BOOK II.'

IN WHICH AUGUSTIN REPLIES TO ALL THE SEVERAL STATEMENTS IN THE LETTER OF PETILIANUS,

AS THOUGH DISPUTING WITH AN ADVERSARY FACE TO FACE.

and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ."

therefore, to be unwilling to share the salvation of peace with those very Churches in whose epistles you learned its form of salutation?

CHAP. 1.-1. That we made a full and sufficient answer to the first part of the letter of Petilianus, which was all that we had been 3. AUGUSTIN answered: I acknowledge the able to find, will be remembered by all who apostolic greeting. You see who you are that were able to read or hear what we replied. employ it, but see from what source you have But since the whole of it was afterwards learned what you say. For in these terms found and copied by our brethren, and sent Paul salutes the Romans, and in the same to us with the view that we should answer it terms the Corinthians, the Galatians, the as a whole, this task was one which our pen Ephesians, the Colossians, the Philippians, could not escape,—not that he says anything the Thessalonians. What madness is it, new in it, to which answer has not been already made in many ways and at various times; but still, on account of the brethren of slower comprehension, who, when they read a matter in any place, cannot always refer to everything that has been said upon the same subject, I will comply with those who urge me by all means to reply to every point, and that as though we were carrying on the discussion face to face in the form of a dialogue. I will set down the words of his epistle under his name, and I will give the answer under my own name, as though it had all been taken down by reporters while we were debating. And so there will be no one who can complain either that I have passed anything over, or that they have been unable to understand it for want of distinction between the parties to the discussion; at the same time that the Donatists themselves, who are unwilling to argue the question in our presence, as is shown by the letters which they have circulated among their party, may thus not fail to find the truth answering them point by point, just as though they were discussing the matter with us face to face.

2. In the very beginning of the letter PETILIANUS said: "Petilianus, a bishop, to his well-beloved brethren, fellow-priests, and deacons, appointed ministers with us throughout our diocese in the gospel, grace be to you

I Written probably in the beginning of 401 A.D. Some say in 402.

CHAP. 2.-4. PETILIANUS said: "Those who have polluted their souls with a guilty laver, under the name of baptism, reproach us with baptizing twice,-than whose obscenity, indeed, any kind of filth is more cleanly, seeing that through a perversion of cleanliness they have come to be made fouler by their washing."

5. AUGUSTIN answered: We are neither made fouler by our washing, nor cleaner by yours. But when the water of baptism is given to any one in the name of the Father, and d of t the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, it is neither ours nor yours, but His of whom it was said to John, "Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost."2

CHAP. 3.-6. PETILIANUS said: "For what we look to is the conscience of the giver, to cleanse that of the recipient.

7. AUGUSTIN answered: We therefore need have no anxiety about the conscience of Christ. But if you assert any man to be the giver, be he who he may, there will be no

2 John i. 33.

certainty about the cleansing of the recipient, because there is no certainty about the conscience of the giver.

CHAP. 4.-8. PETILIANUS said: "For he who receives faith from the faithless, receives not faith but guilt."

9. AUGUSTIN answered: Christ is not faithless, from whom the faithful man receives not guilt but faith. For he believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, that his faith may be counted for righteousness.'

every

CHAP.5.-10. PETILIANUS said: "For thing consists of an origin and root; and if it have not something for a head, it is nothing: nor does anything well receive second birth, unless it be born again of good seed."

13. AUGUSTIN answered: No man, even though he be not guilty through his own sins, can make his neighbor free from sin, because he is not God. Otherwise, if we were to expect that out of the innocence of the baptizer should be produced the innocence of the baptized, then each will be the more innocent in proportion as he may have found a more innocent person by whom to be baptized; and will himself be the less innocent in 11. AUGUSTIN answered: Why will you put proportion as he by whom he is baptized yourself forward in the room of Christ, when is less innocent. And if the man who bapyou will not place yourself under Him? He tizes happens to entertain hatred against is the origin, and root, and head of him who another man, this will also be imputed to him is being born, and in Him we feel no fear, as who is baptized. Why, therefore, does the we must in any man, whoever he may be, wretched man hasten to be baptized,—that lest he should prove to be false and of aban- his own sins may be forgiven him, or that doned character, and we should be found to those of others may be reckoned against him? be sprung from an abandoned source, grow- Is he like a merchant ship, to discharge one ing from an abandoned root, united to an burden, and to take on him another? But by abandoned head. For what man can feel the good tree and its good fruit, and the corsecure about a man, when it is written, rupt tree and its evil fruit, we are wont to "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man? understand men and their works, as is conseBut the seed of which we are born again is the quently shown in those other words which word of God, that is, the gospel. Whence you also quoted: "A good man, out of the the apostle says, "For in Christ Jesus I have good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth begotten you through the gospel."3 And good things: and an evil man, out of the evil yet he allows even those to preach the gospel treasure, bringeth forth evil things.” who were preaching it not in purity, and re- when a man preaches the word of God, or joices in their preaching;4 because, although administers the sacraments of God, he does they were preaching it not in purity, but seek-not, if he is a bad man, preach or minister. ing their own, not the things which are Jesus out of his own treasure; but he will be countChrist's, yet the gospel which they preached ed among those of whom it is said, "WhatsoAnd the Lord had said of certain ever they bid you observe, that observe and of like character, "Whatsoever they bid you do; but do not ye after their works:" for they observe, that observe and do; but do not ye bid you observe what is God's, but their works after their works: for they say, and do not." are their own. For if it is as you say, that If, therefore, what is in itself pure is preach-is, if the fruit of those who baptize consist in ed in purity, then the preacher himself also, the baptized persons themselves, you declare in that he is a partner with the word, has his a great woe against Africa, if a young Optashare in begetting the believer; but if he tus has sprung up for every one that Optatus himself be not regenerate, and yet what he baptized. preaches be pure, then the believer is born not from the barrenness of the minister, but from the fruitfulness of the word.

was pure.

196

But

CHAP. 7.-14. PETILIANUS said: "And again, 'He who is baptized by one that is dead, his washing profiteth him nothing." He did not mean that the baptizer was a corpse, a lifeless body, the remains of a man ready for burial, but one lacking the Spirit of God, who is compared to a dead body, as He declares to a disciple in another place, ac

cording to the witness of the gospel. For and he who had it and has lost it," you may His disciple says, 'Lord, suffer me first to go see from this, that in the case of those who and bury my father. But Jesus said unto apostatize after having been baptized, and him, Follow me, and let the dead bury their who return through penitence, baptism is not dead.' ' I The father of the disciple was not restored to them, as it would be restored if it baptized. He declared him as a pagan to were lost. In what manner, indeed, do your belong to the company of pagans; unless he dead men baptize according to your intersaid this of the unbelieving, The dead cannot pretation? Must we not reckon the drunken bury the dead. He was dead, therefore, not among the dead (to say nothing of the rest, as smitten by some death, but as smitten even and to mention only what is well known and during life. For he who so lives as to be of daily experience among all), seeing that doomed to eternal death is tortured by a the apostle says of the widow, "But she that death in life. To be baptized, therefore, by liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth?"s the dead, is to have received not life but In the next place, in that Council of yours, in death. We must therefore consider and de- which you condemned Maximianus with his clare how far the traditor is to be accounted advisers or his ministers, have you forgotten dead while yet alive. He is dead who has with what eloquence you said, "Even after not deserved to be born again with a true the manner of the Egyptians, the shores are baptism; he is ikewise dead who, having full of the bodies of the dying, on whom the been born again with a true baptism, has be- weightier punishment falls in death itself, in come involved with a 'raditor. Both are that, after their life has been wrung from wanting in the life of baptism,-both he who them by the avenging waters, they have not never had it at all, and he who had it and has found so much as burial?" And yet you lost it. For the Lord Jesus Christ says, yourselves may see whether or no one of "There shall come to that man seven spirits them, Felicianus, has been brought to life more wicked than the former one, and the again; yet he has with him within the comlast state of that man shall be worse than the munion of your body those whom he baptized first.' outside. As therefore he is baptized by One that is alive, who is clothed with the baptism of the living Christ, so he is baptized by the dead who is wrapped in the baptism of the dead Saturn, or any one like him; that we may set forth in the meanwhile, with what brevity we may, in what sense the words which you have quoted may be understood without any cavilling on the part of any one of us. For, in the sense in which they are received by you, you make no effort to explain them, but only strive to entangle us together with yourselves.

15. AUGUSTIN answered: Seek with greater care to know in what sense the words which you have quoted from Scripture in proof of your position were really uttered, and how they should be understood. For that all unrighteous persons are wont to be called dead in a mystical sense is clear enough; but Christ, to whom true baptism belongs, which you say is false because of the faults of men, is alive, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and He will not die any more through any infirmity of the flesh: death will no more have dominion over Him.3 And they who are baptized with His baptism are not baptiz- CHAP. 8.-17. PETILIANUS said: "We must ed by one who is dead. And if it so hap- consider, I say, and declare how far the pen that certain ministers, being deceitful treacherous traditor is to be accounted dead workers, seeking their own, not the things while yet in life. Judas was an apostle when which are Jesus Christ's, proclaiming the he betrayed Christ; and the same man was gospel not in purity, and preaching Christ of contention and envy, are to be called dead because of their unrighteousness, yet the sacrament of the living God does not die even in one that is dead. For that Simon was dead who was baptized by Philip in Samaria, who wished to purchase the gift of God for money; but the baptism which he had lived in him still to work his punishment.

already dead, having spiritually lost the office of an apostle, being destined afterwards to die by hanging himself, as it is written: ‘I have sinned,' says he, 'in that I have betrayed the innocent blood; and he departed, and went and hanged himself.'' The traitor perished by the rope: he left the rope for others like himself, of whom the Lord Christ cried aloud to the Father, 'Father, those that Thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled.'7 For David of old

had passed this sentence on him who was to that smoke of mighty words presently vanish betray Christ to the unbelievers: 'Let another away? Or will you perchance endeavor to take his office. Let his children be father- prove the truth of what you say? This, then, less, and his wife a widow." See how mighty you should do first; and then you might rise is the spirit of the prophets, that it was able against us, as against men who were already to see all future things as though they were convicted, with whatever mass of invective present, so that a traitor who was to be born you might choose. Here is one absurdity: hereafter should be condemned many centu- behold again a second. ries before. Finally, that the said sentence should be completed, the holy Matthias received the bishopric of that lost apostle. Let no one be so dull, no one so faithless, as to dispute this: Matthias won for himself a victory, not a wrong, in that he carried off the spoils of the traitor from the victory of the Lord Christ. Why then, after this, do you claim to yourself a bishopric as the heir of a worse traitor? Judas betrayed Christ in the flesh to the unbelievers; you in the spirit madly betrayed the holy gospel to the flames of sacrilege. Judas betrayed the Lawgiver to the unbelievers; you, as it were, betraying all that he had left, gave up the law of God to be destroyed by men. Whilst, had you loved the law, like the youthful Maccabees, you would have welcomed death for the sake of the laws of God (if indeed that can be said to be death to men which makes them immortal because they died for the Lord); for of those brethren we learn that one replied to the sacrilegious tyrant with these words of faith: "Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life; but the King of the world (who reigns for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end) shall raise us up who have died for His laws, unto everlasting life.' If you were to burn with fire the testament of a dead man, would you not be punished as the falsifier of a will? What therefore is likely to become of you who have burned the most holy law of our God and Judge? Judas repented of his deed even in death; you not only do not repent, but stand forth as a persecutor and butcher of us who keep the law, whilst you are the most wicked of traditors."

18. AUGUSTIN answered: See what a difference there is between your calumnious words and our truthful assertions. Listen for a little while. See how you have exaggerated the sin of delivering up the sacred books, comparing us in most odious terms, like some sophistical inventor of charges, with the traitor Judas. But when I shall have answered you on this point with the utmost brevity,-I did not do what you assert; I did not deliver up the sacred books; your charge is false; you will never be able to prove it,-will not all

19. You yourself, when speaking of the foretelling of the condemnation of Judas, used these expressions: "See how mighty is the spirit of the prophets, that it was able to see all future things as though they were present, so that a traitor who was to be born hereafter should be condemned many centuries before;" and yet you did not see that in the same sure prophecy, and certain and unshaken truth, in which it was foretold that one of the disciples should hereafter betray the Christ, it was also foretold that the whole world should hereafter believe in Christ. Why did you pay attention in the prophecy to the man who betrayed Christ, and in the same place give no heed to the world for which Christ was betrayed? Who betrayed Christ? Judas. To whom did he betray Him? To the Jews. What did the Jews do to Him? "They pierced my hands and my feet," says the Psalmist. "I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture."3 Of what importance, then, that is which is bought at such a price, I would have you read a little later in the psalm itself: "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's; and He is the governor among the nations." 4 But who is able to suffice for the quotation of all the other innumerable prophetic passages which bear witness to the world that is destined to believe? Yet you quote a prophecy because you see in it the man who sold Christ: you do not see in it the possession which Christ bought by being sold. Here is the second absurdity: behold again the third.

20. Among the many other expressions in your invective, you said: "If you were to burn with fire the testament of a dead man, would you not be punished as the falsifier of a will? What therefore is likely to become of you who have burned the most holy law of our God and Judge?" In these words you have paid no attention to what certainly ought to have moved you, to the question of how it might be that we should burn the testament, and yet stand fast in the inheritance