Against Parmenian the Donatist 5.3–5.11

Since, then, you said both that there was one flood and that circumcision cannot be repeated, and we have taught that the heavenly gift is conferred on each believer by the Trinity, not by a man: why did you see fit to double baptism, not after us, but after the Trinity? About whose sacrament no slight contest has arisen, and it is doubted whether, after the Trinity, it is lawful to do this again in the same Trinity. You say, "It is lawful"; we say, "It is not lawful." Between your "it is lawful" and our "it is not lawful" the souls of the peoples waver and row to and fro. Let no one believe you, no one us: we are all contentious men. Judges must be sought. If Christians, they cannot be given from either side, because truth is hindered by partisanship. A judge must be sought from outside. If a pagan, he cannot know the Christian secrets; if a Jew, he is an enemy of Christian baptism. So on earth no judgment of this matter can be found: a judge must be sought from heaven. But why do we knock at heaven, when we have here a testament in the gospel? For here earthly things can rightly be compared with heavenly. It is as when any man has many sons: as long as the father is present, the father himself gives orders to each; a testament is not yet necessary. So too Christ, as long as he was present on earth (though he is not absent now either), commanded the apostles whatever was necessary for the time. But just as an earthly father, when he feels himself on the border of death, fearing that after his death the brothers will break the peace and quarrel, calls witnesses and transfers his will from his dying breast into tablets that will last long; and if a dispute arises among the brothers, one does not go to the tomb but seeks the testament, and he who rests in the tomb speaks silently from the tablets: so he whose testament it is, living, is in heaven; therefore let his will be sought in the gospel as in a testament. For by foreknowledge Christ had already seen as future what you are doing now. In short, when he washed his disciples' feet, the Son of God said thus to Peter: "What I am doing you do not know; but you will know afterward." By saying "you will know afterward" he pointed to these times. So among the other clauses of the testament he established this clause about water. When he washed his disciples' feet, if Peter had been silent while the rest were silent, he would have given only a pattern of humility and would have pronounced nothing about the sacrament of baptism. But when Peter refuses and does not allow his feet to be washed, Christ denies him the kingdom unless he accepts the service. But when mention was made of the heavenly kingdom, though a part of his body was asked for service, he offered his whole body for washing. Now be present, all you crowds and each of the Christian peoples; learn what is lawful. While Peter challenges, Christ teaches. Let him who doubts learn; for it is Christ's voice: "He who has been washed once has no need to be washed again, because he is wholly clean." And he pronounced about that washing which he had commanded to be celebrated from the Trinity, not that of the Jews or of the heretics, who, while they wash, defile, but about the holy water that flows from the springs of the three names. For so the Lord himself commanded, saying, "Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Of this washing he said: "He who has been washed once has no need to be washed again." He who said "once" forbade it to be done again, and he spoke of the thing, not of the person. For if there were a difference, he would say, "He who has been washed well once"; but since he did not add the word "well", he indicates that whatever has been done in the Trinity is well. That is why we receive simply those who come from you. When he says, "has no need to be washed again," this sentence is general, not particular; for if this were said to Peter alone, Christ would say, "Because you have been washed once, you have no need to be washed again." Therefore, whenever anyone baptized by you wishes to pass over to us, we receive him as he comes with complete simplicity, by this teaching and example. For far be it from us ever to exorcize a sound believer; far be it from us to call one already washed back to the font; far be it from us to sin against the Holy Spirit, for which crime pardon is denied both in the present and in the future age; far be it from us to repeat what is once, or to double what is one. For so it is written, as the apostle says: "One God, one Christ, one faith, one dipping." In short, you who strive so gladly, as it seems, to double baptism: if you give a second baptism, give a second faith; if you give a second faith, give also a second Christ; if you give a second Christ, give a second God. You cannot deny that God is one, lest you fall into Marcion's pits. So God is one; from the one God is one Christ. He who is rebaptized was already a Christian; how can he be called a Christian again? "One faith": in this place the single faith is separated from the errors of the heretics and from their varied faith. It is laid down for us too, against you who do again after "once", putting everything in the dowries, nothing in the sacraments, since this name of faith belongs to the believer, not to the worker. For whoever has believed God, whoever questioned him, has believed; and after his one "I believe" you demand a second "I believe." Next follows "one baptism," so that, since what is one is holy, through what is one it may be separated not only from the profane and sacrilegious baptisms of the heretics, but also so that what is one is not doubled, nor what is once repeated.

In celebrating this sacrament of baptism there are plainly three elements, which you too will not be able to increase, diminish or pass over. The first element is in the Trinity, the second in the believer, the third in the one who works. But they are not to be weighed each with equal balance. For I see two as necessary and one as quasi-necessary. The Trinity holds the principal place, without which the thing itself cannot be done; the faith of the believer follows it; then the person of the one who works is close by, which cannot be of like authority. The two former remain always unchangeable and unmoved; for the Trinity is always itself, faith is one in each, both always keep their force. But the person of the one who works is understood not to be able to be equal to the two former elements, because it alone appears changeable. You want there to be a difference of this same person between us and you, and thinking yourselves holier, you do not hesitate to put your pride before the Trinity, though the person of the one who works can be changed, the Trinity cannot. And though baptism ought to be desired by those who receive it, you propose that you are to be desired. Since you are workers among others, show what place you have in this same mystery and whether you can be of the same body. Baptism is a single name, under which lies its own body, to which body belong definite members, to which nothing can be added or taken away; if among these members a worker to be chosen is found, the whole body belongs to the one who works. All these members of this body are both always and once with one another and cannot be changed; but the workers change daily, in places and times and persons. For it is not one man who baptizes always or everywhere. In this work there were others long ago, now others, others will be afterward; the workers can be changed, the sacraments cannot be changed. Since, then, you see that all who baptize are workers, not lords, and that the sacraments are holy of themselves, not through men, why do you claim so much for yourselves? Why do you strive to shut God out of his own gifts? Allow God to bestow what is his. For a gift that is divine cannot be given by a man. If you think so, you strive to empty the voices of the prophets and the promises of God, by which it is proved that God washes, not man. Against you stands the prophet David, who says in the fiftieth psalm: "You will wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow"; likewise in the same psalm: "O God, wash me from my injustice and cleanse me from my offense." "Wash me," he said; he did not say, "Choose by whom I am to be washed." And the prophet Isaiah said thus: "For the Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion" (that Zion is the church we proved in the third book; so God washes the sons and daughters of the church); he did not say, "Those who think themselves holy will wash." Deign to let the prophets at least overcome you, or so recognize that man does not wash, but God. How long will you say, "He who does not have what to give, how does he give?" See that the Lord is the giver; see that God cleanses each one; for the filth and stains of the mind no one can wash except God, who is the maker of that same mind. Or if you think the washing is yours, say what the mind itself is like that is washed through the body, or what form it has, or in what place in a man it dwells: it has been denied to man to know this. So how do you think that you wash, you who do not know what it is you wash? It is God's to cleanse, not man's; for he himself promised through the prophet Isaiah that he would wash, when he says: "And if your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow." "I will make white," he said, not "I will cause to be made white." If God promised this, why do you want to render what you are permitted neither to promise nor to render nor to have? Behold, in Isaiah God promised that he would make white those affected by sins, not through a man. Return to the gospel, see what Christ promised for the salvation of the human race. When the Samaritan woman refused him water, then the Son of God said what refutes your presumptions: "Whoever drinks the water that I give," he says, "will not thirst for ever." "The water that I give," he says; he did not say, "that those will give who think themselves holy," as you seem to yourselves, but he said he would give it. He, then, is the one who gives; what is given is his. Why do you strive with all importunity to claim it for yourselves?

John the Baptist adds to this, who had come as forerunner of the Savior. When he was dipping many for repentance and the remission of sins, he announced that the Son of God would come; his words are these: "Behold, he comes who will baptize you." And yet we do not read that after John Christ rebaptized anyone. So as to what he said, "who will baptize you": Christ, coming at that time, dipped no one after John. It was promised for our times, that he himself would give what is given today, according to what he says: "Whoever drinks the water that I give will not thirst for ever." For when John's disciples said to their master, "Behold, the one you baptized is baptizing," he was indeed baptizing, but through the hands of the apostles, to whom he had given the laws of baptism. In short, we read in another place: "For he himself baptized no one, but his disciples." In this matter we are all his disciples, so that we may work, so that he may give, who promised that he would give. And yet, while John was baptizing countless thousands of men, with Christ already present, the servant was working and the Lord was at rest, before he gave the form of baptizing. For no short time thousands of men were dipped for repentance and the remission of sins. But no one had been dipped in the Trinity, no one yet knew Christ, no one had heard that there is a Holy Spirit. But when the time of fullness came, at a fixed time the Son of God gave the laws of baptism and gave the way by which one might go to the kingdom of heaven; and then he commanded, saying, "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." From that day what was commanded had to be done. He would not correct what had been done before the time, lest he give license to rebaptize, although John's baptism was one thing and Christ's is another. He wished John's baptism, before the law, to count as full, though it was not full; and yet he could not deny the kingdom of heaven to the thousands of men mentioned above, because they had believed in God, though they did not know the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. Hence the voice of the Son of God saying: "From the days of John until today the kingdom of God suffers violence, and those who do violence seize it." He said "do violence" because John was still baptizing. In short, since one time was before the precepts and another after the precepts, those who were baptized in the name of the Savior after the precepts entered the kingdom by the laws; those before the precepts did violence without law, but they were not shut out. So before the precepts John's baptism, though imperfect, was judged as perfect by him whom no one judges, and because a kind of boundary of the command had been fixed between the preceding and following times. When at Ephesus some were baptized in John's baptism after the precepts, the most blessed Paul, seeing them, asked whether they had received the Holy Spirit. They told him that they did not know whether there was a Holy Spirit, and he told them to receive the Holy Spirit after John's baptism. For they had been baptized as many had been baptized by John. But those who were baptized before the law belonged to pardon, because he who could give pardon was present; those who had not been bound by the laws were not wholly guilty. But those who are read to have been baptized at Ephesus with John's baptism after the law had erred in the sacrament after the laws, because the Lord's baptism had already been brought in and the servant's shut out; and therefore, because after the divine commands they ought to have gone into the kingdom by the laws, not by violence; for Christ had already fixed the limit of the time, by saying "from the days of John until today." After "today" what was lawful yesterday was no longer lawful. So do not flatter yourselves with the saying of the apostle Paul, who did not ask about the person of the worker but about the thing, whom the thing displeased, not the person. In short, he ordered the baptism of the Savior, so that those who did not know might learn that they had received not that, but something else. But what do you change? If you were able to change the thing, you would have done rightly, if indeed you did anything according to the law. Paul said, "In what baptism were you baptized?" and they said to him, "John's"; he persuaded them to receive the baptism of Christ. You do not say, "What did you receive?" but "From whom did you receive it?" and you persecute the persons of men and want to repeat what is once. Those who were baptized at Ephesus had believed for repentance and the remission of sins; it was rightly said to them that they should be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But what do you change in men who have already said that they believed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Whether you ask the same thing or something else, you must be convicted of sinning, whether you ask what was not commanded or want to do what has already been done.

I return now to that saying of yours: "He who does not have what to give, how does he give?" Where does this saying come from, from what reading can it be recited? It is a saying gathered from the street, not read from a book: "He who does not have what to give, how does he give?" These words are not written in the law. For if, as you wish, man gives and God is idle, and if God is idle and everything that is to be given is with you, let conversion be to you; let those whom you baptize be dipped in your name. Blush before the most blessed Paul, who cries out and professes his own rejoicing: "Were you baptized in my name?" He rejoices that he baptized only two and one household; and you strive to rebaptize peoples, and rejoice that you have sinned and are sinning, saying, "What does he give who does not have what to give?" He in whom one believes gives what is believed, not he through whom one believes. In short, under John a countless multitude of men was baptized; prove that John either received or had what he might give. But while he worked, God gave, who does not fail in giving; and now, while all work, the works are human, but the gifts are God's.

Now how ridiculous is that which is always heard from you as if to your glory: that this gift of baptism belongs to the giver, not to the receiver. And would that you said this of God, who is the giver of this thing! But, what is foolish, you say that you are the givers. If so, let us and you each take a pagan. You, who call yourselves holy, ask the one you hold whether he renounces the devil and believes in the Lord; and let him say, "I will not." On the other side, let us sinners, as you would have it, ask another pagan whether he renounces the devil and believes in God, and the rest, and let him say, "I renounce and I believe," and the rest. Since you dip the unwilling one and we the willing one, let it be said which of them can belong to the grace of God. Surely, without doubt, he obtains it who believes, not he for whose will, as you say, your holiness substitutes. Recognize, even late, that you are workers; or if the thing itself is in the worker and not in itself, let some men claim this for themselves in their crafts, so that, since you provoke us so, we may compare human crafts with divine things too. When a precious color is dyed in, nature is often changed, as by the process a white fleece turns purple. So white wool passes into royal purple, as a catechumen into one of the faithful. Surely, as it begins to be what it was not, it ceases to be what it had been. The wool changes both color and name; and the man changes both his name and his mind. The effects must be considered, the things that produce them examined. You say that it was given by you that a man was made one of the faithful. If this is all yours, let the workman who is a craftsman in purple also say that he has the precious color in his hands and does not procure the precious dyes from the Ocean, unknown to many, by which fleeces dyed are promoted by color into an admirable dignity, and let him make purple by touch alone, without mixing in the blood of the fish. If, then, this workman cannot give color by touch alone, so neither can the workman of baptism give anything of himself without the Trinity. Such is this too about which the dispute now is. For in what the nations are to be baptized was commanded by the Savior; by whom they are to be baptized was not distinguished by any exception. He did not say to the apostles, "You do it; let others not do it." Whoever has baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit has fulfilled the work of the apostles. In short, we read in the gospel, John saying: "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us." So Christ said: "Do not forbid him; for he who is not against you is for you." For it was commanded to the apostles themselves in such a way that the work was theirs, the sanctification the Trinity's; and they were not to dip in their own name, but in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So it is the name that sanctifies, not the work. Understand, even late, that you are workers, not lords. And if the church is a vineyard, and the vines are men, and the ordained are the cultivators, why do you rush into the ownership of the householder? Why do you claim for yourselves what is God's? Why do you want the whole to be yours, where you cannot have even a part? For on account of the swelling with which you swell against us, the most blessed Paul rebukes the Corinthians; in himself and Apollos he shapes the acts of our time: "Let not one," he says, "swell against another." To show that this whole sacrament of baptism is God's, so that the worker claims nothing for himself there, he says: "I planted" (that is, I made a catechumen out of a pagan), "Apollos watered" (that is, he baptized the catechumen); but that what was planted or watered should grow, God did. For today too anyone who wishes to plant his vineyard hires a worker at an agreed wage, who with bent back and sweating sides makes hollows in the earth, where he may set the chosen cuttings, and brings water over the trodden trenches. He can dig a trench and set cuttings; he can bring water; he cannot order it to take root; for it belongs to God alone to bring forth from the pith of the shoots roots that grow together into the earth, and to call forth budding eyes and the increase of leaves. In short, the blessed apostle Paul, to check your presumption and swelling, so that the worker of baptism should not think that he has ownership or claim for himself any small part of so great a gift, showing that it is all God's, says thus: "Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God alone, who brings to growth." You are workers among others; when the sun goes in, that is, when the world is ended, on the day of recompense you can contend with us over the wage. Do not claim for yourselves the ownership of the majesty. For if that is so, let the servants too who wait on the Lord's table claim for themselves that thanks be returned to them by the guests for the hospitality shown. It is the voice of Christ inviting: "Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world." The nations come to grace; he provides who deigned to invite; the crowd of servants does the serving; thanks are to be returned not to those who serve but to the one who feeds. You, though you are servants, shamelessly claim for yourselves the whole ownership of the banquet, though the most blessed Paul confesses with humility that he and the rest are servants; lest anyone should think that his hope must be placed in the apostles or bishops alone, he says thus: "For what is Paul, or what is Apollos? Surely ministers of him in whom you have believed." So in all who serve there is not lordship but ministry. You see now, then, brother Parmenian, that of the three elements mentioned above, the first, threefold, is unmoved, unconquered and unchangeable, but the person of the one who works is temporary.

It remains now to say something of the merit of the believer, to whom belongs faith, which the Son of God set before both his holiness and his majesty. For you cannot be holier than Christ is. When that woman whose daughter was dead came to him and asked that she be raised, he promised nothing about his own power, but asks after another's faith, so that, if the woman believed, the daughter would rise because of her mother's belief; if she did not believe, the power of the Son of God would rest idle. The woman is asked; she answered that she believed that what she asked could be done. She is told to go; the woman returns home and finds alive the girl she had left dead. She does not rush into kisses, does not hurry into embraces, but goes back to give thanks to the Savior. And to show that the Son of God had been at rest and that faith alone had worked, he says, "Go in peace, woman; your faith has saved you." Where is what you say, "It belongs to the giver, not to the receiver"? What do you think of the centurion's faith too? When his servant was ill, he asked the Savior to drive death from him. Christ was already coming to the dying servant; the centurion stopped him, confessing the unworthiness of his roof, that the Son of God should not enter wholly but send his power, by which the servant, death put to flight, could revive. Not the centurion's strength, not his wisdom, was praised, but his faith; and the servant was healed in that hour. Certainly, "it belongs to the giver, not to the receiver"! There are many such things in the gospel about perfect faith, but at least three testimonies of faith should be completed. What do you think of that woman too who, from the secret cause of women, had suffered for twelve years and spent all her substance on physicians, when she saw such great mighty works done by the Son of God, came forward into the crowd: she sees the physician, she sees also the people. Pain urged her to seek a cure; shame hindered her from telling her cause before men. Silent faith found a plan: "I will put out my hand," she says, "and touch the fringe of his garment, and I shall be made well." With no one seeing, she put out her hand among the crowds, touched, and was healed; nor did she dare to tell what she had not dared to ask. But lest the fruit of faith should seem hidden among those who did not know, the Savior said thus: "Who touched me?" His disciples wondered, saying, "The crowds press you, and you say, Who touched me?" And Christ: "Who touched me, I say? I felt power go out from me." So the woman confessed that she had touched and was well. Earlier the mother asked for her daughter, the centurion requested for his servant; in this place neither did the woman ask nor did Christ promise, but faith exacted as much as it presumed. Certainly, "it belongs to the giver, not to the receiver"!

As for your wish, brother Parmenian, to amplify your treatises by describing at length Naaman the Syrian, as a sort of unripe mass of very hard growing sores, what does this have to do with the present case? You would have said this well and could rightly have used a long speech, if you found some catechumen of very rough morals, who had a very hard mind, who refused to receive the very gentle grace of the saving water. You would show well the renewal of the man by the words you said; you would show well that an aged natural hardness can be changed and softened into a child's flesh. But in this business that is now being discussed between the parties, why was such a reading mentioned by you? In it we do not read that anyone washed that leprous Syrian before, even by Elisha's order, so that he might rightly be washed better a second time. And even if that happened, not even so would it meet us with anything you could rightly imitate. For we do not read that he first washed in the rivers of Syria, or was washed by anyone and gained nothing. For even if this were read, it would belong not to the praise of Elisha, who did not wash him but gave counsel, but to the glory of the Jordan, that the first grace came to that man in the river in which afterward, under John, the sins of the peoples were to die through confession for repentance.

Finally, what kind of thing is that part of your treatise about the heavenly wedding, where, cutting off the hope of things to come, you put everything in the present time, by saying that he has been thrown out of your society who deceived your doorkeepers and ministers, so that he was sent out from the communion of the faithful with injury? If that is so, there is nothing for faith to hope, nothing for the resurrection to bring, nothing more to be awaited in heaven, nothing for that King and householder, God, to recognize at his banquet, when he rejoices in the presence of many and is saddened by the absence of some, and says that many are called but few chosen. There will be nothing for him to be angry at in one who does not have a wedding garment, since the Son of God, Christ himself, is the bridegroom and the garment, a tunic swimming in water, which clothes many and awaits countless more and does not run out in clothing them. But lest anyone say that I have rashly called the Son of God a garment, let him read the apostle saying: "As many as have been baptized in the name of Christ have put on Christ." O tunic always one and unchangeable, which fittingly clothes all ages and shapes, which is neither wrinkled on infants nor stretched on young men nor changed on women! That day will surely come when the heavenly wedding begins to be celebrated; there those who have kept the single baptism will recline secure. For whoever consents to be rebaptized by you, to such a man the resurrection is not denied, because he believed in the resurrection of the flesh; he will rise indeed, but naked. But since he allowed himself to be stripped of the wedding garment by you, he will hear this voice of the householder: "Friend" (that is to say, "I recognize you"; you had once renounced the devil and turned to me, and I had given you a wedding garment), "why did you come in thus, not having what I gave you?" That is to say, "Why do you not have what I gave you?" For no one can be angry at one who does not have a thing that was not given. "You had received the wedding garment among these, and you alone do not have it? Why have you come naked and mourning? Who stripped you of your spoils? What deceitful jaws did you approach? What robbers did you run into?" As many as come in such a state will have no place at that banquet.

And to make a summary, even late, I believe this too suffices, even if we had not given so many proofs: suppose a thousand were baptized in your absence by word of mouth; of these, a hundred have died by their own lot. Keep your hands off this crime for a little. Let your holiness, as you call it, first raise the buried, correct the dead, if it can, and so return to the living. If you cannot raise the dead, why do you try to lay hands on the living, except that what God spoke of you through the prophet Ezekiel may be fulfilled, saying, "to kill souls that ought not to die"?