CONTENTS ON A TREATISE CONCERNING THE CORRECTION OF THE DONATISTS. A Letter of Augustin to Boniface, who, as we learn from Epistle 220, was Tribune, and afterwards PAGE 633 A LETTER OF AUGUSTIN TO BONIFACE, WHO, AS WE LEARN FROM EPISTLE 220, WAS TRIBUNE, AND AFTERWARDS COUNT IN AFRICA, IN IT AUGUSTIN SHOWS THAT THE HERESY OF THE DONATISTS HAS NOTHING IN COMMON WITH THAT OF ARIUS; AND POINTS OUT THE MODERATION WITH WHICH IT WAS POSSIBLE TO RECALL THE HERETICS TO THE COMMUNION OF THE CHURCH THROUGH AWE OF THE IMPERIAL LAWS, HE ADDS REMARKS CONCERNING THE SAVAGE CONDUCT OF THE DONATISTS AND CIRCUMCELLIONES, CONCLUDING. WITH A DISCUSSION OF THE UNPARDONABLE NATURE OF THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST,3 CHAP. I.-I. I must express my satisfac- [ said that the Son was inferior to the Father, tion, and congratulations, and admiration, my son Boniface, in that, amid all the cares of wars and arms, you are eagerly anxious to know concerning the things that are of God. From hence it is clear that in you it is actually a part of your military valor to serve in truth the faith which is in Christ. To place, therefore, briefly before your Grace the difference between the errors of the Arians and the Donatists, the Arians say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are different in substance; whereas the Donatists do not say this, but acknowledge the unity of substance in the Trinity. And if some even of them have 1 Written c. 417. 2 In Book II. c. xlviii. of his Retractations, Augustin says: "About the same time" (as that at which he wrote his treatise De Gestis Pelagii, i. e. about the year 417), "I wrote also a treatise De Correctione Donatistarum, for the sake of those who were not willing that the Donatists should be subjected to the correction of the imperial laws. This treatise begins with the words "Laudo, et gratulor, et admiror." This letter in the old editions was No. 50,-the letter which is now No. 4 in the appendix (Benedictine) being formerly No. 185. 3 He handles the same thought in Ep. 93. yet they have not denied that He is of the same substance; whilst the greater part of them declare that they hold entirely the same belief regarding the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost as is held by the Catholic Church. Nor is this the actual question in dispute with them; but they carry on their unhappy strife solely on the question of communion, and in the perversity of their error maintain rebellious hostility against the unity of Christ. But sometimes, as we have heard, some of them, wishing to conciliate the Goths, since they see that they are not without a certain amount of power, profess to entertain the same belief as they. But they are refuted by the authority of their own leaders; for Donatus himself, of whose party they boast themselves to be, is never said to have held this belief. 2. Let not, however, things like these disturb thee, my beloved son. For it is foretold us that there must needs be heresies and 4 The correspondence between Augustin and Boniface is lim-to ited to Epp. 185, 189 and 220. The sixteen smaller letters are stumbling-blocks, that we may be instructed spurious. For note to Boniface and translations of 189 and and 220, see vol. 1 of this series, pp. 552 and 573. among our enemies; and that so both our faith and our love may be the more approved, —our faith, namely, that we should not be deceived by them; and our love, that we should take the utmost pains we can to correct the erring ones themselves; not only watching that they should do no injury to the weak, and that they should be delivered from their wicked error, but also praying for them, that God would open their understanding, and that they might comprehend the Scriptures. For in the sacred books, where the Lord Christ is made manifest, there is also His Church declared; but they, with wondrous blindness, while they would know nothing of Christ Himself save what is revealed in the Scriptures, yet form their notion of His Church from the vanity of human falsehood, instead of learning what it is on the authority of the sacred books. us; "4 so is His Church made manifest, not in Africa alone, as they most impudently venture in the madness of their vanity to assert, but spread abroad throughout the world. 4. For they prefer to the testimonies of Holy Writ their own contentions, because, in the case of Cæcilianus, formerly a bishop of the Church of Carthage, against whom they brought charges which they were and are unable to substantiate, they separated themselves from the Catholic Church, that is, from the unity of all nations. Although, even if the charges had been true which were brought by them against Cæcilianus, and could at length be proved to us, yet, though we might pronounce an anathema upon him even in the grave, we are still bound not for the sake of any man to leave the Church, which rests for its foundation on divine witness, and is not the 3. They recognize Christ together with us figment of litigious opinions, seeing that it in that which is written, "They pierced my is better to trust in the Lord than to put hands and my feet. They can tell all my confidence in man. For we cannot allow bones: they look and stare upon me. They that if Cæcilianus had erred,—a supposition part my garments among them, and cast lots which I make without prejudice to his integupon my vesture;" and yet they refuse to rec- rity,-Christ should therefore have forfeited ognize the Church in that which follows shortly His inheritance. It is easy for a man to beafter: "All the ends of the world shall re- lieve of his fellow-men either what is true or member, and turn unto the Lord; and all the what is false; but it marks abandoned impukindreds of the nations shall worship before dence to desire to condemn the communion Thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's; and of the whole world on account of charges alHe is the Governor among the nations.' "leged against a man, of which you cannot esThey recognize Christ together with us in tablish the truth in the face of the world. that which is written, The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee;" and they will not recognize the Church in that which follows: "Ask of me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession." They recognize Christ together with us in that which the Lord Himself says in the gospel, "Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day;" and they will not recognize the Church in that which follows: "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."3 And the testimonies in the sacred books are without number, all of which it has not been necessary for me to crowd together into this book. And in all of them, as the Lord Christ is made manifest, whether in accordance with His Godhead, in which He is equal to the Father, so that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" or according to the humility of the flesh which He took upon Him, whereby "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among 66 2 Ps. xxii, 16-18, 2,, 28. 2 Ps. ii. 7, 8. 3 Luke xxiv. 46, 47. 5. Whether Cæcil:anus was ordained by men who had delivered up the sacred books, I do not know. I did not see it, I heard it only from his enemies. It is not declared to me in the law of God, or in the utterances of the prophets, or in the holy poetry of the Psalms, or in the writings of any one of Christ's apostles, or in the eloquence of Christ Himself. But the evidence of all the several scriptures with one accord proclaims the Church spread abroad throughout the world, with which the faction of Donatus does not hold communion. The law of God declared, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." The Lord said by the mouth of His prophet, "From the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, a pure sacrifice shall be offered unto my name: for my name shall be great among the heathen." 8 The Lord said through the Psalmist, "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." The Lord said by His apostle, 4 John i. 1, 4. ecumenical Synod (553), when the point was under debate whether 5 This epistle was produced in the fifth conference of the fifth Theodorus of Mopsuesta could be condemned after his death. 8 Mal. i. 11. 9 Ps. ixxii. 8. |