Against Parmenian the Donatist 1.1–1.20

Dearest brothers, one faith commends all of us Christians to almighty God, and part of that faith is to believe that the Son of God, the Lord, will come as judge of the world: he who came long ago and, according to his humanity, was born through the virgin Mary, suffered, died, was buried, and rose again; and before he ascended into heaven, from which he had come down, he left peace to all of us Christians through the apostles. So that he might not seem to have left it to the apostles alone, he therefore says, "What I say to one of you, I say to all." Then he says, "My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you." Peace, then, was given to all Christians, and it is plain that it is God's possession, since he says "my"; but when he says "I give you," he wanted it to be not only his own but also that of all who believe in him.

If that peace had remained as it was given, whole and unviolated, and had not been disturbed by the authors of schism, there would today be no dissension between us and our brothers. They would not be shedding tears before God for which there is no consolation, as the prophet Isaiah testifies; they would not incur the name and acts of false prophets; they would not build a ruinous and whitewashed wall; they would not overturn minds (not so much clever ones as simple ones); they would not, by wrongly laying a hand on every head, spread veils of overthrow; they would not curse God; they would not rebaptize the faithful; and we would not be grieving over the overthrown or slain souls of the innocent, over whom God grieved first through the prophet Ezekiel, saying: "Woe to those who make a veil over every head and over every age to overthrow souls. The souls of my people have been overthrown, and they cursed me and my people, so as to slay souls that ought not to die, while they announce vain seductions to my people." And yet these things have been done by those who are our brothers.

But lest anyone say that I call such men brothers without consideration: we cannot stray from the words of the prophet Isaiah. Although they themselves do not deny it, and it is known to all, that they hate and curse us and do not want to be called our brothers, yet we cannot depart from the fear of God, since the Holy Spirit exhorts us through the prophet Isaiah, saying: "You who fear the word of the Lord, hear the word of the Lord: those who hate you and curse you and do not want to be called your brothers, you nevertheless say to them, 'You are our brothers.'" Without doubt, then, they are brothers, though not good ones. So let no one wonder that I call them brothers, who cannot fail to be brothers. We and they have indeed one spiritual birth, but our acts differ. For Ham too, who impiously laughed at his father's nakedness, was brother of the innocent, and for his deserts incurred the yoke of servitude, so as to be a brother bound over as slave to his brothers. So this name of brotherhood is not laid aside even when sin intervenes. But of the offenses of these brothers I will speak in another place: they sit and speak against us, they set stumbling blocks against us, they run with the thief who robs God, they take their part with adulterers, that is, with heretics, they praise their own sins and plan insults against us Catholics.

All of them, indeed, in each place, make a din with abusive words; but we have found scarcely one with whom we might speak even in this way, by writing, namely our brother Parmenian, if he allows himself to be called by us even by this name. And since they will not have a common episcopal college with us, let them not be colleagues, if they do not wish; yet, as we said above, they are brothers. My brother Parmenian, then, so as not to speak windily and baldly like the rest, not only said whatever he could think but also set it down in writing. Since we are compelled by the force of truth to answer his words, there will be a conference of sorts between us in our absence. In the same way the wishes of some will be satisfied too. For many have often wished that, to bring the truth to light, a debate might be held between some defenders of the parties. And it could have happened. But since they forbid access, close the approaches, avoid meeting together and refuse conversation, let there at least be a conference between you and me, brother Parmenian, in this way: since I have not scorned or despised your treatises, which you wanted to be in the hands and mouths of many, but have heard patiently all that you said, you too may hear the replies of our humble self.

For I understand, and you do not deny, and any wise man sees clearly, that you treated these matters so lengthily for no other reason than to strike at the Catholic Church unworthily in your treatises. But, as one may understand, the mind holds one thing and the speech sounds another. In short, I see that you have not said everything against the Catholic Church; on the contrary, much for the Catholic Church, though you are not a Catholic, so that we would not even have needed to answer your treatises, except that, being badly instructed, so that you spoke not what you had seen but what you had falsely heard (although we have read in the letter of the apostle Peter, "Do not judge your brothers by opinion"), among some things that do not concern us, as we will prove, you said that we had asked for soldiers against you. Otherwise, in other parts of your treatise, some things were said by you for us and against you, such as the comparison of the flood and circumcision; some for both us and you, such as what you said in praise of baptism, except that you treated the flesh of Christ wrongly (and so it is for you too, since, though you are outside, you came out from us). For that too is for both, that you showed heretics to be strangers to the Catholic sacraments, if only you had not joined yourselves to them, who are plainly schismatics. Some things are for us alone, such as the mention of the one church; some are against you through ignorance, since you are a foreigner, such as the accusation of traitors and schismatics; and that also is against you which you said about the oil and the sacrifice of the sinner. And so nothing has been said by you against us, except that you said in ignorance that soldiers had been requested by us; and we will show by the truest proofs that this was said by you as a slander. Take away this slander and you are ours. For what is more for us, and more ours, than that you said, in comparing baptism, that the flood happened once? And in saying that the single circumcision was beneficial to the Jewish people, you spoke even more for us, as if you were ours. For this is our voice, who defend the oneness of baptism in the Trinity, not yours, who boldly, and against the laws, repeat the baptism of which those two are the image, although you yourselves do not deny that what was commanded to be done once ought not to be repeated. But while you subtly praised what is worthy of every proclamation of praise, you cunningly put your own party in its place, as if, since it is lawful once, it were lawful for you and denied to others. If it is not lawful for traitors, it ought not to have been lawful for you, whose leaders we prove to have been traitors. If it is not lawful for schismatics, equally it ought not to have been lawful for you, among whom the origin of the schism is found. If it is not lawful for sinners, we convict you too of being sinners by divine testimony. And yet, since it is lawful once, not through the chosen man but through that which is lawful once, we therefore do not correct after you, because with us and with you the sacrament is one; the whole account of this sacrament will be shown in the fifth book.

Many things, indeed, were treated by you, brother Parmenian; but I see that I should not answer each in the order in which you said them. For in the first place you set out comparisons and praises of baptism, and, except for your wrong treatment of the flesh of Christ, you spoke the rest well; it will be shown in its place that you said this rather for us. In the second place, after excluding the heretics, you said that the church is one; but you would not acknowledge where it is. In the third place you accused traitors without naming any definite persons or names. Fourth, the workers of unity were torn to pieces by you. Fifth, to pass over small points, you spoke of the oil and the sacrifice of the sinner.

But it seems to me that I should first point out the cities, persons and names of the traitors and schismatics, so that what you have said about them may recognize its true authors and its definite culprits. Next I must say what and where the one church is, which exists, since besides the one there is no other. Third, that soldiers were not requested by us, and that what is said to have been done by the workers of unity does not concern us. Fourth, who is the sinner whose sacrifice God rejects, or whose oil is to be avoided. Fifth, about baptism; sixth, about your inconsiderate presumptions and errors.

But before I say anything about the individual matters, I will briefly show that you treated the flesh of Christ wrongly. For you said that that sinful flesh, plunged in the flood of the Jordan, was cleansed from all filth. You could rightly say this if the flesh of Christ, baptized for all, sufficed, so that no one would be baptized for himself. If that were so, the whole human race would be there; everything born bodily would be there; there would be no difference between the faithful and any pagan, because there is flesh in all; and since there is no one who does not have flesh, if, as you said, the flesh of Christ was plunged in the flood of the Jordan, all flesh would obtain this benefit. For the flesh of Christ in Christ is one thing; the flesh of each person in himself is another. Why did you see fit to call the flesh of Christ sinful? If only you had said "the flesh of men in the flesh of Christ"; not even so would you have spoken plausibly, because each believer is baptized in the name of Christ, not in the flesh of Christ, which was specially his. Add that his flesh, conceived of the Holy Spirit, could not be dipped among others for the remission of sins, since it was seen to have committed no sin. You also added "plunged in the flood of the Jordan." You used this word quite inconsiderately, a word due to Pharaoh alone and his people, who by the weight of their offenses was so plunged, like lead, that he stayed there. But the flesh of Christ, when it went down into the Jordan and came up, ought not to have been called "plunged" by you; his flesh is found holier than the Jordan itself, so that by its descent it cleansed the water rather than being cleansed itself.

I cannot pass over this either, which I see you did cunningly: so as to draw in or deceive the minds of your hearers, after describing circumcision and the flood and after praising baptism, you wished somehow to raise up again heretics with their errors, already dead and buried in oblivion, whose names, not just their vices, seemed to be unknown through the African provinces. Marcion, Praxeas, Sabellius, Valentinus and the rest, down to the Cataphrygians, were overcome in their own times by Victorinus of Pettau, Zephyrinus of the City, Tertullian of Carthage and other champions of the Catholic Church. Why do you wage war with the dead, who have nothing to do with the business of our time? But because, being a schismatic, you have today no sin that you can prove against the Catholics, you chose to mention so many heretics with their errors in order to lengthen your writing.

Now another question arises: why did you mention those among whom there are none of the sacraments that seem to be common to us and to you? Health does not demand medicine; strength secure in itself does not seek help from outside; truth does not need arguments. It is the sick man's part to seek remedies, the idle and weak man's to procure help, the liar's to hunt for arguments. Meanwhile you said that the dowries of the church cannot exist among heretics, and you said rightly; for we know that the churches of the individual heretics are prostitutes, without lawful sacraments and without the right of honorable marriage. Christ rejects them as unnecessary, who is the bridegroom of the one church, as he himself testifies in the Song of Songs. When he praises one, he condemns the others, because besides the one, which is truly Catholic, the others are thought to exist among the heretics, but do not; according to what he shows, as we said above, in the Song of Songs, that his dove is one, the same his chosen bride, the same the garden enclosed and the fountain sealed, so that all the heretics have neither the keys, which Peter alone received, nor the ring with which, we read, the fountain was sealed, nor is any of them the one to whom that garden belongs in which God plants his little trees. What you said at length about these heretics, though it does not concern the present case, was enough and more than enough. But I wonder why you saw fit to join yourselves to them too, who are plainly schismatics, when you denied the dowries of the church both to the heretics themselves and to you schismatics. For among other things you said that schismatics are cut off from the vine like branches, and, destined for punishment like dry wood, are kept for the fires of Gehenna. But I see that you are still ignorant of the schism made at Carthage by your leaders. Look for the origin of these things and you will find that you pronounced this sentence against yourselves when you joined heretics to schismatics. For Caecilian did not go out from Maiorinus, your grandfather, but Maiorinus from Caecilian; nor did Caecilian withdraw from the chair of Peter or of Cyprian, but Maiorinus, whose chair you occupy, a chair that has no origin before Maiorinus himself. And since it is most plainly established that these things happened so, and it clearly appears that you are heirs of traitors and schismatics, I wonder greatly, brother Parmenian, that you, a schismatic, wished to join schismatics to heretics. Or if this is your view and you are pleased so, heap up what you said a little before. For you said it cannot be that, in false baptism, the defiled should wash, the unclean cleanse, the supplanter raise up, the lost set free, the guilty grant pardon, the condemned absolve. All these things could well apply to the heretics alone, because they have falsified the creed: one said there are two gods, though God is one; another wants the Father to be recognized in the person of the Son; another takes away from the Son of God the flesh through which the world was reconciled to God; and the rest of this kind, who are known to be strangers to the Catholic sacraments. So you should regret having joined even schismatics to such men; for you turned the sword of the sentence against yourself while you thought you were attacking others, and you did not notice how great the distance is between schismatics and heretics. That is why you do not know what the holy church is either; and so you have mixed everything up.

What makes the Catholic Church is a simple and true understanding, a single and most true sacrament, and the unity of minds. But schism is begotten when the bond of peace is scattered and minds are divided; it is nourished by envy and strengthened by rivalry and quarrels, so that, deserting their Catholic mother, impious sons, while they go out and separate themselves, as you have done, cut off from the root of mother church by the sickles of envy, depart in error as rebels. Nor can they do anything new or different except what they had long ago learned with their mother.

But heretics, exiles from the truth, deserters of the sound and most true creed, corrupted by impious thoughts from the bosom of the holy church, despising the fact that they had been well begotten, wished to be born of themselves, so as to deceive the ignorant and untaught. And those who had long been fed on life-giving food, through the corruption of a bad digestion, vomited deadly poisons in impious disputes to the ruin of the wretched. You see, then, brother Parmenian, that the heretics, exiled far from the house of truth, alone have various and false baptisms, with which the defiled cannot wash, the unclean cannot cleanse, the supplanter cannot raise up, the lost cannot set free, the guilty cannot grant pardon, the condemned cannot absolve. You did well to close the garden to the heretics, well to recall the keys to Peter, well to take away the power of cultivating, so that those who are plainly strangers to God's little garden and paradise should not tend his little trees; well did you remove the ring from those who are not permitted to open to the fountain. But to you schismatics, although you are not in the Catholic Church, these things cannot be denied, since you took the true and common sacraments with you from us. So, since all these things are rightly denied to the heretics, why did you see fit to deny them to yourselves too, who are plainly schismatics? For you went out. As far as it lies with us, we wished that only the heretics should be condemned; as far as it lies with you, you wished to strike even yourselves with them by one sentence.

But now, to return to the order of individual matters we proposed: first hear who the traitors were, and learn more fully who were the authors of the schism. It is plain that in Africa two evils, and the worst, were committed, one in the handing over, the other in the schism; but both evils appear to have been committed at the same time and by the same authors. You ought therefore, brother Parmenian, to learn what you are understood not to know. For about sixty years ago and more, the storm of persecution spread through all Africa, which made some martyrs, others confessors, laid some low in a deadly fall, and let those who hid go unharmed. Why should I mention the lay people, who were then supported by no rank in the church? Why the many ministers? Why the deacons, set in the third rank of the priesthood, why the presbyters in the second? The very heads and leaders of all, some bishops of that time, so as to buy with the loss of eternal life the briefest delays of this uncertain light, impiously handed over the books of the divine law. Among them were Donatus of Mascula, Victor of Rusicade, Marinus of Aquae Tibilitanae, Donatus of Calama, and Purpurius of Limata, a murderer, who, when questioned about his sister's sons, whom he was said to have killed in the prison at Milevis, confessed, saying: "I both killed and I kill, not only them but whoever acts against me." And Menalius, who, so as not to be proved by his fellow citizens to have offered incense, pretending a pain in his eyes, was afraid to come to the meeting of his colleagues.

These and others, whom we shall show a little later to have been your leaders, after the persecution met at the city of Cirta, in the house of Urbanus Carisius, because the basilicas had not yet been restored, on the third day before the Ides of May, as the writings of Nundinarius, then a deacon, testify, and the age of the parchments bears witness; we can bring them out for those who doubt. Indeed we have added the full record of these matters in the last part of these little books, to fill out the proof. These bishops, when Secundus of Tigisis questioned them, confessed that they had handed over. And when Secundus himself was rebuked by Purpurius, because he too had been a long time with the guards and had not fled but had been released, and had not been released without reason, unless because he had handed over, then all, roused, began to murmur. Fearing their spirit, Secundus took the advice of his brother's son, Secundus the younger, to keep such a case for God. Those who remained were consulted, namely Victor of Garba, Felix of Rotarium and Nabor of Centurio. They said that such a case ought to be reserved for God. And Secundus said, "Sit down, all of you." Then all said, "Thanks be to God," and they sat down. You have, then, brother Parmenian, those who were plainly traitors.

Then, not long afterward, these same men, so many and such traitors, incense-offerers and murderers, having gone to Carthage, ordained Maiorinus, whose chair you occupy, after the ordination of Caecilian, and so made a schism. And since it has been shown that your leaders were guilty of handing over, it follows that the same men were the authors of the schism. So that this may be clear and plain to all, it must be shown from what root the branches of error have stretched out to this day, and from what spring this stream of malignant liquid, creeping secretly, has flowed down to our times. It must be said whence, where and by whom this second evil plainly arose, what causes came together, what persons were at work; who were the authors of this evil, who its nurses; by whom judgments between the parties were requested from the emperor; who sat as judges; where the council was held; what sentences were pronounced. The question is one of division: in Africa, as in the other provinces, the church was one before it was divided by those who ordained Maiorinus, whose inherited chair you occupy. We must see who remained in the root with the whole world, who went outside, who occupied a second chair that had not existed before, who set up altar against altar, who made an ordination while another ordained man was still in office, who lies under the sentence of John the apostle, who said that many antichrists would go out: "For they were not ours," he says; "for if they had been ours, they would have remained with us." So whoever would not remain in unity with his brothers, following the heretics, has gone out like an antichrist.

That this was done at Carthage after the ordination of Caecilian there is no one who does not know: through Lucilla, namely, some factious woman or other, who, before the peace was shaken by the whirlwinds of persecution, while the church was still in tranquility, could not bear the rebuke of the archdeacon Caecilian. She was said to kiss the bone of some martyr or other (if indeed a martyr) before the spiritual food and drink, and since she preferred to the cup of salvation the bone of some dead man or other (even if a martyr, one not yet recognized), she was rebuked, and went away angry and put to shame. While she was angry and grieving, so as not to submit to discipline, the storm of persecution suddenly broke out and came to meet her.

At the same time a certain deacon Felix, who had been charged over some notorious letter then written about the tyrant emperor, is said to have hidden with the bishop Mensurius, fearing danger. When Mensurius publicly refused to hand him over on demand, a report was sent. A rescript came back that if Mensurius did not give up the deacon Felix, he should be sent to the palace. Summoned, he suffered no light distress; for the church had very many ornaments of gold and silver, which he could neither bury in the earth nor carry with him. These he entrusted to elders, as if faithful ones, after making an inventory, which he is said to have given to a certain old woman, so that, if he did not return, when peace was restored to the Christians, that old woman should give it to whomever she found sitting in the episcopal chair. He set out and pleaded his case; he was ordered to return, but he could not reach Carthage.

The storm of persecution was over and ended. At God's command, Maxentius sent an indulgence, and liberty was restored to the Christians. Botrus and Celestius, it is said, wishing to be ordained at Carthage, took pains that, in the absence of the Numidians, only the neighboring bishops should be asked to celebrate the ordination at Carthage. Then, by the vote of the whole people, Caecilian was elected and was ordained bishop, with Felix of Abthugni laying on the hand. Botrus and Celestius were cast down from their hope. The inventory of the gold and silver was handed over to Caecilian, now seated, as Mensurius had arranged, in the presence of witnesses. The elders mentioned above were called together, who had drunk down with the jaws of avarice the plunder entrusted to them. When they were compelled to return it, they withdrew their foot from communion; no less did the ambitious men, who had not managed to be ordained; and also Lucilla, who had long been unable to bear discipline, a powerful and factious woman, refused with all her people to be joined in communion. So, by three causes and persons coming together, it came about that malice had its effect.

The schism, then, was brought forth at that time by the anger of a woman put to shame, nourished by ambition, and strengthened by avarice. By these three persons charges were made up against Caecilian, so that his ordination might be called faulty. A message was sent to Secundus of Tigisis to come to Carthage. All the traitors mentioned above set out, and were received as guests by the avaricious, by the ambitious, by the angry, not by the Catholics, at whose request Caecilian had been ordained. Meanwhile none of the aforesaid came to the basilica where the whole crowd of the city was with Caecilian. Then Caecilian sent word: "If there is anything to be proved against me, let the accuser come out and prove it." At that time nothing could be made up against him by so many enemies; but he was defamed over the man who ordained him, who was falsely called a traitor by them. Again Caecilian sent word that if, as they thought, Felix had conferred nothing on him, they themselves should ordain Caecilian as if he were still a deacon. Then Purpurius, relying on his usual malice, as if Caecilian too were his sister's son, said: "Let him come out here, as if a hand were to be laid on him for the episcopate, and let his head be broken for penance." When these things were known, the whole church held Caecilian back, so that he should not hand himself over to robbers. At that time either the guilty man ought to have been expelled from his see or communion should have been held with the innocent. The church was crowded with people; the episcopal chair was occupied; the altar was in its place, on which peaceable bishops of former times had offered, Cyprian, Lucianus and the rest. So they went outside, and altar was set up against altar, and an ordination was unlawfully celebrated, and Maiorinus, who had been a lector in Caecilian's diaconate, a member of Lucilla's household, was ordained bishop, by her vote, by the traitors who, in the council of Numidia, as we said above, had confessed their crimes to each other and granted each other pardon. It is plain, then, that both the ordainers, who had handed over, and Maiorinus, who was ordained, went out from the church.

Meanwhile, from the spring of their own crimes, which had overflowed among them with the veins of many outrages, they thought that the one reproach of handing over should be diverted onto the man who ordained Caecilian, foreseeing that rumor could not speak of two similar things at once. To send their own crimes into silence, they tried to defame another's life; and though they could themselves be accused by the innocent, they set out to accuse the innocent, sending letters everywhere written at the dictation of envy, which we have among the other acts for later. While still at Carthage they went ahead of themselves with their letters, so as to fill everyone's ears with false rumors. Rumor spread the lie through the peoples; and while falsehoods about one man were noised abroad, the most true crimes of those just named lay hidden in silence. Often one is ashamed of a crime; but at that time there was no one before whom to be ashamed, since, apart from a few Catholics, almost all had sinned, and a wickedness committed among many was a sort of image of innocence. The crime of handing over, which plainly had been committed by Donatus of Mascula and the others named above, was too little; they joined to the handing over the huge outrage of schism as well.