1. In the year when the most glorious emperors Honorius, for the twelfth time, and Theodosius, for the eighth time, were consuls, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of October, at Caesarea in the greater church, when Deuterius the metropolitan bishop of Caesarea, together with Alypius of Tagaste, Augustine of Hippo, Possidius of Calama, Rusticus of Cartennae, Palladius of Tigaba, and the other bishops, had gone forward to the apse, in the presence of the presbyters and deacons and the whole clergy and a very crowded congregation, and when Emeritus, a bishop of the party of Donatus, was also present, Augustine, a bishop of the Catholic Church, said: Dearest brothers, you who have been Catholics from the beginning, and all of you who have come over to the Catholic Church from the error of the Donatists and have come to know the peace of this holy Catholic Church and have held to it with a truthful heart, and you who perhaps still doubt the truth of catholic unity, hear us as we are anxious for you with pure love. When our brother Emeritus, still a bishop of the Donatists, came to this city the day before yesterday, it was suddenly reported to us that he was present. And since out of the love that God sees we longed for his presence, we hurried at once to see him; we found him standing in the street. After we had greeted one another, we pointed out that it would be hard and unseemly for him to remain in the street, and urged that he come to the church with us. And he agreed to this without any refusal, so that we supposed he would no more refuse catholic communion than he had either offered his coming of his own accord or had in no way hesitated to come to the church. But while he lingered rather long in his heretical perversity, though within the Catholic Church, I addressed your Charity, as you are good enough to remember. I said many things that you heard and that without doubt you also remember as far as you can: much about peace, much about love, much about the unity of the holy Catholic Church, which God promised and has bestowed. In that address of mine I was both speaking to you and exhorting him; and so far as the depths of love within me could reach, I was in labor in that address of mine over all who were set in danger of their soul, and I longed to give them birth for the Lord. For the blessed apostle Paul too said this to certain people: My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you (Gal 4:19). But even after our address, when he still persisted in that obstinacy of his, even so we did not think we should despair; nor indeed do we think we should despair of any man, so long as he lives in this body. For I did not say that I had not despaired the day before yesterday in such a way as to dare to despair today.

2. But the matter has been brought to this point: since he has come, and, so far as we have learned, has come of his own accord, his coming should not be without fruit for this Church. For either, as we more greatly hope and desire, we will rejoice together with you in catholic peace even over his salvation; or, if (as we abhor and detest) he himself persists in that obstinacy, you ought by his presence the better to know what difference there is between catholic peace and heretical dissension. For he is a bishop of the party of Donatus, but one ordained for the Donatists of this city. These Donatists we have already in great part received in the name of Christ into the catholic bosom, so that we rejoice that almost all of them have been joined to catholic communion. But since even those who have already entered communion—not all of them, indeed, but some—seem, as I said a little before, to doubt that very catholic truth; while certain others do not so much as doubt, but, still set in their heart in the party of Donatus, present themselves to us bodily, whether men or women, in flesh within, in spirit without—we judge it good to question their bishop, so that, if he has anything still to say on behalf of that party, after the Conference held at Carthage and known to all, if he has anything still to say, he may say it without prejudice to the party of Donatus, yet such as he reckons to be of profit to you, in whose city he reckons himself to have been ordained for your salvation in Christ; and we will answer without prejudice to the Catholic Church, since at present he has laid upon us no role of defense—such an answer, however, as we reckon and wish may profit you who are present, against him who is present: so that, if he has been deceived, he may not deceive; but if it was we who were deceiving, then in the presence of the man himself, who outside perhaps boasts much, we may be accused, refuted, convicted, instructed. I have said this lest he refuse to speak on the ground that he can say: My party has now laid upon me no role of defense. For it is not the case that after that Conference he did not speak, or that after that Conference he did not come to this city, or that he ever departed from this province, or that we believe he made no word at all to any man on behalf of the party of Donatus after that Conference. I know what was being said to you; I am speaking to you who have come over from that very party; I know what was being said to you: that we had bought the verdict of the Examiner. I know it was said to you that he belonged to our communion, and that for this reason he by no means permitted these men to say everything they wished, and that he suppressed them by power rather than by uprightness, and would not accept what they were saying. All these things were bandied about after the Conference, whether by him or by men of that communion. What does it matter from whom you are thrown into turmoil, you whom we wish to be tranquil in catholic peace? If he were absent, I would say to you about him: He who is troubling you will bear his judgment, whoever he is (Gal 5:10). For these words that I have spoken are the words of blessed Paul against absent men by whom the simple were being troubled. But now he is present: let him deign now to tell us why he has come.

3. Brother Emeritus, you are present; you took part with us in the Conference. If you were defeated, why have you come? But if you do not think you were defeated, say on what ground you suppose yourself to be the victor. For you were defeated then, if you were defeated by the truth. But if you seem to have been defeated by power, and yet conquered by the truth, there is here no power by which you might seem to have been defeated: let your fellow citizens hear on what ground you presume yourself to be the victor. But if you know that the truth was victorious against you, why do you still reject unity?
Emeritus, a bishop of the party of Donatus, said: The proceedings show whether I was defeated or won, whether I was defeated by truth or oppressed by power.
Augustine, a bishop of the Catholic Church, said: Why, then, have you come?
Emeritus, a bishop of the party of Donatus, said: To say this very thing that you are asking.
Augustine, a bishop of the Catholic Church, said: I am asking why you have come; I would not be asking this if you had not come.
Emeritus, a bishop of the party of Donatus, said to the notary who was taking down the record: Do so.

4. And when he kept silent, Augustine, a bishop of the Catholic Church, said: If, then, you have kept silent under the truth, you have not come without cause, unless it is that you wished to deceive these people.

5. Alypius, a bishop of the Catholic Church, read out a letter: To the honorable and most beloved son, the most illustrious and distinguished man, the tribune and notary Marcellinus, from Aurelius, Silvanus, and all the catholic bishops. By this letter we make known that we consent in all things, as you have been good enough to advise, to the edict of your Excellency, by which provision has been made for preserving the tranquility and quiet of our Conference and for making manifest and securing the truth. By that edict too, confident in the truth, we bind ourselves with the bond of this condition: that if those with whom we are dealing can show that, when the christian people, growing everywhere according to God's promises, had already filled a great part of the world and was spreading to fill the rest, the Church of Christ suddenly perished by the contagion of the sins of certain persons—whom these men accuse—and remained only in the party of Donatus; if, as has been said, they can show this, we will seek no honors of the episcopate among them, but for the sake of salvation alone will follow the counsel of those to whom, for the truth made known, we shall owe the grace of so great a benefit. But if we ourselves are rather able to show that the Church of Christ, of all the provinces—not only the African but also those across the sea—already possesses the most fruitful tracts of many nations with an abundance of peoples and, as it is written, bears fruit and grows in all the world, and that it could not have perished through the sins of any men mingled with it; if, finally, we can show that the question of those very men, whom at the time they chose rather to accuse than were able to convict, has been settled—though the Church does not consist in them—and that Caecilian was judged innocent, but they violent and slanderous, by that emperor to whose examination they of their own accord sent their charges by way of accusation; lastly, if whatever they have said about the sins of any men we prove, whether by human documents or by divine, either that their innocence was assailed by false charges, or that the Church of Christ, to whose communion we cleave, was destroyed by none of their offenses—then let them hold unity with us in such a way that they not only find the way of salvation but do not even lose the honor of the episcopate. For it is not the divine sacraments of the truth in them that we abhor, but the fabrications of human error; and once these are taken away, we will embrace as a brother the heart joined to us in christian love, which we now grieve to see separated by diabolical dissension. For each of us will be able, with a colleague of equal honor joined to him, to sit in turn the more eminently, as a colleague sits beside a visiting bishop. This is granted on both sides by alternating use of the basilicas, each going before the other with mutual honor: for where the precept of love has enlarged hearts, the possession of peace does not become cramped; so that when one of them has died, single bishops may thereafter succeed single ones in the former manner. Nor will anything new be done: for catholic love has preserved this from the very beginning of the separation itself, in the case of those who, having condemned the error of wicked dissension, came—though late—to taste the sweetness of unity. Or if perhaps the christian peoples take delight in single bishops, and cannot endure the partnership of two as an unaccustomed state of affairs, let us both withdraw from the midst; and, once the cause of schism has been condemned and the individual churches established in peaceful unity, let single bishops be appointed in single churches, with the single bishops in the single churches consenting to the unity that has been brought about, throughout the places that require it.

6. And while he was reading it, Augustine the bishop said: I will tell your Charity and call to mind a most sweet and pleasant thing that, with the Lord's help, we have experienced. When, before the Conference itself, some of us brothers were conferring together about this matter—namely, that for the peace of Christ bishops ought either to be or not to be bishops, a thing you must acknowledge—as we looked around at all our brothers and fellow bishops, those who were willing to undertake this and to sacrifice to the Lord by such humility did not readily come to mind. We were saying, as usually happens: This one can, that one cannot; this one consents to it, that one will not endure it—speaking rather according to our suspicions, since we could in no way see their hearts. But when it came to the point of making this public, in a council of all of us so crowded, of nearly three hundred bishops, it so pleased all and all so caught fire that they were ready to lay down the episcopate for the unity of Christ, and not to lose it but to commend it more safely to God. There two were scarcely found whom it displeased: one an aged old man, who even dared to say so rather freely, the other who signified his will by a silent expression. But after the brotherly correction of all overwhelmed that old man who was saying this rather freely, and he changed his opinion, the other changed his expression too. Hear, then, in what ways the exhortation itself was made, on account of him who says: He who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 14:11).

7. Likewise he read: For why should we hesitate to offer to our Redeemer the sacrifice of this humility? Did he indeed come down from heaven into human members, that we might be his members, while we, lest those very members of his be torn apart by cruel division, dread to come down from our chairs? For our own sake nothing is more sufficient than that we are faithful and obedient Christians; this, then, let us always be. But it is for the sake of the christian peoples that we are ordained bishops; what, then, profits the christian peoples for christian peace, that let us do with our episcopate.
Augustine the bishop said: For our own sake we ought to be what you are. What ought you to be, whichever of you I am speaking to? A Christian, faithful, obedient: this you for your own sake, this I too for my own sake. Therefore what you are for your own sake, and I for my own, we ought always to be. But what I am for your sake, let me be it if it profits you; let me not be it if it harms you. See what has been said: attend to it.
Likewise he read: If we are useful servants, why do we begrudge the Lord eternal gains for the sake of our temporal exaltations? The episcopal dignity will be more fruitful for us if, laid down, it has rather gathered the flock of Christ than, retained, scattered it.
And while he was reading it, Augustine the bishop said: My brothers, if we think of the Lord, this position is the higher watchtower of the vinedresser, not the lofty summit of the proud man. If, when I want to retain my episcopate, I scatter the flock of Christ, how is the loss of the flock the honor of the shepherd?
Likewise he read: For with what face shall we hope for the honor promised by Christ in the age to come, if in this age our honor hinders christian unity? We have taken care to have these things written to your Eminence, and we ask that through you they be made known to all; so that, by the help of the Lord our God, at whose admonition we make these promises and by whose aid we trust that we can fulfill them, even before the Conference, if it can be done, devout love may either heal or tame the hearts of men, whether weak or hard; and so, with minds already at peace, we may not resist the most manifest truth, and may either by concord come before the disputation or follow after it. Nor indeed ought we to despair, if they recall that the peacemakers are blessed, since they themselves shall be called sons of God (Matt 5:9), that they will far more worthily and easily wish the party of Donatus to be reconciled to the whole christian world than that the whole christian world be rebaptized by the party of Donatus; especially since, in the case of those coming from the sacrilegious and condemned schism of Maximian—whom they took care to correct even by persecuting them with the commands of earthly powers—they sought with such diligence that they did not even dare to annul the baptism given by them, and received some of those condemned men without any diminution of honor, while they judged others to be undefiled within the fellowship of that division. We do not begrudge them their concord among themselves; but they ought to notice with what devotion the catholic root, with such zeal, seeks out a branch broken off from itself, if the branch itself labored likewise to gather up a little fragment cut off from itself. And in another hand: We pray, son, that you may fare well in the Lord.

8. When this had been read out, Augustine the bishop said: Hear, you who do not know; hear, I beg you. Thanks be to God, because I speak in his very presence. This case of the Maximianists, which I now wish to set forth to you, in which they wrecked the ship of all their slanders as of bad merchandise—this case of the Maximianists, then, when we had so often brought it up against them in our Conference, they could say nothing against it; that is, against our objection so often inserted, so often repeated, so often dashed against their faces, they could answer nothing at all, because they did not find what to answer. Hear it, then, carefully. Here he is; he hears me: if I lie, let him refute me, let him compel me to prove it. The proceedings themselves, indeed, are not here, but let the case be there. Let us bear whatever delays, so that we may come to the necessary documents, if I prove what I say. If, however, he still doubts about it, or—God forbid—pretends to doubt, then (with his leave be it said) let him not enter communion, if I do not prove it. But if he already knows that I speak the truth, and knows that for this reason he was unwilling to answer, because he could not find what to answer, I ask you to judge for yourselves which is more tolerable: to receive into one's own honor a man condemned by oneself, or to acknowledge as a brother one who has never been convicted by oneself. Pay attention, I beg you, hear the account.

9. A certain Maximian was a deacon of Carthage, in the party of Donatus; whether by merit of his own pride, or, as they themselves think, by merit of his own justice, he gave offense to his bishop, that is, to Primian of Carthage; whether unjustly, if as a proud man he offended a better, or justly, if as an upright man he offended a worse. He was excommunicated by Primian; he went off to neighboring bishops, stirred up ill will against Primian, accused him before them. They came to Carthage: the many Donatist bishops who had come wanted Primian to come to them, just as the elders of these men wanted Caecilian to come to them. When the conspiracy was recognized, Primian was unwilling to come to them, just as Caecilian was unwilling to come to the others. Primian was condemned by them in his absence, just as Caecilian was condemned by the others in his absence. What an image of these affairs God willed to set before our eyes in recent times, since by now too great a forgetfulness was blotting out what was very old! He was condemned in his absence. By other bishops of the party of Donatus, Primian was restored to communion; nay, since they did not depose him, he was confirmed in his see. The Maximianists were condemned, just as Donatus deserved to be condemned by the bishops from abroad and across the sea when Caecilian had been acquitted. Maximian was condemned with his twelve ordainers. The conspiracy itself, indeed, contained very many—there were perhaps a hundred bishops. But lest a greater cutting-off be made, these men were unwilling, by casting out a few, to impose discipline on the many. They condemned only those who were present at the ordination of Maximian, when a bishop was unlawfully raised up against his own bishop. The rest, set within that conspiracy, were permitted, if they were willing to return to the Church, to remain in their honors. By their very words they showed that these men were outside the Church: for the man you urge to enter is outside. So a day was set, within which day, if they returned, the things said against Primian would not be held against them; this they confirmed by the decree of Bagai. Maximian was condemned with the twelve. It began to be pressed that the condemned be driven from the basilicas. The judges are appealed to, the proconsuls are appealed to, the episcopal council of Bagai is alleged in court: they are called heretics, they are shown to be condemned, edicts are obtained, forces are gathered; they come to cast out from the basilicas men who are condemned and set in their obstinacy. When these had been condemned, the peoples who favored them resisted; where they could not, they were overcome; in the place of those who were overcome and expelled, others were ordained. Of these we know two, to say nothing of the rest: one Felician of Musti, the other Praetextatus of Assuras. These, after two or three years, after many persecutions had been brought upon them by Optatus of Gildo through judicial prosecutions and with all the harshness of the powers, they received in their honors. After their condemnation, after their expulsion, after the persecutions, they received them in their honors, joined them to themselves as associates and colleagues. For in the place of one of them, Praetextatus of Assuras, they had already ordained another named Rogatus, who is now a Catholic, and whose tongue and hand the army of these men—that is, the band of Circumcellions—cut off. But those who, during the very time when those men were condemned and outside, for nearly three years, were baptized by the condemned, were baptized outside the Church of these men—so they were received. No one said: You do not have baptism, because you were baptized outside. And yet one who comes from Ephesus, from Smyrna, from Thessalonica, from the other churches that the Apostles planted by their labor, and to which we read that the Apostles' letters were sent, which we hear read out in the church—he is rebaptized.

10. The verdict is preserved; and, as far as we have heard, the verdict by which those men were condemned was pronounced by this very brother of ours, Emeritus—whom may God make our peaceable brother. Let that very verdict be read by which those men were condemned, and let the verdict be read by which the elders of these men condemned Caecilian; and let us see who were made the worse offenders, who were punished by the graver verdict, who were condemned with the greater uproar. There he said: For although the watery womb of a poisoned belly long covered the harmful offspring of viperous seed, and the moist curds of conceived crime had warmed themselves with slow heat into the limbs of asps, yet the conceived poison could not be hidden once the shadowy covering had vanished. For, though late, the offspring teeming with crimes brought forth a public outrage and its own parricide. Which was foretold beforehand: He has conceived injustice, has brought forth pain, and has given birth to iniquity (Ps 7:14 (7:15)). But since now a serene sky shines forth from the cloud, and the thicket of crimes is no longer confused, since the names have been designated for punishment—for before this there had been indulgence, while we relaxed the line of clemency—the case has found whom it may punish. And among other things: Let us speak, dearest brothers, of the causes of the schism, since we can no longer be silent about the persons: Maximian, the rival of the faith, the adulterer of the truth, the enemy of mother Church, the minister of Dathan, Korah, and Abiram. These are the words of the party of Donatus against the Maximianists, brought forth at this man's dictation, as we have heard. And you know who Dathan, Korah, and Abiram are. They were the first to make a schism; for them the usual punishment did not suffice, and the earth, opening, devoured them alive. The minister of Dathan, Korah, and Abiram (these are his own words) the thunderbolt of the verdict struck from the bosom of peace. Hear yet more: And, he says, in that the gaping earth has not yet swallowed him, it has reserved him for a greater judgment above. For, being carried off, he would have gained the penalty by the shortcut of his death; now he gathers the interest of a heavier usury, since, being dead, he is among the living. These are the words of the man himself condemning Maximian, or rather, as he himself says, thundering against him with a truthful mouth. And yet asps, vipers, parricides have been gathered together; nor is the baptism that the asp, the viper, the parricide gave blown away. You have heard how great a fire of eloquence blazed up when it found hay that it could set alight. Brother Emeritus, you have embraced your brother Felician, condemned by the thunderbolt of your own mouth; acknowledge your brother Deuterius, joined to you also in kind.

11. As often, my brothers, as we brought up against them this case of the Maximianists, which I have set forth to you as best I could, when we were dealing with them in the Conference, the more he kept silent about it then than now he keeps silent about everything. Let them not hide themselves by evasion, by defense, but by flight. For they say that they gave those men a delay and received them within the delay. This is false. Twelve were condemned with Maximian; but the rest were not present at his ordination when the hand was laid upon him: to those they gave a delay. For these are his own words: Not this man alone, he says, does a just death condemn for his crime; the chain of sacrilege also drags very many into fellowship in the crime, of whom it is written: The venom of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and unhappiness are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes (Rom 3:13–18). We would indeed be unwilling to cut a joint as if of our own body; but since the pestilent rottenness of a festering wound has more comfort in amputation than in the relaxing of a remedy, a more wholesome course has been found, lest the pestilent poison creep through all the members: that the wound that has arisen be cut away with a brief pain. He therefore names twelve as guilty of a notorious crime, among them Felician and Praetextatus too, but the names of all do not come to my mind; and he goes on thus: Who by the deadly work of perdition befouled the foul vessel with the filth they had gathered; but also certain clerics of the Church of Carthage who, while they took part in the crime, lent their pandering to unlawful incest—know that they have been condemned, by the will of God who presides, by the truthful mouth of the universal council. But those whom the shoots of sacrilege did not pollute as plantings, that is, who drew back their own hands in modest shame of the faith from the head Maximian, we have permitted to return to mother Church. They wanted to scrub their own faces clean, because they were pardoning the sacrilegious and openly granting to schismatics a way of returning. What is this? I ask: let him now deign to explain to me how the shoots of sacrilege did not pollute them as plantings. Why do you give them a delay, if they could have had no part in the schism of Maximian? But if they are associates of the conspiracy, although they were not present at the ordination, how is it that Maximian, condemned once in his absence, does not defile them and the whole world, while Caecilian, acquitted three times in his presence, defiles it? Does an African not defile Africans, a living man living men, a known man known men, a sharer his associates—and does Caecilian defile men across the sea, defile men set far off, defile the unknown, defile the not yet born? There sat beside you a man condemned by you, and did Felician not defile you? I did not see him, you know him: I believe him innocent, you condemned this man as guilty. Or if you confess that you were the receiver of an innocent man, you confess that you were the condemner of an innocent man.

12. And yet, my brothers, we do not begrudge them their concord: they have ended the diabolical hatreds stirred up among themselves; as they think, they have returned to peace. But this I say: if the broken branch sought a little fragment broken off from itself, with what diligence ought the tree itself to seek the branch broken off from itself? For this we sweat, for this we labor, for this we have been imperiled among their arms and the bloody furies of the Circumcellions, and we still endure their remnants with such patience as God has granted, while the tree seeks the branch, while the flock from the sheepfold of Christ seeks the lost sheep. If we are endowed with a shepherd's heart, we ought to press ourselves through hedges and thorns. With our limbs torn, let us seek the sheep, and carry it back with joy to the shepherd and prince of all. We have said many things, even wearied, and yet our brother, for whose sake we say these things to you, and to whom we likewise say them, and on whose behalf we do so much, still stands obstinate. A cruel firmness thinks itself constant. Let him not glory any longer in a vain and false fortitude. Let him hear the Apostle saying: Power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). Let us pray for him. How do we know what God wills? Many are the thoughts, as it is written, in the heart of a man, but the counsel of the Lord stands forever (Prov 19:21; Ps 33:11 (32:11)).