Against Parmenian the Donatist 2.26–3.6

Matrons, boys and virgins alike, compelled by you though no sin intervened, with their innocence and chastity intact, learned under your teaching to do penance. Is that a lesser unhappiness? You crushed the sexes, harassed the ages; truly it was said of you in the thirteenth psalm: "Crushing and unhappiness are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes." You imposed penance on whole congregations; for it was not undertaken by anyone, but exacted by you, and not for equal spaces of time, but you did everything by persons: at your command one did penance for a whole year, another a month, another scarcely a whole day. If to consent to unity, as you hold, is a sin, if the fault is similar, why is the penance not equal for the same guilt? There is no doubt that the people of believers is called Israel, and the individual congregations daughters of Israel, that is, those who have seen God with the mind and believed in God. And yet you forced these congregations to bend and bow their necks and, with a row of heads joined together, to make a mass of penitents. God grieves over these congregations through the prophet Ezekiel, saying, "Woe to the daughters of Israel, who sew pillows" (that is, members of the neck) "to put under the elbow and under the hand": certainly under your elbows and under your hands, when you spread the veils of penance over the heads of men and women. Thus your impiety and fury have been shown and your pride displayed; your folly too had to be revealed, but this I will show in the sixth book.

In the second little book we have said enough, I think, about the church, which is the bride of Christ, about its dowries, and about the Savior's inheritance. It follows to show first the errors of the schismatics; next, what was the cause that unity was brought about; third, who caused armed soldiers to be sent. Many things were indeed done harshly by the workers of unity; but why do you charge them to Leontius, Macarius or Taurinus? Charge them to your forebears, who, as is written in the prophet, ate sour grapes themselves so that your teeth should be set on edge: first to those who divided God's people and made unnecessary basilicas; next to Donatus of Carthage, who provoked the attempt to bring about unity in recent times; third to Donatus of Bagai, who had gathered a mad multitude, from whose violence Macarius, to avoid suffering it, asked for the help of armed soldiers to protect himself and what he was carrying. Then came the armed men with quivers; every city was filled with people shouting. When unity was announced, you all fled. No one was told, "Deny God"; no one was told, "Burn the testament"; no one was told, "Either offer incense or tear down the basilicas"; for these are the things that usually produce martyrdoms. Unity was proclaimed; there had been only exhortations that God and his Christ should be prayed to alike by a people coming together into one. At first there was no terror: no one had seen a rod, no one a prison; there had been, as we said above, only exhortations. You were all afraid, you fled, you trembled, so that it was surely said of you what is written in the fifty-second psalm: "There they trembled with fear, where there was no fear." So all the bishops fled with their clergy; some died; those who were stronger were captured and banished far away.

And yet none of all these things was done with our wish, none with our counsel, none with our knowledge, none with our work; but all were done in the grief of God weeping bitterly, and in vengeance for the water which, against his prohibition, you stirred up a second time, bringing over to yourselves the water of the old pool. But I do not know whether you brought it with that fish which is understood as Christ, which is read in the reading of the patriarchs as caught in the river Tigris, whose gall and liver Tobias took for the protection of the woman Sarah and for the enlightening of Tobit, who could not see. By the inward parts of the same fish the demon Asmodeus was put to flight from the girl Sarah, who is understood as the church, and blindness was driven out from Tobit. This is the fish which in baptism is placed in the waters of the font by invocation, so that what had been water is also called a pool (piscina) from the fish (piscis). The name of this fish, according to the Greek word, contains in one name, letter by letter, a throng of holy names, ΙΧΘΥΣ, which in Latin is: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. This pool, which in the whole Catholic Church throughout the world overflows with saving waves for the life of the human race, you have brought over to your will, and you have undone the single baptism, from which baptism walls have been made for men for their protection; and you have made as it were other walls, making no good building. You could not build without tearing down. And what kind of building can there be that is built from a ruin? God grieves and weeps over this through the prophet Isaiah, when he says that the daughter of his race has been crushed. It is the race of God to have no race, who is from himself and remains for ever. Like this is the water, too, which we do not read was made. In the wrong done to this water God points to his tears, which you have caused, which he testifies can be dried by no consolation, when he speaks to you through the prophet Isaiah, saying: "Let me go; I will weep bitterly; no one will be able to console me in the crushing of the daughter of my race." In this place our innocence is defended, while God shows you his anger with grief, and reveals the cause and shows the reason. In short, he does not say these things were done in Zion, but in one of its valleys; not on that Mount Zion which in Syria Palestine a small stream separates from the walls of Jerusalem (on whose summit is a not large plain, where there had been seven synagogues, where the Jewish people coming together could learn the law given through Moses), where no lawsuit was heard, no trial held by anyone, nor any sentence passed by any judge there, because it was a place of teaching, not of controversy after teaching. If anything had to be done, it was done within the walls of Jerusalem. Hence it is written in the prophet Isaiah: "Out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." So it is not in that Mount Zion that Isaiah sees the valley, but on the holy mountain, which is the church, which through the whole Roman world has raised its head under the whole heaven, on which mountain the Son of God rejoices that he has been set as king by God the Father, saying in the first psalm, "For he has set me as king over Zion, his holy mountain," that is, over the church, of which he is king and bridegroom and head; not on that mountain where there are no gates for God to love, but on the mountain of the church, which is so called spiritually. Into the gates of this church enter the innocent, the righteous, the merciful, the continent and virgins; these gates the Holy Spirit mentions through David in the eighty-sixth psalm, when he says, "Its foundations are on the holy mountains; the Lord loves the gates of Zion": not of that bodily mountain, where there are now no gates, and since the victories of the emperor Vespasian scarcely traces of the ancient ruins remain. The spiritual Zion, then, is the church, in which Christ has been set as king by God the Father, which is in the whole world, in which there is the one Catholic Church. For that Zion is the church the most holy prophet David testifies in another place too, saying: "Praise your God, O Zion, who has strengthened the bars of your gates, he has blessed your sons within you." By the valleys of the mountain we understand the individual provinces of the whole world; and since Isaiah sees, not on the whole mountain but in one valley, that is, Africa alone, in which alone, though the temples of God that existed were enough, your leaders wanted to make others, in which alone the walls were thrown down, and the water of the holy pool was diverted, and novelty was instituted by you against antiquity, and human water was set up against divine: God both questions and rebukes all this in the valley of Mount Zion, saying: "Why has this happened to you? Because you have gone up into superfluous temples. Every city is filled with people shouting. Your wounded are not wounded by the sword, and your dead are not dead in war. They are in error from the least to the greatest; all your princes wander on the mountains; they have been turned to flight, and those who were captured are heavily bound, and your stronger ones have fled far away. Let me go; I will weep bitterly; no one will be able to console me in the crushing of the daughter of my race. And the Elamites will go up with quivers" (in the Latin language the Elamites are called the troops of the camp); and he continued, saying: "Your inner rooms will be brought out to the public, and the secrets of the house of Israel will be laid bare." This was done in Africa; and why it was all done God showed, when he charges it to you, saying: "Because you turned the water of the old pool to your city, and threw down the walls of Jerusalem to make another fortification, and set the water between two fortifications, and would not look to the old pool, nor to him who created it from the beginning."

Now you see, brother Parmenian, that everything flows back to you, from whose leaders the cause of all these things was sown; then to Donatus of Carthage, by whose poison the business of unity appears to have been set in motion. In this I will show that its workers did nothing at our wish, nor out of their own malice, but because of causes and persons provoking and driving them, which Donatus of Carthage set up out of his own levity, while he strove to seem great. For who does not know this except you, since you are a foreigner and false things could have been told you? Or who can deny a thing to which all Carthage is the principal witness: that the emperor Constans did not at first send Paul and Macarius to bring about unity, but with alms, by which poverty, relieved through the individual churches, might breathe again, be clothed, fed and rejoice? When they came to Donatus, your father, and showed why they had come, he, inflamed with his usual fury, burst out in these words: "What has the emperor to do with the church?" And from the spring of his levity he poured out many curses, no less than once against Gregory, to whom he did not hesitate to write thus: "Gregory, stain on the senate and disgrace of prefects," and other such things; to which Donatus the prefect replied with episcopal patience. Copies of these letters are sung everywhere in the mouths of many. Already then he was planning, against the precepts of the apostle Paul, to insult the powers and kings, for whom, if he listened to the apostle, he ought to pray daily. For so the blessed apostle Paul teaches: "Pray for kings and powers, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life with them." For the state is not in the church, but the church is in the state, that is, in the Roman empire, which Christ calls Lebanon in the Song of Songs, when he says, "Come, my bride who has been found, come from Lebanon," that is, from the Roman empire, where there are holy priesthoods and chastity and virginity, which are not among the barbarian nations, and, if they were, could not be safe. Rightly Paul teaches that we must pray for kings and powers, even if the emperor were one who lived as a pagan; how much more since he is a Christian, how much more since he fears God, how much more since he is devout, how much more since he is merciful, as the matter itself proves! For he had sent ornaments for the houses of God, he had sent alms for the poor, nothing to Donatus. Why, then, did he rage? Why was he angry, why did he reject what had been sent? And when those who had been sent said that they were going through the individual provinces and would give to those willing to receive, he said that he had sent letters ahead everywhere so that what had been brought should not be distributed to the poor anywhere. O what care for the wretched, what provision for the poor, what help for sinners! God cries out, saying, "I am he who made the poor and the rich"; not because he could not give to the poor too, but because, if he gave to both, the sinner could not find how to help himself. In short, it is written thus: "As water extinguishes fire, so almsgiving extinguishes sin." Certainly both are now with God, both he who wished to give and he who prevented it from being given. What if God now says to Donatus: "Bishop, what do you hold Constans to have been? If innocent, why would you not receive from an innocent man? If a sinner, why did you not allow him to give, for whose sake I made the poor?" Under this questioning, what will he be? Why did he labor, out of levity and fury, to obstruct so many poor? He had believed that he held the princedom of Carthage; and since above the emperor there is no one but God alone, who made the emperor, while Donatus exalted himself above the emperor he had, as it were, already gone beyond the bounds of men, so that he thought himself almost God, not man, not revering him who after God was feared by men. In short, through Ezekiel the Holy Spirit rebukes the prince of Tyre, that is, the prince of Carthage, when he speaks through the prophet in these words: "Son of man, speak against the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart has been exalted and you have said, I am God." That Tyre is Carthage Isaiah first proves, in whom we read "the vision concerning Tyre," and it follows, "Wail, ships of Carthage." Then secular literature too declares that Tyre is Carthage; and if there is another city called by this name, nothing is seen to have been done in it of what is plainly committed at Carthage. "Speak," says God, "against the prince of Tyre"; he does not say one must speak against some secular king, nor to many, but to one, that is, to Donatus the bishop. For it was not right for the prophet Ezekiel, whom I just named, to compare to a prince any but a bishop, who, as we said, claimed for himself the princedom of Carthage, who exalted his heart and seemed to himself superior to men and would have wished to have all, even his colleagues, under him; from whose offerings he never deigned to receive, in which matter faith is the witness, and God and his Christ, and the complaints of many, to whom he did this injury in that very fellowship, that he would do something or other alone in secret and afterward mingle perfunctorily with the rest. In this way his heart was exalted, so that he seemed to himself no longer a man but a god. In short, in the mouth of the people he was seldom called bishop, but was called Donatus of Carthage. And rightly he deserved to be called and rebuked as prince of Tyre, that is, of Carthage, because he was first of the bishops, as if he were more than the rest; and while he wished to have nothing human, he exalted his heart, not as the heart of a man but as the heart of a god, while he desired to be something more than other men. To him God continues, saying: "You have said, I am God": because, though he did not use this word, he either did or allowed what would fulfil the effect of this word. He raised his heart so that he thought no man could be compared to him, and from the swelling of his mind he seemed to himself higher; because whatever is above men is already as it were a god. Then, though bishops ought to serve God, he exacted so much from his bishops that all revered him with no less fear than God; that is how he seemed to himself to be God. And though men usually swear by God alone, he allowed men to swear by him as if by God. If any man had erred in this, he ought to have forbidden it; since he did not forbid it, he seemed to himself to be God. Then, though before his pride all who believed in Christ were called Christians, he dared to divide the people with God, so that those who followed him were no longer called Christians but Donatists; and whenever some came to him from some African province, he did not ask what human custom always requires, to inquire something about the rains, about peace, about the year's harvest; but to everyone who came these were his words: "What is being done among you about my party?" As if he had now truly divided the people with God, so as to speak fearlessly of his party. For from his time down to today, whenever any action about church affairs has been held in the public courts, each one questioned has spoken thus for the record, saying that he was of the party of Donatus; of Christ they were silent. And what shall I say of the clergy, when the petitions are read, which we mentioned in the first book, sent long ago to Constantine and subscribed, which contained the names of the bishops thus: "Given by Capito and Nasutius, Dignus and the other bishops of the party of Donatus"? And they were certainly petitioning against the bishops who, since they were not in the party of Donatus, dwelt in the Catholic Church of Christ. And since the bishop was not among his fellow bishops and would not be a man among men, it is plain that he exalted his heart and seemed to himself to be God. For your ordainers too, brother Parmenian, whose names you know well (and you are not ignorant of where they were, and who petitioned whom, and what sort of request they made, so that they might return and you might return with them), as we too have learned, when they cited before the African judges the same petitions they had given, in which it is written, "Given by the bishops of the party of Donatus": what will they answer at that imminent divine judgment, who in this world confessed in another way that they were not of the church of Christ, who gladly professed that they were of the party of Donatus, when it is written in the gospel, Christ saying, "Whoever confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father"? These confessed Donatus, not Christ. And lest this proof be small, which plainly concerns his own person, there is added also that testimony with which the rebuke mentioned above closes, that God said he would not die in his own land; and that this was so is known to all. He dwelt in the house of God and was in the heart of the sea; everywhere we read the sea as the world; since he was not only in the love of some Christians, but because of his knowledge of secular literature he was also in the heart of the sea, that is, in the love of the world, and from his knowledge he seemed wise to himself. But God emptied this wisdom of his, when he says, "Are you wiser than Daniel?" How rightly and well was his wisdom humbled, by which he thought himself wiser than Daniel in refusing the king's gifts, when he would not receive what was plainly sent by a Christian emperor! And he seemed to himself either a new Daniel or one preferred to Daniel in wisdom, because Daniel too, when he was once pressed by King Belshazzar to receive gifts, that is, a ring, a necklace and the rest, is read to have said, "Let your gifts be with you, O king." And he answered wisely, and did not insult the king, and did not condemn what was offered but put it off; not as Donatus did, who both said all the insults he could against Constans and rejected what Constans had sent to the poor. But holy Daniel was found wise in not receiving the gifts offered on that day. For what was asked of him was still in heaven, and it would be the part of a foolish man to receive as it were the wage for a thing he did not yet have in his power; therefore he would not receive for the time the gifts offered on that day. In short, when God showed him what he should tell the king named above, he reported it to Belshazzar, and what he seemed to have refused before, he afterward gladly received. Rightly God rebukes the prince of Tyre, Donatus, when he says, "Are you wiser than Daniel?" But O how far is the presumption of Donatus from the person of Daniel! For what Belshazzar was giving, he was giving to Daniel, not to the poor; what Constans, the Christian emperor, had then sent, he had sent to the poor, not to Donatus. In short, he says, "The wise have not taught you their wisdom," because you would not learn from Solomon what he says: "Hide bread in the heart of the poor, and he himself will pray for you"; because he would not learn this either from Daniel himself, the counsel he gave Nebuchadnezzar on how one who had offended God might make satisfaction: "And you, O king," he says, "hear my counsel and let it please you: redeem your sins by alms, and your iniquities by mercies to the poor." Daniel persuades a sinful and sacrilegious king to give alms; Donatus, who deserved to be rebuked, prevented the Christian emperor Constans from being merciful. He is therefore rebuked because the wise did not teach him their wisdom, he who did not allow what had been sent by the king to be given through him. From this it is plain that Donatus was the source of the evil causes.

Whatever, then, could be done harshly in bringing about unity, you see, brother Parmenian, to whom it ought to be charged. You say that soldiers were requested by us Catholics; if so, why did no one then see an armed soldier in the proconsular province? Paul and Macarius were coming to distribute to the poor everywhere and to exhort each to unity; and when they were drawing near the city of Bagai, then the other Donatus, as we said above, bishop of that city, wishing to put an impediment in the way of unity and an obstacle before the men named above who were coming, sent heralds through the neighboring places and all the markets, calling the Circumcellions "agonistici", and invited them to run together to that place. And at that time their gathering was demanded, whose madness a little before appeared to have been impiously inflamed by the bishops themselves. For when men of this kind were roaming through the various places before unity, when Axido and Fasir were called by these madmen "leaders of the saints", no one could be secure in his possessions. Bonds of debt had lost their force; no creditor at that time had freedom to collect; all were terrified by the letters of those who boasted that they were leaders of the saints, and if there was delay in obeying their orders, a mad multitude suddenly flew to the spot, and with terror going before, creditors were hemmed in by dangers, so that those who deserved to be entreated for what they had lent were driven by fear of death into humble entreaties. Each hastened to lose even very large debts, and it was reckoned a gain to have escaped their injuries. Even journeys could not be quite safe, for masters thrown out of their carriages ran like slaves before their own slaves, who sat in their masters' places. By their judgment and command the condition of masters and slaves was reversed. Hence, when odium then fell on the bishops of your party, they are said to have written to Taurinus, then count, that men of this kind could not be corrected in the church; they asked that they receive discipline from the count named above. Then Taurinus, in answer to their letters, ordered armed soldiers to go through the markets where the fury of the Circumcellions used to roam. At the place called Octava very many were killed and many were cut down, whose bodies can be counted to this day by the whitewashed altars or tables. When some of their number began to be buried in basilicas, the presbyter Clarus at the place called Subbula was compelled by his bishop to undo the burial. From this it was revealed that what was done had been ordered to be done, since not even burial in the house of God was allowed. Afterward their multitude grew strong again. So Donatus of Bagai found from where he might hire a raging crowd against Macarius. Of the same kind were those who, out of desire for a false martyrdom, hired assassins to their own destruction; of the same kind also those who threw themselves headlong from the peaks of high mountains, casting away their worthless lives. Behold of what kind of number the other bishop Donatus had made cohorts for himself! Frightened by this, those who were carrying the treasures to distribute to the poor found in such necessity the counsel of asking the count Silvester for armed soldiers, not to do violence to anyone through them, but to prevent the violence arranged by the bishop Donatus named above. For this reason it came about that armed soldiers were seen. Whatever followed, see to whom it should or can be ascribed. They had there an infinite crowd of those summoned, and it is plain that a suitable supply of food had been prepared; they had made a basilica into a kind of public granary, waiting for those to come on whom they could exercise their fury; and they would have done whatever their madness dictated, had not the presence of the armed soldiers prevented it. For when quartermasters were sent ahead of the coming soldiers, as is usual, they were not suitably received, against the precepts of the apostle, who says, "Honor to whom honor, toll to whom toll, tribute to whom tribute; owe no one anything." Those who had been sent with their horses were beaten, sent by those whose names you have fanned with the fan of odium. They themselves were the teachers of their own injury, and by the injuries they had done first they themselves taught what they might suffer. The soldiers, roughly handled, returned to their units, and what two or three had suffered, all resented. All were stirred up; not even their officers could restrain the angry soldiers. So that was done which you have recalled as done to the discredit of unity. These and your other things have both their causes and the persons I have shown to be responsible. This we did not even see, but heard of with you. If hearing makes men guilty, we hold you as accomplices, since you heard likewise; if hearing is free of the deed, what was done by others at your provocation ought not to be charged to us. You lodge complaints in order: that under Leontius and under Ursacius very many were injured; that under Paul and Macarius some were killed; that by their successors some or other were proscribed for a time. What has this to do with us, with the Catholic Church? Whatever you have charged, you did, who would not gladly receive the peace commended by God, valuing the inheritance of schism more than the precepts set forth by the Savior. You have accused the workers of unity: condemn unity itself, if you can! For I think you do not deny that unity is the highest good. What does it matter to us what kind of men the workers were, as long as what was worked is plainly good? For wine too is trodden and pressed by sinful workers, and so from it a sacrifice is offered to God; oil also is made by dirty men and some who live badly and speak foully, and yet it is used without distinction for flavor, for light, and even in the holy chrism.

You say that the workers of unity were evil; perhaps with the will of God, who is sometimes pleased even by what he could have forbidden. For some evils are done evilly, some evils are done well. The robber does evil evilly; the judge does evil well when he punishes what the robber sinned. For this is God's voice: "You shall not kill"; and it is his voice too: "If a man is found sleeping with a woman who has a husband, you shall kill them both." One God and two different voices. In short, when Phinehas, the priest's son, found an adulterer with an adulteress, he raised his hand with the sword and stood in doubt between two voices of God. From one side there sounded to him, "You shall not kill"; from the other there sounded, "You shall kill them both." If he struck, he would sin; if he did not strike, he would offend. He chose the better sin, to strike. And perhaps there were some who would have wished to brand the avenger of this deed as a murderer. But to show that some evils are done well, God spoke, saying, "Phinehas has soothed my anger." And the killing pleased God because the adultery was punished. What if what you say you suffered pleased God now too, since you would not have unity with the whole world and with the shrines of the apostles, which is pleasing to God?

Unwillingly I am forced in this place to mention also those men whom I would rather not, whom you place among the martyrs, by whom the men of your communion swear as if by a unique religion. I would like to pass them over in silence, but the claim of truth does not allow itself to be silenced; and from these very names a rabid odium barks without consideration against unity, and some, scorning it, think unity should be accused or fled, because Marculus and Donatus are said to have been killed and to have died. As if no one at all deserved to be killed in God's vengeance! No one should have been hurt by the workers of unity; but neither should the divine commands have been despised by the bishops, who are commanded: "Seek peace and you will obtain it," and again, "How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity," and again, "Happy are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Those who neither wished to hear this gladly nor chose to do it devoutly, whatever they could suffer, if being killed is an evil, are themselves the cause of their evil.