Against Parmenian the Donatist 2.9–2.25

It remains, then, that the dowries appear to be five; and since they are the dowries of the Catholic Church, which is in the many provinces mentioned above, they cannot be lacking to us here in Africa either. Understand, even late, that you are impious sons, broken branches from the tree, shoots cut off from the vine, a stream cut off from the spring. For a stream, which is small and is not born of itself, cannot be the source, nor can a tree be cut off from a branch, since the tree rejoices, grounded in its roots, and the branch, if cut out, dries up. Do you see now, brother Parmenian, do you feel now, do you understand now that you have fought against yourself with your own arguments, since it has been proved that we are in the holy Catholic Church, with whom is the creed of the Trinity, and that through the chair of Peter, which is ours, and through it the other dowries too are with us? Also the priesthood, which you seemed to annul in us as an excuse for your error and envy, since you rebaptize after us and do not do so after your own colleagues detected in sin. For you said that if the priest is in sin, the dowries alone can work. Therefore we have taught what heresy is, what schism is, and what the holy church is, and that the person of this holy church has been established, and that this is the Catholic Church, which is spread through the whole world, of which we too are members among others, whose dowries are with her everywhere. Then in the first book we proved that the odium of handing over does not concern us and that this crime has been condemned by us too.

Now I would not have you answer me why you chose to speak only of the dowries of the church and kept silent about its holy members and inward parts, which are without doubt in the sacraments and in the names of the Trinity. With these the faith and profession of believers concur, which is made before the record of the angels, where heavenly and spiritual seeds are mingled, so that from a holy seed a new nature of the reborn may be begotten, so that, while the Trinity agrees with faith, he who had been born to the world may be reborn spiritually to God. Thus God becomes the father of men; thus the holy church becomes their mother. I understand that you did not name all these things so that in them the meaning of baptism should not be recognized, in which the worker, who is a man, claims nothing for himself, as you do. And so you chose to confine yourself to the dowries alone, which, as if grasped in your hand or shut in a chest, you denied to the Catholics and tried in vain to claim for yourselves alone. When the matter is regeneration, when the matter is the renewal of man, you named no faith of believers, no profession; wishing to speak of the dowries alone, you passed over in silence all those things without which that spiritual birth cannot be restored. And since dowries belong to the bride, not the bride to the dowries, you arranged the dowries as if they seemed to beget, not the inward parts, which are understood to lie in the sacraments rather than in the ornaments.

Nor do I pass over this, that with your mouth and our meaning you said that the church is a paradise (which is without doubt true), in which garden God plants little trees. And yet you have denied God his riches, whose garden you force into narrow straits, while you undeservedly claim everything for yourselves alone. Surely the plantings of God are various seeds according to various precepts. The righteous, the continent, the merciful and virgins are spiritual seeds; of these things God plants little trees in paradise. Grant God that his garden be spread far and wide. Why do you deny him the Christian peoples of the East and the North, and of all the provinces of the West, and of innumerable islands, against whom you alone, few, are rebels, and with whom you have no fellowship of communion?

Here too your lie can justly be condemned, with which your sacrifices are seasoned every day. For who would doubt that you cannot omit that prescribed form in the mystery of the sacraments? You say that you offer to God for the church, which is one. This itself is part of the lie, that you call one what you have made two; and you say that you offer to God for the one church, which is spread through the whole world. What if God says to each of you, "Why do you offer for the whole, you who are not in the whole?" If we displease you, what has the city of Antioch done to you, what the province of Arabia, from which we prove that people coming to you have been rebaptized?

In one thing alone, brother Parmenian, we cannot be ungrateful to you: that, although you are a stranger to it, you chose to praise our church, that is, the Catholic Church, which is held in the whole world, in counting its dowries (in the number of which you erred considerably), and in saying that it is the garden enclosed, the fountain sealed, and the only bride. We say this of our own; you spoke of what is another's. Whatever you could say in praise of the church, we say the same before you. The traitors we too condemn with you, namely those whom, if you remember, we pointed out in the first book. And since we have communion with the whole world, and all the provinces are with us, you have long chosen to compare two churches as if Africa alone had Christian peoples, in which by your fault two parties appear to have been made; and forgetting Christ, who says that his bride is one, you said in Africa not that there are two parties but two churches. Certainly it is one, which deserved to be pointed out by the voice of Christ, who says, "My dove is one; my bride is one."

And you, forgetting this word, spoke in these words to stir up odium against the Catholics: "Nor can that be called a church which feeds on bloody bites and grows fat on the blood and flesh of the saints." The church has its definite members: bishops, presbyters, deacons, ministers, and the multitude of the faithful. Say to which kind of men in our church what you chose to charge can be ascribed. Name some minister in particular, point out some deacon by his name, show that this was done by some presbyter, prove that bishops committed it, show that any of ours laid a trap for anyone. Which of us has persecuted anyone? Whom can you say or prove to have been persecuted by us? Because unity displeases you, if you think this a crime, accuse us of having communicated with the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the seven churches that are in Asia. If it seems wicked to you, or if you think it a guilt to have communicated with the shrines of the apostles and all the saints, we not only do not deny that we have done this, but even glory in it.

But to show that your party, as you said, has fed on bloody bites and grown fat on the blood and flesh of Christians, your raging fury must now be recalled from its beginning, your impiety retold, your folly displayed. In this we must first show your shameful joy and criminal delight, since it is plain that you were allowed to return to the liberty of your old error. Go over the times, examine the course of events, consider the unlike wishes and the different persons. Let the Christian emperor Constantine come back to memory: what service did he show to God, what wishes did he have? That, schisms removed and all dissension dead, holy mother church might see her sons rejoicing in one under the whole heaven. By one communion he had restored wives to husbands, children to parents, brothers to brothers. God testifies that he rejoices in such things, when he says: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity." For when one peace joined the African peoples and the Eastern ones and the others across the sea, and unity itself, with all the members brought together, made the body of the church cohere, the devil grieved at this, who is always tormented by the peace of brothers. At that time, under a Christian emperor, deserted among his idols, he lay hidden, as if shut up in the temples. At this same time their own deserts had banished your leaders and chiefs; there were no schisms in the church, nor were pagans permitted to practice their sacrileges. The peace pleasing to God dwelt among all the Christian peoples; the devil mourned in the temples, you in foreign regions.

Then, as is known to all, another emperor followed, who, forming sinister wishes along with you, from a servant of God became a minister of the enemy and declared himself an apostate by his edicts. You petitioned him with entreaties to be allowed to return; and if you deny having sent those entreaties, we have read them. Nor did the one you petitioned make any difficulty: he ordered those to go, as he wished, whom he had understood would come with fury to disturb the peace. Blush, if you have any shame: liberty was given back to you by the same voice by which the temples of the idols were ordered to be opened.

At almost the same moments your fury returns to Africa as the devil is let out of his prisons. And you do not blush, who at one time share common joys with the enemy! You came raging, you came angry, tearing the members of the church, subtle in seductions, monstrous in slaughters, provoking the sons of peace to wars. You drove many from their sees, when, coming with a hired band, you invaded the basilicas. Many of your number, in very many places that it would take long to name, carried out bloody slaughters, and so atrocious that a report on such deeds was sent by the judges of that time. But the judgment of God intervened and met it, so that the profane and sacrilegious emperor who had long ago ordered you to return died, he who at your instigation had already sent a persecution, or was planning to send one.

A slaughter of Catholics was carried out in the places mentioned above. Remember, place by place, what your raids were. Were not Felix of Zaba and Januarius of Flumen Piscium and others of your number, who ran with all speed to the fortress of Lemellef? There, when they saw the basilica closed against their importunity, they ordered their companions, in their presence, to climb the roof, strip the roofing and throw down the tiles. Their orders were carried out without delay; and when the Catholic deacons were defending the altar, many were bloodied by the tiles, and two were killed, Primus son of Januarius and Donatus son of Ninus, while your fellow bishops named above pressed it on and were present, so that without doubt it was said of you, "Their feet are swift to shed blood." Of this Primosus, the Catholic bishop of that place, complained in your council at the city of Theveste, and you heard his complaints with feigned inattention. Behold, what you said was done by you: "That is not a church which feeds on bloody bites"; and soldiers sent are one thing, bishops ordained another. What you say against us to stir up odium was done by others, not by us; what you say ought not to have been done, you did. You also recalled that the most blessed apostle Paul said that the church ought to be without wrinkle and without stain. At the command and in the presence of your bishops, Catholic deacons were killed upon the altar; likewise also at Carpi. Do these not seem to you inexpiable stains? In the cities of Mauretania, when you entered, the people were shaken, and those who were to be born died in their mothers' wombs. Does that not seem to you a wrinkle that cannot be stretched or smoothed out by any satisfaction? What of this kind has been committed by us? We await God as avenger. And you stir up odium against Macarius, who, if he did anything harshly for unity, could seem slight, while you have done such evil, bitter, bloody and hostile things for dissension. Why should I recall Tipasa, a city of Mauretania Caesariensis, to which, from Numidia, Urbanus of Forma and Felix of Idicra, two little torches lit by envy, ran, disturbing the minds of those who lived quietly in peace? With the favor and fury of some officials helping, and the governor Athenius present with the standards, the Catholic congregation was driven out, bloodied, and expelled from its seats: men were mangled, matrons dragged off, infants killed, unborn children aborted. Behold, your church, with bishops as leaders, has fed on bloody bites. After this you added this too: "However much the greed of vultures consumes, the number of doves is still greater." Where is what is commonly said, that a liar needs a good memory? You forgot that a little before you said that the church is called Christ's one dove in the Song of Songs. If the church with you is one, the dove is one; if the dove is one, what is it you meant to say, "the number of doves is greater"?

And a monstrous crime was committed, which seems slight to you: your bishops mentioned above violated everything most holy. They ordered the Eucharist to be poured out to dogs, not without a sign of divine judgment; for those same dogs, inflamed with madness, tore their own masters with avenging teeth, as if they were robbers guilty against the holy body, as if they were strangers and enemies. They also threw a flask of chrism out of a window to break it, and though the throw aided the fall, an angelic hand was not lacking, which brought the flask down with spiritual support: thrown, it could not feel the fall; with God protecting it, it settled unharmed among the stones. And these things could have been avoided if you had kept in memory the commands of Christ, who says, "Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and crush you." What of this kind could have been done by the workers of unity, from which you labor to stir up vain odium against us Catholics? Returning from there, Urbanus of Forma and Felix of Idicra found mothers among the women they had made from consecrated virgins. Behold, brother Parmenian, what kind of bishops you conceal; and though you ought to blush for your own, you accuse innocent Catholics. Meanwhile Felix, mentioned above, among his crimes and abominable deeds, did not in the least hesitate wickedly to defile a girl he had seized, on whom he himself had put the veil, by whom a little before he had been called father. And as if he became holier from sin, he hurried quickly to Tysedis. So he dared to strip Donatus, a bishop of seventy years, an innocent man, of the episcopal name, office and honor. A schismatic came to a Catholic bishop, a guilty man to an innocent, a sacrilegious man to a priest of God, an incestuous man to a chaste one, one no longer a bishop to a bishop; but, secure in your decision and conspiracy, armed with your laws and decrees, he laid hands that sins had weighed down a little before on the head of the innocent, and dared to pass sentence with that tongue which no longer seemed fit even for doing penance. Behold, brother Parmenian, what kind of men you defend; behold for what kind of men you said long ago that the dowries work.

You yourselves too, who want to seem holy and innocent to men, tell us: where does this holiness come from, which you so freely usurp for yourselves? The apostle John does not dare to profess it, who says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." He who said this wisely reserved himself for the grace of God. For it is the Christian man's part to will what is good and to run in what he has rightly willed; but it is not given to man to perfect it, so that, after the stretches that man must fill, something remains for God, where he may help the one who falls short; because he alone is perfection, and the Son of God, Christ, alone is perfect. All the rest of us are half-perfect, because it is ours to will, ours to run, God's to perfect. Hence the most blessed apostle Paul says, "Not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of the one who belongs to the grace of God." For perfect holiness has not been given by Christ our Savior, but promised; in short, he says, "You shall be holy, because I am holy." He alone, then, is perfect and holy. In short, he did not say "You are holy," but "You shall be holy." How is it, then, that out of pride you claim perfect holiness for yourselves? Unless it is so that it may appear that you deceive yourselves and the truth is not in you. You would not be in John's school. For when you seduce some, you promise that you will give the remission of sins; and when you wish to forgive sins, you profess your own innocence, and you give remission of sins as if you yourselves had no sin. That is not confidence but deception, not truth but a lie. For within moments of each other, while you lay on hands and forgive offenses, soon, turned to the altar, you cannot leave out the Lord's Prayer, and you certainly say, "Our Father, who are in heaven, forgive us our debts and sins." What are you called, when you confess your own sins? Are you holy, while you forgive those of others? In this way you both deceive yourselves, and the truth is not in you. But, as it appears, your nurse, pride, dictates this to you, to which Christ testifies in the gospel; for though he did not say your names, he showed your ways by a parable. For so it is written: "Jesus spoke this parable on account of those who think themselves holy and despise the rest." The matter itself plainly shows that this was said of you, since you extol yourselves as holy and despise us manifestly and openly. "Two," he says, "went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector." The Pharisee, swollen, proud, puffed up, such as we see you to be, with body not humbled, neck not bowed, but face raised and chest swelling, says, "I thank you, God, that I have committed no sin." That is to say to God, "I have nothing in me for you to forgive." O insane fury, O pride to be punished and condemned! God is ready to forgive, and the guilty man hastens to refuse pardon. The tax collector, humble, knowing himself to be a man, prayed thus, saying, "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner." So he deserved to be justified; so pride in the Pharisee, your master, went down condemned from the temple. Sins with humility have been found better than innocence with pride. Then, though you do not lack the grave sins of handing over and schism, you also congratulate yourselves on being proud.

Now, since we have proved your shameful joys and your fury has been shown in so many places, it remains to say something of your profound impiety; for who could set out everything that you either do or have done? It is plain that you arranged everything with a certain malice, so that in one kind of work you accomplished other kinds, so that, when a presbyter or bishop is cast down, the people too are captured. When could a crowd of men stand firm that saw its ruler struck down by you? Just as, when the shepherd is killed by any chance, wolves rage. You exorcized the faithful and washed walls without cause, so as by this kind of wickedness to undermine the minds of the simplest men. By such counsels of yours the souls of some were slain, and, the light of cunning blinded under a cloud of simplicity, to lay the wretched low you sent ahead arrows from the quiver of your breast with seductions, so that the Holy Spirit foretold of you through the prophet David in the tenth psalm: "For behold, sinners have bent the bow, they have prepared arrows in their quiver, to shoot in the dark of the moon at the upright in heart." What less was done by your counsels? The innocent were shot, the faithful disarmed, priests stripped of the honor of their name. O unheard-of impiety, to keep alive among the torments of penance the one you have slain! In comparison with your work the savagery of robbers seems lighter. You commit a living murder; the robber gives the slain the shortcut of death. Those whom you could deceive were taken in through the poverty of their understanding. For those had been perfect, by the work of God, namely, who had been ordained in his name. And you fight like enemies against the work of God, destroying the divine work with the crowbars of malice! It appears, then, that it was said of you in the tenth psalm, "For what you perfected, they destroyed." Your impiety made you proud, but justice, looking down from heaven, accuses you; and the error of men praises you as you do wicked things, so that the Holy Spirit said of you in the ninth psalm, "For the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who has done wicked things will be blessed." What is more wicked than to exorcize the Holy Spirit, break altars, throw the Eucharist to animals? And so that your people may send you into error, praising you they call you blessed and speak well of you and swear by you, and they are known now to hold your persons as God.

God is usually named by men in an oath to prove good faith. But when they swear by you, among your people God and Christ are now passed over in silence. If divine religion has moved from heaven to you, because they swear by you, let none of you or yours fall sick; do not die; command the clouds; send rain, if you can, so that they may swear more fully by you and God be passed over in silence. For in earlier ages too, so that temples might be built and idols made, what more could the devil achieve than what he achieves through your people? Nothing else than that God should be passed over in silence, while men in their error spoke of the devil alone.

... sacrilege mixed with impiety, while you gladly hear men swearing by you and do not admit into your ears the voice of God, who says thus in the hundred and fourth psalm: "Do not touch my anointed ones, and do not lay your hand on my prophets." That both kings and priests are anointed the books of Kingdoms show, and David says thus in the hundred and thirty-second psalm: "Like the ointment on the head, which runs down onto the beard of Aaron." And yet you have tried to despise the precepts with the same strength with which those who fear God try to fulfil the commandments. Show where you were commanded to shave the heads of priests, when, on the contrary, so many examples are set forth that it ought not to be done. Saul, before he sinned, deserved to be anointed; after his anointing he gave no slight offense. When God saw this, wishing to set forth examples that the oil was not to be touched, he professed his repentance. For so we read that the Lord said: "I repent that I anointed Saul as king." And surely God could have taken away the oil he had given. But since he wished to teach that the oil ought not to be touched even in a sinner, he who had given it repented. If, then, God, to teach you, could not take away what he gave, through what he would not take away, who are you to take away what you did not give? And you, who ought to prepare your ears for hearing, prepared a razor for offending. And though you could be sons of God, you chose to be sons of men, and to sink your bite into others' honors you turned your teeth into arrows and weapons, you sharpened your tongues into swords, you fulfilled what is written of you in the fifty-sixth psalm: "Sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword."

So you sharpened your tongues into swords, which you moved to the deaths not of bodies but of honors; you slew not members but names. What good is it that the men live, when their honors have been killed by you? They are well in their limbs, but they carry the funerals of a dignity snatched away. For you stretched out your hand and spread deadly veils over every head, so that, since there are, as I said above, four kinds of heads in the church, bishops, presbyters, deacons and the faithful, you would not spare even one: you overturned the souls of men. God grieves over these acts of yours in the prophet Ezekiel, when he says, "Woe to those who make a veil" (that is, who lay on a hand) "over every head and over every age to overturn souls." You found boys: you wounded them with penance, so that none of them could be ordained; recognize that you have overturned souls. You found faithful of long standing: you made them penitents; recognize that you have overturned souls. You found deacons, presbyters, bishops: you made them lay people; recognize that you have overturned souls.

He on whom you have now tried to lay hands had long been your colleague and companion: you ran together. Suppose he sinned, though it is plain there was no sin; he was lying down, as you think. If you have read the apostle, see to whom you stand and to whom he lies; if you are a servant, recognize your master, and understand that he who a little before was running with you was not lying down for you. Why do you rush into another's power, why do you rashly mount God's tribunal? And though you are guilty yourself, you dare to pass sentence on another, and you have read: "He who stands, stands to his own master, and he who lies, lies to his own master; but his master is able to raise him up. Who are you to judge another's servant?" That you ought not to have touched the oil conferred by God on a priest, you should have learned from David the servant of God, who was so anointed by Samuel that what had long before been given to Saul was by no means taken away. In short, when, whether at God's command or by chance arranging it, one cave shut them in, Saul, who had sinned, came into the power of the servant David. He seemed not to see, because, coming from a greater light, as usually happens, in the darkness of the enclosed air he could not see the other beside him. Countless armies followed the old king, but the king himself had come into another's power. David had the chance of victory in his hands: he could slay his unwary and careless adversary without labor, and without blood and the clash of many could cut the war short by a quick killing; both his servants and the occasion urged it, the opportunity exhorted him to victory. His sword had already begun to be drawn, his armed hand had already begun to go to the enemy's throat; but a memory full of the divine commands stood in the way. He contradicts his servants and the occasions that urged him, as if he were saying this too: "Victory, you provoke me without cause; occasion, you invite me in vain to triumphs." He wished to conquer the enemy, but it comes first to keep the Lord's divine precepts. "I will not," he says, "put my hands on the Lord's anointed." He held back his hand with the sword; and while he feared the oil, he preserved his enemy, and to complete his observance, he avenged him when he was slain. You neither fear God nor recognize your brothers; on the whetstone of envy you have sharpened the razors of the tongue, and trampling on the divine precepts you rushed at the heads of the wretched, so that, their leaders slain, you might drag blind and unskilled peoples into captivity. You hunger for the honors of innocent priests; whence so great a hunger has grown in your fury that you have made your throats open graves. For each grave one funeral is enough, and it is closed; for your throat the funerals of honors have not sufficed at all, and they are still open, while you seek some to devour, so that it was rightly said of you, "Their throat is an open grave." For you also presume on cursing, though it is written, "Bless and do not curse." Whoever does anything against your will, you threaten with terrors, hold out curses; and since some men can deserve more evil than good, whatever the judgment of God or the desert of sin has done you claim as the work of your bitter curses, rightly, because it was said of you, "Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." You boast that some men have been able to die when you cursed them. Certainly it is not lawful to kill. Or do you think yourselves innocent because you have not used iron? Let the poisoner too judge himself innocent, if murder is in iron alone. Let him not think himself guilty who has killed another by withholding food; let him judge himself innocent who has suffocated a man who longed to live by denying him the power to breathe. There are many kinds of killing, but one name of death. When by your curses you confidently declare a man dead, what difference does it make whether you strike with a sword or smite with the tongue? You are without doubt a murderer if one who was living has died through you. Whoever of you is such professes in vain to be a Christian or a priest of God, if he does not care to imitate the gentleness of God, since it is written, "God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living." I believe you cannot forget what you did in some places, when you wished to kill those who preached the law of God, that is, prophets, against the command of God, who says, "And do not lay your hand on my prophets." Deuterius, Parthenius, Donatus and Getulicus, bishops of God, you slew with the sword of the tongue, shedding the blood not of the body but of honor. The men lived afterward, but the priests of God were killed by you in God's honors. It is known to many and proved that in the time of persecution some bishops, through cowardice, fell from the confession of God's name and offered incense; and yet none of those who escaped either laid a hand on the lapsed or ordered them to kneel. And you do today after unity what no one did after the offering of incense, though it is written, "Do not touch my anointed ones, and do not lay your hand on my prophets." God defends his oil, because, if the sin is the man's, the anointing is still the Godhead's. "Do not touch," he says, "my anointed ones": for this reason, lest, while the sin of the man is struck, the oil too, which is God's, be smitten. By his judgment God preserved what is his, and yet you have rushed everywhere on what is another's, corrupting the happiness of all. For what greater unhappiness is there than that priests of God should live and not be what they had been?