands of the disciples, nevertheless lest they think they were suffering some deception judged that they should rather be confirmed by the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, showing those things fulfilled in himself which had been foretold so long before.

So too he commended his Church, saying: that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). That this was written in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms he himself testified (See Luke 24:44); this, commended by his own mouth, we hold. These are the documents of our cause, these its foundations, these its supports.

19. 51. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that it was said of certain believers that they daily searched the Scriptures (See Acts 17:11), whether these things were so. Which Scriptures, surely, but the canonical ones of the Law and the Prophets? To these were added the Gospels, the apostolic Letters, the Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse of John. Search all these and dig out something manifest by which you may demonstrate that the Church either remained in Africa alone, or that from Africa it shall come to pass that what the Lord says be fulfilled: This Gospel shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then the end shall come (Matt 24:14). But bring forward something that needs no interpreter, nor anything by which you may be convicted that it was said of another matter and that you are trying to wrench it to your own meaning.

For you see how that one text which you are accustomed to bring forward Where you pasture, where you lie down at midday (Song 1:7) when all the words of that same passage are shaken out, indicates something far other than you suppose; and if it did sound as you wish, the Maximianists would defeat you in it. For the province of Byzacium and Tripolis, where they are whoever they are, is more "midday" than Numidia, where you are powerful. So, then, they themselves can more genuinely and distinctly glory of the midday, so that you cannot exclude them from this sentence unless you hold the true and Catholic sense in those words, showing them that, according to the four corners of the world, the midday is rather toward the due south than toward the southwest, but that, according to the figurative expressions of the Scriptures, the perfect illumination of the mind and the greatest fervor of love is called midday whence it is written, And your darkness shall be as the midday (Isa 58:10).

Bring forward, then, something that is not more truly interpreted against you, but that needs no interpreter at all just as it needs no interpreter that In your seed shall all the nations be blessed (Gen 22:18), because not I but the Apostle interprets the seed of Abraham as Christ (See Gal 3:16); just as it needs no interpreter that For you shall be called My Will, and your land the whole world (Isa 62:4), because it is said to her whom no Christian understands except as the Church of Christ; just as it needs no interpreter that All the ends of the earth shall be reminded and shall be turned to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship in his sight, for the kingdom is his and he shall rule over the nations (Ps 22:28-29 (21:28-29)), because it is said in that Psalm where the Passion of the Lord is declared, with the Gospel too as witness (See Matt 27:35; John 19:23);

just as it needs no interpreter that Christ had to suffer and to rise on the third day, and that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47); just as it needs no interpreter that And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth (Acts 1:8) for that the Church began from Jerusalem and went thence around through Judea and Samaria and the rest of the nations, the deeds that followed attest, confirmed by canonical documents; just as it needs no interpreter that And this Gospel shall be preached for a testimony to all nations, and then the end shall come (Matt 24:14) for the Lord, being asked about the end of this world, when he had said that there were certain beginnings of birth-pangs (See Matt 24:8), said, But the end is not yet (Matt 24:6), and foretold that the end would come after the preaching of the Gospel in the whole world among all nations; just as it needs no interpreter that Let both grow until the harvest (Matt 13:30),

because, although it needed an interpreter, the Lord himself interpreted it and himself expounded it, whom no one can contradict, especially in that parable which was uttered by him and which he himself says: the good seed are the children of the kingdom, the field is the world, the harvest is the end of the world (See Matt 13:38-39).

Bring forward something such, even one thing, by which Africa is most plainly declared either to be left alone among the rest, or to be preserved alone for the beginning of the renewal and fulfilling of the world. For so great a thing as was soon to perish would not be commended by so many testimonies, and then passed over in silence what alone was to be left, or from which alone the whole was to be restored and fulfilled. But if you cannot show what we so justly demand of you, yield to the truth, fall silent, fall asleep, awake from your fury unto salvation.

19. 52. Or do you still say: "If the Church is with you, why do you compel us by persecution to its peace? Or if we are bad, why do you seek us? And if we are tares, let us grow until the harvest"? As though we, by whatever means we can, do anything other than this, that the wheat not be uprooted together when the tares are separated before the time (See Matt 13:29).

For whoever are going to be good forever, even if before the time they are bad, are not tares but wheat in the foreknowledge of God.

But you accuse us thus why we seek you if you are bad as though you have not perished in that wherein you are bad, and therefore are to be sought because you have perished, that, being lost, you may be sought; sought, you may be found; found, you may be called back, like that sheep by the shepherd, like that coin by the woman, like that son who was dead and came to life again, was lost and is found (See Luke 15).

For he seeks you who dwells among the saints and commands that you be sought (See Ps 22:4 (21:4)).

20. 53. But your complaint about persecution will be quieted if you consider and understand, first, that not every persecution is blameworthy; otherwise it would not be said with praise: Him who secretly slandered his neighbor, this man I persecuted (Ps 101:5 (100:5)).

For daily we see the son complain of the father as of his persecutor, and the wife of the husband, and the slave of the master, and the tenant of the landowner, and the accused of the judge, and the soldier or provincial of the general or king when those men, very often by a most well-ordered power, by the terrors of light punishments restrain and check men subject to them from graver evils, while very often, by threatening and raging, they deter them from a good life and from good deeds.

But when they restrain from evil and what is unlawful, they are correctors and counselors; but when from good and what is lawful, they are persecutors and oppressors. Even those who restrain from evil are blamed, if the measure of the coercion exceeds the measure of the offense. Likewise, those are justly to be blamed who rush, in a disorderly and turbulent way, to coerce men who are subject to no law over them.

20. 54. Accordingly, we justly reprove the disorderly licenses and proud madnesses of your Circumcellions, even when they use violence against certain very wicked men, because to avenge what is unlawful in an unlawful way, and to deter from what is unlawful in an unlawful way, is not good.

But when they persecute even the innocent whether for a cause unknown or out of most wicked enmities who would not shudder at their most criminal robberies?

But that you thought the fury of the Maximianists should be coerced by the public laws, so that, driven by the orders of judges and the execution of officials and the help of the cities from the basilicas they held, you might press them to the consideration of their own crime this we do not reprove, except that you assailed in them what you yourselves had done indeed, much more lightly than you had done.

For they raised an altar of sacrilegious dissension against the party of Donatus, but you against the whole world and against the words of him who commended his Church as beginning from Jerusalem among all nations.

Furthermore, if the Maximianists dared to resist unlawfully and furiously the orders of the judges obtained against them, would they not acquire judgment for themselves, since the Apostle says: For he who resists the power resists the ordinance of God; and they who resist acquire judgment for themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good work, but to evil (Rom 13:2-3)?

Since, then, their evil work existed, which you were trying to check through the ordained powers, if they wanted, on behalf of that very evil work of theirs, to oppose the laws with a worse work surely whatever evil befell them, would they suffer it from you and not from themselves?

Just as, if anyone had wanted to speak a blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and, according to the edict of the king, were destroyed along with his house (See Dan 3:29), would he suffer those deserved evils from those three men, on whose deliverance from the fire the king, moved, had issued that edict, or even from the king himself, and not rather from himself? If those forty Jews too, who had conspired to kill Paul, had rushed upon the armed men by whom, under an ordained guard, that same Paul was being led (See Acts 23:12-33), would Paul have destroyed them, and not they themselves, by resisting the powers?

20. 55. Wherefore you too, without tumult of mind, without turbulent contention, without bitterness of hatred, consider diligently the things that the kings of our communion decree against you, for what cause you suffer them; and if you find yourselves to be in the Church of Christ, rejoice and exult, for your reward is great in heaven (Matt 5:12). For you are crowned as martyrs, and they are judged as persecutors of martyrs. But if the holy and canonical Scripture convicts you of having raised an altar against the Church of Christ, and of having been separated by a sacrilegious schism from Christian unity which is spread throughout the whole world, and of opposing the body of Christ which is the Church spread throughout the whole world both by rebaptizing and by blaspheming and by assailing it as much as you can then you are impious and sacrilegious, but they who decree that you, for so great a crime, are to be deterred and coerced so lightly by the admonitions of loss whether of places or honors or money so that, considering why you suffer these things, you may flee your sacrilege once recognized and be freed from eternal damnation they are reckoned most diligent rulers and most devout counselors.

This love the Catholic Christian emperors owe you: that, both because of Christian gentleness, they decree that your sacrileges are not to be punished as they deserve, and, because of Christian solicitude, that they are not to be dismissed altogether unpunished. This God works in them, whose mercy even in these troubles of which you complain you are unwilling to recognize.

But we, for our part, as much as is in us, as much as the Lord grants and permits, do not even set in motion against you those laws of the gentlest coercion, except that the Catholic Church, because of the frailty of the weak so that they may be free, without fear, to choose what they hold or follow may be kept free from your terrors; so that, if any of yours have done anything violent against ours, then you whom we hold, as it were, as hostages on the estates and in the cities should not suffer such things as your men do, but, subject to the laws, through ordained judgments, should be beaten with a money penalty.

But if this seems grave to you, let your own people spare you and be quiet; but if those who are under you or with you do not keep quiet but rage against you, you have no ground to complain about us, who have placed it in your power, or that of your people, that even those who follow your heresy should suffer no losses, if the Catholic Church suffers no violence either from you or from your people.

But if any violence is done against your will and beyond your power to check, you are mercifully and justly admonished by those very losses,

as to what kind of people you have, by whom you do not think you are contaminated; and from this you are compelled to understand how empty are the slanders you make against the Church of Christ spread throughout the whole world; and you should no longer charge us with persecuting you, but rather charge your own people if they prefer both that we be infested by their violences and that you be ground down by the public laws, rather than that they themselves be quieted from their accustomed fury.

If indeed you suffer anything hatefully and harmfully from some of ours who do not keep the measure and intent of Christian love, I would readily say that they are not ours either to become ours if they correct themselves, or to be separated off at the end if they persist in malice; yet we neither break the nets because of bad fish (See Matt 13:47), nor forsake the great house because of vessels made for dishonor (See 2 Tim 2:20). But if you too say, by the same rule, that those by whom the Catholic Church suffers such things are not yours, then prove your disposition, correct your error, embrace the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (See Eph 4:3). For if neither do those contaminate you nor these us, let us not slander one another with crimes belonging to others: in one love let us grow as wheat, and together, until the winnowing, let us tolerate the chaff.

20. 56. Wherefore, if the testimonies of the canonical Scriptures which commend the Church as consisting in the communion of the whole world need no interpreter, and you can find no such supports from those same books for your separation set up in Africa, you do not justly complain of persecutions which the Church itself endures the more grievously the more widely it is spread, and bears all things in faith and hope and love (See 1 Cor 13:7, 13) not only such things as your Circumcellions and the like inflict on its members where they can, but all the scandals of various iniquities teeming throughout the whole world, of which the Lord cried out: Woe to the world because of scandals (Matt 18:7).

For the son persecutes the father more grievously by living badly than the father persecutes the son by chastising him; and the handmaid persecuted Sarah more grievously by her unjust pride than Sarah persecuted her by due discipline (See Gen 16); and those of whom it was said, The zeal of your house has consumed me (John 2:17; Ps 69:9 (68:10)), persecuted the Lord more grievously than he persecuted them when he overturned their tables and drove them with a scourge from the temple (See John 2:15).

21. 57. What more have you to say? Or does it now please you that we bring forward into the open that last point of yours? "Behold," they say, "you hold the Church. How do you receive us, if we should be willing to cross over to you?" I answer briefly: "We receive you just as the Church receives, which we find in the holy canonical books." For when the animosity of contradiction is laid aside with which all swell who are unwilling to be overcome by the truth of God, and are overcome by their own perversity you can easily understand that the divine mysteries are both in the good and in the bad, but in the former unto salvation, in the latter unto damnation; and that, although there is so great a distance between those who handle these worthily and unworthily, the mysteries themselves are nonetheless the same, availing for the former unto reward, for the latter unto judgment.

21. 58. Wherefore, when the Lord baptized more than John as it is written in the Gospel, where the Evangelist added, Although he himself did not baptize, but his disciples (John 4:2) although there was so great a distance between Peter and Judas, there was nonetheless no distance between the baptism given through Peter and that given through Judas. For what was given through them was one, although they themselves were not one; and it was Christ's, while of them the one belonged to the members of Christ, the other to the party of the devil. But when John the Baptist and the apostle Paul were one because each was a friend of the bridegroom (See John 3:29) yet, because the baptism given by John and that given by Paul were not one, Paul commanded those who had been baptized with the baptism of John to be baptized with the baptism of Christ. And so that baptism was called John's, but the one given through Paul was not called the baptism of Paul; rather, He commanded them, it says, to be baptized in Christ (Acts 19:4-5). Behold, John and Paul are one, and they do not give one thing; behold, Peter and Judas are not one, and they give one thing; but Peter and Paul both are one and give one thing. Abraham and Cornelius, justified by faith, are one (See Gal 3:6; Acts 10), and they did not receive one mystery; and likewise Cornelius and Simon Magus are not one, and they received one mystery; but Cornelius and that eunuch whom Philip baptized on the road both are one and received one mystery (See Acts 8). When, therefore, the mystery is one, neither different givers nor different receivers bring it about that what is one should not be one.

21. 59. But these men, while they want what is Christ's to be man's, try to persuade us of things most false and most absurd: that there are almost as many baptisms as there are men through whom they are given. And so that saying which the Lord said of man and of man's work, A good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit (Matt 7:17), these men try to wrench to this: that one baptized by a good man is good, and one baptized by a bad man is bad.

From which it follows even if they are unwilling that one baptized by a better man is better, and one baptized by an inferior man is inferior. From which it comes about that those whom, before the Lord's Passion, Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples, would be born much more holy if they were baptized by him.

For who could even imagine how great a distance there was between him and his disciples by whom they were baptized? Did he then begrudge a holier birth to those whom, while he was here present, he preferred to have baptized by his disciples? Whoever believes this is surely insane.

What, then, did the Lord deign to demonstrate by this very thing, except that what was given was his, by whomever it was given, and that he himself baptizes of whom that friend of the bridegroom had said, This is he who baptizes (John 1:33) through the hands of whatever minister the one who had believed in him was baptized? Paul too says: I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone say that I baptized in my own name (1 Cor 1:14-15).

And is this man too to be believed to have begrudged men a better sanctification, if, the better he was, the better could those be baptized who were baptized by him? Nay rather, the intent of a most careful and faithful steward was vigilant for this very thing: that no one should think himself baptized more holily because he was baptized by a holier minister, and should attribute to the servant what belonged to the Lord.

21. 60. Since, then, both good and bad give and receive the mystery of baptism, and none but the good are spiritually reborn and built up into the body and members of Christ (See Eph 2:22), surely that Church is in the good, to which it is said: As a lily among thorns, so is my neighbor among the daughters (Song 2:2). For in these is the one who builds upon the rock, that is, who hears the words of Christ and does them; for to Peter too, confessing him to be Christ the Son of God, he said thus: And upon this rock I will build my Church (Matt 16:18).

It is not, therefore, in those who build upon the sand, that is, who hear the words of Christ and do not do them. For he himself said: He who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house upon the rock (Matt 7:24), and there, a little after: He who hears, he says, these words of mine and does not do them, I will liken him to a foolish man who builds his house upon the sand (Matt 7:26). Those, then, who by the framework of love are incorporated into the building set upon the rock, and into the lily white among the thorns these surely shall possess the kingdom of God; but those who build upon the sand, or are reckoned among the thorns who would doubt that they shall not possess the kingdom of God? To such, surely, the mystery of baptism profits nothing; and yet, because of their unstable foundation and barren malice, no injury is to be done to the very mystery that they have.

22. 61. Accordingly, in that passage from the Letter of the apostle Paul which he wrote to the Galatians, mark, without zeal for contention, how rightly it is done that, when we correct a heretic's error, if they have this mystery which they ought to have had, they receive what was lacking to them, and what was present is not disapproved and blasphemed: Manifest, he says, are the works of the flesh, which are fornications, uncleannesses, wantonness, the service of idols, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkennesses, carousings, and the like, of which I forewarn you, as I have foretold, that they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21).

All these, then, are not in the lily nor upon the rock; and among these the heretics too are placed. Why, then to pass over the rest do you not baptize after drunkards, the wanton, the envious, who shall not possess the kingdom of God and therefore are not upon the rock, and, because they are not upon the rock, are beyond doubt not reckoned in the Church, since upon this rock, he says, I will build my Church (Matt 16:18) yet you want us to baptize after heretics, who have been enumerated among those same thorns that shall not possess the kingdom of God, and in whom likewise the mysteries are present, since they are the same; but they do not profit, because, while the mysteries are upright, the men themselves are perverse?

22. 62. Considering and pondering these things without obstinacy, you can easily understand that in each person what is crooked is to be corrected, what is upright approved, and that what is lacking is to be given, while what is present is to be acknowledged. So, then, a heretic coming, in order to become a Catholic, should correct his own error, not violate the mystery of Christ, and receive the bond of peace which he did not have, without which the baptism he had could not profit him; for both are necessary for attaining the kingdom of God, both baptism and righteousness.

And in one who despises the baptism of Christ there cannot be righteousness; but baptism can be even in one who does not have righteousness, yet it cannot profit. For just as the Truth said, Unless one be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5), so the same Truth said, Unless your righteousness abound above that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20), so that not baptism alone, but righteousness too, leads to the kingdom; and one who lacks either both or one of them cannot arrive there.

Wherefore, since it is said to the heretics, "Righteousness is lacking to you, which no one can have without love and the bond of peace," and since they themselves confess that many have baptism and do not have righteousness or, if they do not confess it, the divine Scripture convicts them I marvel how they suppose that, when we are unwilling to baptize again those who have not their own but Christ's baptism,

we act as though we now judged that nothing is lacking to them; and that, because the baptism they are found to have is not given them again in the Catholic Church, they think they receive nothing there where they receive that without which what they have avails them unto ruin, not unto salvation. But if they are unwilling to understand this, it suffices for us that we hold that Church which is demonstrated by the most manifest testimonies of the holy and canonical Scriptures.

22. 63. Let the heretic now say to me: "How do you receive me?" I answer at once: Just as the Church receives, to which Christ bears witness. Can you know better how you are to be received than our Savior, the physician of your wound? Here perhaps you say: "Read to me, then, how Christ commanded that those should be received who want to cross over from the heretics to the Church." This, openly and evidently, neither I read nor you. For if John had been a heretic and baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, after whose baptism Paul commanded men to be baptized, you would obtain what you say, so that I would have nothing to say against it. Again, if Peter had been baptized by heretics in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Peter to whom the Lord says, He who is once washed has no need to be washed again (John 13:10) I would obtain what I say, so that you would have nothing to say against it.

But now, since in the Scriptures we do not find that any crossed over to the Church from the heretics and were received either as I say or as you say, I think that if some wise man had existed, to whom the Lord Christ bore witness, and we were to consult him on this question, we ought in no way to doubt to do what he had said, lest we be judged to oppose not so much him as the Lord Christ, by whose testimony he was commended. But Christ bears witness to his own Church. Behold, read the Gospel where he says: Christ had to suffer and to rise on the third day, and that there be preached in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47).

As, then, that Church receives, throughout all nations, beginning from Jerusalem, so, with all ambiguities and evasions removed, you are to be received. But if you are unwilling, you struggle most ruinously against your own salvation, not against me or any man who wants to receive you thus, but against the Savior himself, since you are unwilling to believe that you must be received in the way that Church receives, which he commends by his own testimony he, whom you confess it is wicked not to believe.

23. 64. "But Jeremiah said: The water has become to me deceitful, having no faith (Jer 15:18)." He did not say it of this water that you suppose; read diligently. For he called the very multitude of the lies of men "deceitful water," in the prophetic manner, as they are wont to speak figuratively just as in the Apocalypse we know peoples to be called by the name of waters (See Rev 17:15). For Jeremiah says thus: Why do they who afflict me prevail? My wound is strong: whence shall I be healed? It has become to me as deceitful water, having no faith (Jer 15:18). He said his wound had become to him as deceitful water, and that same wound of his he called those who afflicted him. For what he says, Who afflict me, this he afterward said, My wound; and what he said above, They prevail, this he afterward said, It is strong.

23. 65. So too you do where it is written: Abstain from foreign water, and do not drink from a foreign fountain (Prov 5:15). For you suppose it was said of the baptism that is among heretics, so that it is foreign water because heretics shall not possess the kingdom of God as though it were not so also among drunkards and the envious and the rest of this kind, of whom it was likewise said, They shall not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:10); and yet in all such, if they were baptized according to the Gospel, the baptism is Christ's, not their own.

Whence that water is not foreign, although they themselves are foreign to whom he will say, I never knew you (Matt 7:23). Why, then, should I not rather understand the foreign water and the foreign fountain to be the teaching of the evil spirit, by which those alienated from God through ignorance which is in them because of the blindness of their heart are deceived and led astray the Apostle commending this more expressly: But the Spirit says manifestly that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of demons (1 Tim 4:1)? This is the foreign water and the foreign fountain. For if water is understood in a good sense, even the Holy Spirit, why should not water be understood in a bad sense, even the evil spirit?

For not always, where Scripture names water, does it want this visible mystery of baptism to be understood, but sometimes that, sometimes something else. For with this visible baptism the disciples of the Lord had already baptized others too, before the Holy Spirit came upon them according to his promise of whom nevertheless the same Jesus says: If anyone thirsts, let him come and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly (John 7:37-38). And the Evangelist follows and expounds whence this was said: But this, he says, he said of the Spirit whom they who believed in him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39). Behold, he calls the Spirit "water," who was not yet given, when that water of baptism had already been given to many.

23. 66. Whence that too which you likewise do not understand, what is written: Drink water from your own vessels and from the fountains of your own wells, and let the fountain of your water be your own, and let no stranger share it with you, and let not your waters overflow outside, and in your streets let your waters run (Prov 5:15-17), commends not the visible baptism, which strangers too can have that is, those who shall not possess the kingdom of God but this gift of the Holy Spirit, which is proper only to those who shall reign with Christ forever, since the love of God, as the Apostle says, has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). For the very breadth of heart that love makes whence he calls it poured out, and whence he speaks thus to the Corinthians, Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged (2 Cor 6:11) is signified by the name of streets.

23. 67. What, then, we hear openly, Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirit that is from God (1 John 4:1), this we hear figuratively, Abstain from foreign water, and do not drink from a foreign fountain (Prov 5:15). And what we hear openly, The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5), this we hear figuratively, Let the fountain of your water be your own, and let no stranger share it with you (Prov 5:17).

For many gifts of God can be had even by those who are foreign to him not only those common with stones and trees, such as to be and to thrive, nor only those common with cattle, such as to breathe, to feel, but even greater ones, now proper to men, such as reason, speech, the innumerable useful arts, and many other things. Even of those very things that have been given to the house of God, some are had by strangers that is, by those who shall not possess the kingdom of God to whom in the end it will be said, I never knew you (Matt 7:23), even though they have said, In your name we prophesied and did many mighty works (Matt 7:22). For though I have, he says, prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2).

This, then, is the gift of the Holy Spirit, proper to the saints, of which no stranger partakes. This is lacking to all the wicked and the children of hell, even if they are baptized with the baptism of Christ, as Simon had been baptized. This is lacking even to heretics; this they receive when, corrected, they come and sincerely embrace the bond of unity. And if they did not receive it, then, even though they had the baptism of Christ, they would not possess the kingdom of Christ, because they had not entered to that fountain proper to them, of waters running in the streets of the saints and not running out outside by which fountain the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5).

Cease, therefore, to recall those testimonies which you either do not understand or understand to be in our favor against you. But if, being set down ambiguously, they could be interpreted both for us and for you, they would surely help your cause in nothing, because we too, if we wanted to use such things, could use countless ones which would likewise help our cause in nothing. But plainly such things merely prop up a bad cause by making delays.

24. 68. "Behold," they say, "from the body of the Lord water flowed (See John 19:34)."

And how does this help you, O heretic? "Much," he says. "For it signifies that baptism is only in the body of the Lord, that is, in the Church." You would do better to say: From the body of the Lord, that is, from the Church even if it were now established which perhaps must still be inquired more diligently that that water signified baptism. For we too say that the baptism you have is from the body of the Lord, that is, from the Church, although you yourselves are not in it, like all who build not upon the rock but upon the sand. Why, then, do you not attend to the fact that that water, by which you say baptism was signified, was not only in the body of the Lord, but also went out from his body, and this through the wound of the persecutor? For neither would the heretics and all the bad have dragged the mysteries outside with them, if they had kept the integrity of unity in the body of the Lord. But you see too how deep this is, and how hidden in the loftiness of mystery.

24. 69. Now let it suffice; cease to deal in such things. All things of this kind that you bring forward are either in our favor or to lessen our case as much as possible it is uncertain in whose favor they are; but you gladly linger in obscure things, lest you be compelled to confess plain ones. Behold the Church, I ask: What do you suffer? Behold the Church, commended and expressed, foretold and demonstrated by so many most manifest testimonies of the holy Scriptures: As we have heard, so also have we seen (Ps 48:9 (47:9)). Why do you shuffle about how you are to be received? Why do you decline to be received in the way that she receives, to whom he who could not lie bears witness (See Heb 6:18)?

Show me that the canonical Scriptures said openly that one who has been baptized among the heretics in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit must be baptized in the Catholic Church. But if you cannot show this, then show that to this communion of yours that is, to the party of Donatus, where you learned this some open and manifest testimony is borne by the canonical Scriptures; and I will confess that one must cross over to you, and that heretics are not to be received otherwise than as the Church in which you are receives them, because it has been declared by such a testimony.

Why are you in a ferment, why are you disturbed? You do not find in the canonical Scriptures what we most justly require of you. For what you are accustomed to say, Where you pasture, where you lie down at midday? (Song 1:7) you see what it is, and how it is not in your favor.

Do not, then, seek such things, because, even if the party of Donatus were in the regions of the north which are contrary to the southern parts it would say that this was said of itself: The mountains of Zion, the sides of the north, the city of the great king (Ps 48:3 (47:3)). For surely the city of the great king is none other than the Church, and this sounds the Church more indubitably than that other, Where you pasture, where you lie down at midday? (Song 1:7)

But perhaps the heretic Marcion would use that testimony, who is said to have been a Pontian for those parts are toward the north. Again, if the party of Donatus were in the west, it would say that this was said of itself: Make a way for him who ascends above the sunset; the Lord is his name (Ps 68:4 (67:5)). For perhaps it would say that it is more sublime, He ascends above the sunset, than He lies down at midday. These things are mystical, they are obscure, they are figurative; we demand of you something manifest, that needs no interpreter.

24. 70. I therefore receive you just as the seed of Abraham receives, in whom all the nations are blessed (Gen 22:18). This would perhaps be obscure, had not Paul made it plain that the seed of Abraham is Christ (Gal 3:16). I receive you just as that barren one receives, whose children are many, more than of her who has a husband (Isa 54:1) which would be obscure, had not Paul said that she is the Church, our mother (See Gal 4:26-27), to whom it was said, The Lord who delivered you, he, the God of the whole earth, shall be called (Isa 54:5), to whom it was said, Your land the whole world (Isa 62:4) just as that queen receives, of whom it is said in the Psalms, The queen stood at your right hand, and to whom it is said, Instead of your fathers sons are born to you; you shall set them as princes over all the earth (Ps 45:10, 17 (44:10, 17)).

Finally, not to recall many things, I receive you just as the Church receives, throughout all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (See Luke 24:47), just as the Church receives, which is a witness to Christ in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the whole earth (See Acts 1:8). For he himself receives you, who said this of her, who by such words showed her, that no one might doubt of her. I receive you just as the wheat sown in the field receives, which grows with the tares until the harvest; for these are the children of the kingdom, but the field is the world, the harvest is the end of the world (Matt 13:38-39). The Lord expounded it, it is the Gospel; they are the words of the Lord, they are manifest. I could say to you: I receive you just as you yourselves received those whom Praetextatus and Felician, condemned by you, baptized outside your communion against which you have absolutely nothing to say. But I will rather say this, which avails most invincibly even against the Maximianists themselves, who utterly defeated you in the two testimonies especially which you are accustomed to use, most ignorantly and yet most frequently both about fewness and about midday.

This, then, I will say, which extinguishes you all, as though you all rose up together against us: "We receive you, if you are willing to be corrected, just as the Church receives, which the Lord Jesus said would begin from Jerusalem, and which in the Acts of the Apostles we read began there, and which would go through all nations, and which in the Acts of the Apostles we read went through many before it came to Africa, and which will go through all before the end comes, since the Lord himself says: This Gospel shall be preached among all nations, and then the end shall come (Matt 24:14)." Behold its refuse: Because iniquity has abounded, the love of many shall grow cold (Matt 24:12). Behold its wheat: But he who perseveres to the end, he shall be saved (Matt 24:13). Where here is Africa named in the party of Donatus? Behold again its wheat: That you may know, says the Apostle, how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without doubt great is the mystery of piety, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, preached among the nations, believed in the world, taken up in glory (1 Tim 3:15-16). Behold its refuse: But the Spirit, he says, says manifestly that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of demons (1 Tim 4:1) and the rest. Where here too is Africa named in the party of Donatus, so that in it there remained the pillar and ground of the truth or the mystery of piety, which ran on to the end in such a way that he said, Preached among the nations, believed in the world, taken up in glory (1 Tim 3:16)?

24. 71. Why, then, should I hold you with more? Whoever thinks to reply to this letter, let him search the Scriptures and either bring forward a manifest testimony concerning Africa in which alone, or from which alone, the party of Donatus exists which he cannot bring forward, because Scripture cannot contradict those most manifest testimonies that we have produced or, if he seeks credulous followers for his suspicions or accusations or slanders and wants to lead them away into another gospel, which is not another, and to announce to us something besides what we have received, then, even were he an angel from heaven, he would be anathema (See Gal 1:8); since the devil too, who fell from heaven for this reason because he did not stand in the truth, if it had been anathema to a man when, besides what he had received from the Lord God, he announced it to him our first parents in the flesh would neither have fallen into the punishment of death nor have departed from the place of happiness.

25. 72. Wherefore you, dearly beloved, to whom I write this letter, retain with a most faithful and firm heart the precept of the shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep (See John 10:11-15), and who now, glorified and exalted, sits at the right hand of God the Father, saying: My sheep hear my voice and follow me (John 10:27). You have heard his most manifest voice, commending his Church to come, not only through his law and the Prophets and the Psalms, but also through his own mouth; and you perceive, by reading, how the things he foretold followed in order in the Acts and in the letters of the Apostles, which complete the canon of the divine Scriptures. It is not an obscure question, in which you should be deceived by those whom the Lord himself foretold would come and would say, Behold, here is the Christ; behold, there he is; behold, in the desert (Matt 24:23, 26) as though where there is no throng of the multitude behold, in the inner chambers, as though in secret traditions and teachings. You have the Church spread everywhere and growing until the harvest; you have the city of which he who founded it says: A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden (Matt 5:14). It is she, then, who is most well known not in some part of the lands, but everywhere. She suffers at times even in her own wheat temporal storms, so that in certain places they are not recognized; but nevertheless even there they lie hidden. For the divine sentence cannot be deceived, since they grow until the harvest.

25. 73. And so, even among other nations, certain members of the Church have often been pressed and overshadowed by the prevailing seditions of heresies and schisms, and yet, because they were within, a little after, with none doubting, they shone forth; and in Africa itself, after that seditious and turbulent council of Secundus of Tigisis at Carthage where the corruption wrought by the noble woman Lucilla too was afterward recalled in the judicial records when letters had been sent from there through almost all of Africa, where the churches of Christ had already sprouted, the letters of the council were believed for it could not have been otherwise and it seemed as though, through some part of the field, the Lord's wheat had failed; but it had in no way failed which was truly wheat, predestined and sown and sprouting fruitfully from a deep root.

For with a clear conscience they had believed the letters of the council; for nothing incredible was being said by men about other men, nor was anything believed against the Gospel. But after those men, with frenzied obstinacy, had carried their most stubborn contention even to a sacrilegious dissension against the whole Christian world, and it became known to the good faithful, whom a false accusation had alienated from Caecilian, they saw that, if they persisted in that communion, they would have a perverse judgment not now about a certain man or certain men, but about the Church spread throughout the whole world and they preferred to believe the Gospel of Christ rather than the council of their colleagues.

And so, leaving those men, many soon returned to Catholic peace bishops and clerics and peoples and even before they did this, they were reckoned among the wheat. For they were not doing it then, when their contradiction was striving against men ill-recommended to them by their colleagues, not against the Church of God which grows among all nations. And so in Africa too the wheat which the Son of man had sown remained wheat, and from it has grown until now, and grows, and hereafter, until the harvest, will bear fruit and grow, as in the whole world.

25. 74. Some too, of good will, through the fog of the flesh, erred longer in that dissension even after the fury of the malignant against the Church of God had been confirmed as though the tender wheat were still being trampled and the vigor of the blade worn down while the root was alive. Yet even this wheat God knew to be his own, although it had to be reproved and rebuked that it might revive. For it was not said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan (Matt 16:23), in the way it was said of Judas, One of you is a devil (John 6:70). Some too, with evil zeal, contradicted even the most manifest truth. But those were uprooted or cut off, yet not abiding in unbelief like certain broken branches, of which the Apostle says they were, by the divine hand, replanted or grafted in again (See Rom 11:17-23).

For each one is then unfruitful, but not yet cut off from the root, when with evil desire he does indeed those works of which it was said, That they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:21); but when, on behalf of those very works, he begins to resist even the most manifest truth by which he is rebuked, then he is cut off. And many such are in the communion of the mysteries with the Church, and yet are now not in the Church. Otherwise, if each one is cut off when he is visibly excommunicated, it will follow that he is grafted in again when he is visibly restored to communion.

What then? If one approaches feignedly and bears a most hostile heart against the truth and the Church, although that solemn rite is performed in him, is he reconciled, is he grafted in? Far from it. As, then, one already again in communion is not yet grafted in, so too, before he is visibly excommunicated, whoever bears a hostile mind against the truth by which he is convicted and rebuked is already cut off. Thus it comes about that both the good seed and the bad seed grow, both throughout the field, until the harvest that is, both the children of the kingdom and the children of the malignant one grow, both throughout the world, until the end of the world, the former bearing fruit with patience, the latter growing bitter with barrenness.

25. 75. But you, relying on so many most evident testimonies of the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Lord himself, and the Apostles, concerning the holy Church spread throughout the whole world, demand of these men that they show, from Africa, as far as the party of Donatus is concerned, some manifest testimonies from the canonical books.

For, as I have already said, it could in no way come to pass that the Church which, as they say which God forbid was so quickly to perish from so many nations should be foretold by so many testimonies, so loftily and so indubitably, while of this one which they want to be their own, which, as they contend, was to abide until the end nothing should be said. For remember what was said to that rich man, when he was tormented in hell and wanted someone from the dead to be sent to his brothers: They have there, he said, Moses and the Prophets (Luke 16:29).

And when he said they would not believe unless someone of the dead went to them: If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, he said, neither will they believe even if someone rises from the dead (Luke 16:31). Moses said that in the seed of Abraham all the nations shall be blessed (Gen 22:18); the Prophets said, You shall be called My Will, and your land the whole world (Isa 62:4), and, All the ends of the earth shall be reminded and shall be turned to the Lord (Ps 22:28 (21:28)). By these and such most manifest predictions demonstrating the Church, these men have refused to believe. The Lord rose from the dead, he said that in his name there should be preached repentance and forgiveness of sins among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). Those who had not believed Moses and the Prophets did not believe the Lord either, rising from the dead; what remains, except that they obtain the torments of that rich man? Fleeing these, while there is still time, before you depart from this life, cling steadfastly to the divine words, that you may neither be troubled in this life, and may merit, after this life, to receive what was promised to the seed of Abraham.