Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| To Januarius
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Letter LXXXVIII.
(a.d. 406.)
To Januarius,2098
| 2098 Bishop of Casæ Nigræ in Numidia, and at that
time the Donatist primate, as the oldest of their bishops. | the Catholic Clergy of the District of Hippo2099
| 2099 Hipponensium Regiorum. | Send the
Following.
1. Your clergy and your Circumcelliones are
venting against us their rage in a persecution of a new kind, and
of unparalleled atrocity. Were we to render evil for evil, we
should be transgressing the law of Christ. But now, when all that
has been done, both on your side and on ours, is impartially
considered, it is found that we are suffering what is written,
“They rewarded me evil for good;”2100
and (in another Psalm), “My soul
hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace: but
when I speak, they are for war.”2101
For, seeing that you have arrived
at so great age, we suppose you to know perfectly well that the
party of Donatus, which at first was called at Carthage the party
of Majorinus, did of their own accord accuse Cæcilianus, then
bishop of Carthage, before the famous Emperor Constantine. Lest,
however, you should have forgotten this, venerable sir, or should
pretend not to know, or perhaps (which we scarcely think possible)
may never have known it, we insert here a copy of the narrative of
Anulinus, then proconsul, to whom the party of Majorinus appealed,
requesting that by him as proconsul a statement of the charges
which they brought against Cæcilianus should be sent to the
Emperor aforesaid:—
2. To Constantine Augustus, from Anulinus,
a man of consular rank, proconsul of Africa, these:2102
| 2102 The actual heading of the Report stands thus:
“A. GGG. NNN. Anulinus VC. proconsul Africæ.” For the
interpretation we are indebted to the marginal note on the Codex
Gervasianus. |
The welcome and adored celestial writing sent
by your Majesty to Cæcilianus, and those over whom he presides,
who are called clergy, have been, by the care of your Majesty’s
most humble servant, engrossed in his Records; and he has exhorted
these parties that, heartily agreeing among themselves, since they
are seen to be exempted from all other burdens by your Majesty’s
clemency, they should, preserving Catholic unity, devote themselves
to their duties with the reverence due to the sanctity of law and
to divine things. After a few days, however, there arose some
persons to whom a crowd of people joined themselves, who thought
that proceedings should be taken against Cæcilianus, and presented
to me2103
a sealed
packet wrapped in leather, and a small document without seal, and
earnestly besought me to transmit them to your Majesty’s sacred
and venerable court, which your Majesty’s most humble servant2104
has taken
care to do, Cæcilianus continuing meanwhile as he was. The Acts
pertaining to the case are subjoined, in order that your Majesty
may be able to arrive at a decision concerning the whole matter.
The documents sent are two: the one in a leathern envelope, with
this title, “A document of the Catholic Church containing charges
against Cæcilianus, and furnished by the party of
Majorinus;”
the other attached without a seal to the same leathern
envelope.
Given on the 17th day before the Calends of
May, in the third consulship of our lord Constantine Augustus
[i.e. April 15, a.d.
313].
3. After this report had been sent to him, the
Emperor summoned the parties before a tribunal of bishops to be
constituted at Rome. The ecclesiastical records show how the case
was there argued and decided, and Cæcilianus pronounced innocent.
Surely now, after the peacemaking decision of the tribunal of
bishops, all the pertinacity of strife and bitterness should have
given way. Your forefathers, however, appealed again to the
Emperor, and complained that the decision was not just, and that
their case had not been fully heard. Accordingly, he appointed a
second tribunal of bishops to meet in Aries, a town of Gaul, where,
after sentence had been pronounced against your worthless and
diabolical schism, many of your party returned to a good
understanding with Cæcilianus; some, however, who were most
obstinate and contentious, appealed to the Emperor again.
Afterwards, when, yielding to their importunity, he personally
interposed in this dispute, which belonged properly to the bishops
to decide, having heard the case, he gave sentence against your
party, and was the first to pass a law that the properties of your
congregations should be confiscated; of all which things we could
insert the documentary evidence here, if it were not for making the
letter too long. We must, however, by no means omit the
investigation and decision in open court of the case of Felix of
Aptunga, whom, in the Council of Carthage, under Secundus of
Tigisis, primate, your fathers affirmed to be the original cause of
all these evils. For the Emperor aforesaid, in a letter of which we
annex a copy, bears witness that in this trial your party were
before him as accusers and most strenuous prosecutors:—
4. The Emperors Flavius Constantinus,
Maximus Cæsar, and Valerius Licinius Cæsar, to Probianus,
proconsul of Africa:
Your predecessor Ælianus, who acted as
substitute for Verus, the superintendent of the prefects, when that
most excellent magistrate was by severe illness laid aside in that
part of Africa which is under our sway, considered it, and most
justly, to be his duty, amongst other things, to bring again under
his investigation and decision the matter of Cæcilianus, or rather
the odium which seems to have been stirred up against that bishop
of the Catholic Church. Wherefore, having ordered the compearance
of Superius, centurion, Cæcilianus, magistrate of Aptunga, and
Saturninus, the ex-president of police, and his successor in the
office, Calibius the younger, and Solon, an official belonging to
Aptunga, he heard the testimony of these witnesses;2105
| 2105 The value of the evidence of these witnesses is
apparent when we remember that they were all in a position to speak
from personal knowledge of the persecution in
A.D. 303 (under Diocletian and Maximian), and had in their
public capacity some share in enforcing the demand made in that
persecution for the surrender of the sacred books. These could tell
whether Felix the Bishop of Aptunga was guilty or not of the
unfaithfulness to his religion with which the faction of Majorinus
reproached him. | the result
of which was, that whereas objection had been taken to Cæcilianus
on the ground of his ordination to the office of bishop by Felix,
against whom it seemed that the charge of surrendering and burning
the sacred books had been made, the innocence of Felix in this
matter was clearly established. Moreover, when Maximus affirmed
that Ingentius, a decurion of the town of Ziqua, had forged a
letter of the ex-magistrate Cæcilianus, we found, on examining the
Acts which were before us, that this same Ingentius had been put on
the rack2106
for that
offence, and that the infliction of torture on him was not, as
alleged, on the ground of his affirming that he was a decurion of
Ziqua. Wherefore we desire you to send under a suitable guard to
the court of Augustus Constantine the said Ingentius, that in the
presence and hearing of those who are now pleading in this case,
and who day after day persist in their complaints, it may be made
manifest and fully known that they labour in vain to excite odium
against the bishop Cæcilianus, and to clamour violently against
him. This, we hope, will bring the people to desist, as they should
do, from such contentions, and to devote themselves with becoming
reverence to their religious duties, undistracted by dissension
among themselves.
5. Since you see, therefore, that these things are
so, why do you provoke odium against us on the ground of the
imperial decrees which are in force against you, when you have
yourselves done all this before we followed your example? If
emperors ought not to use their authority in such cases, if care of
these matters lies beyond the province of Christian emperors, who
urged your forefathers to remit the case of Cæcilianus, by the
proconsul, to the Emperor, and a second time to bring before the
Emperor accusations against a bishop whom you had somehow condemned
in absence, and on his acquittal to invent and bring before the
same Emperor other calumnies against Felix, by whom the bishop
aforesaid had been ordained? And now, what other law is in force
against your party than that decision of the elder Constantine, to
which your forefathers of their own choice appealed, which they
extorted from him by their importunate complaints, and which they preferred to
the decision of an episcopal tribunal? If you are dissatisfied with
the decrees of emperors, who were the first to compel the emperors
to set these in array against you? For you have no more reason for
crying out against the Catholic Church because of the decrees of
emperors against you, than those men would have had for crying out
against Daniel, who, after his deliverance, were thrown in to be
devoured by the same lions by which they first sought to have him
destroyed; as it is written: “The king’s wrath is as the
roaring of a lion.”2107
These slanderous enemies insisted
that Daniel should be thrown into the den of lions: his innocence
prevailed over their malice; he was taken from the den unharmed and
they, being cast into it, perished. In like manner, your
forefathers cast Cæcilianus and his companions to be destroyed by
the king’s wrath; and when, by their innocence, they were
delivered from this, you yourselves now suffer from these kings
what your party wished them to suffer; as it is written: “Whoso
diggeth a pit for his neighbour, shall himself fall therein.”2108
6. You have therefore no ground for complaint
against us: nay more, the clemency of the Catholic Church would
have led us to desist from even enforcing these decrees of the
emperors, had not your clergy and Circumcelliones, disturbing our
peace, and destroying us by their most monstrous crimes and furious
deeds of violence, compelled us to have these decrees revived and
put in force again. For before these more recent edicts of which
you complain had come into Africa, these desperadoes laid ambush
for our bishops on their journeys, abused our clergy with savage
blows, and assaulted our laity in the same most cruel manner, and
set fire to their habitations. A certain presbyter who had of his
own free choice preferred the unity of our Church, was for so doing
dragged out of his own house, cruelly beaten without form of law,
rolled over and over in a miry pond, covered with a matting of
rushes, and exhibited as an object of pity to some and of ridicule
to others, while his persecutors gloried in their crime; after
which they carried him away where they pleased, and reluctantly set
him at liberty after twelve days. When Proculeianus2109
| 2109 Donatist bishop of Hippo. See Letter XXXIII. p.
260. | was
challenged by our bishop concerning this outrage, at a meeting of
the municipal courts, he at first endeavoured to evade inquiry into
the matter by pretending that he knew nothing of it; and when the
demand was immediately repeated, he publicly declared that he would
say nothing more on the subject. And the perpetrators of that
outrage are at this day among your presbyters, continuing moreover
to keep us in terror, and to persecute us to the utmost of their
power.
7. Our bishop, however, did not complain to
the emperors of the wrongs and persecution which the Catholic
Church in our district suffered in those days. But when a Council
had been convened,2110
| 2110 At Carthage, A.D. 403. | it was agreed that you should be
invited to meet our party peaceably, in order that, if it were
possible, you [i.e. the bishops on both sides, for the
letter is written by the clergy of Hippo] might have a conference,
and the error being taken out of the way, brotherly love might
rejoice in the bond of peace between us. You may learn from your
own records the answer which Proculeianus made at first on that
occasion, that you would call a Council together, and would there
see what you ought to answer; and how afterwards, when he was again
publicly reminded of his promise, he stated, as the Acts bear
witness, that he refused to have any conference with a view to
peace. After this, when the notorious atrocities of your clergy and
Circumcelliones continued, a case was brought to trial;2111
| 2111 For a more detailed reference to this case, see
Letter CV. sec. 4. Crispinus was charged with an attempt to kill
Possidius the bishop of Calama. See also Aug. Cont. Crescon.
b. iii. c. 46, n. 50, and c. 47, n. 51. | and
Crispinus being condemned as a heretic, although he was through the
forbearance of the Catholics exempted from the fine which the
imperial edict imposed on heretics of ten pounds of gold,
nevertheless thought himself warranted in appealing to the
emperors. As to the answer which was made to that appeal, was it
not extorted by the preceding wickedness of your party and by his
own appeal? And yet, even after that answer was given, he was
permitted to escape the infliction of that fine, through the
intercession of our bishops with the Emperor on his behalf. From
that Council, however, our bishops sent deputies to the court, who
obtained a decree that not all your bishops and clergy should be
held liable to this fine of ten pounds of gold, which the decree
had imposed on all heretics, but only those in whose districts the
Catholic Church suffered violence at the hands of your party. But
by the time that the deputation came to Rome, the wounds of the
Catholic bishop of Bagæ, who had just then been dreadfully
injured, had moved the Emperor to send such edicts as were actually
sent. When these edicts came to Africa, seeing especially that
strong pressure had begun to be brought upon you, not to any evil
thing, but for your good, what should you have done but invited our
bishops to meet you, as they had invited yours to meet them, that
by a conference the truth might be brought to light?
8. Not only, however, have you failed to do this,
but your party go on inflicting yet greater
injuries upon us. Not contented with
beating us with bludgeons and killing some with the sword, they
even, with incredible ingenuity in crime, throw lime mixed with
acid [? vitriol] into our people’s eyes to blind them. For
pillaging our houses, moreover, they have fashioned huge and
formidable implements, armed with which they wander here and there,
breathing out threats of slaughter, rapine, burning of houses and
blinding of our eyes; by which things we have been constrained in
the first instance to complain to you, venerable sir, begging you
to consider how, under these so-called terrible laws of Catholic
emperors, many, nay all of you, who say that you are the victims of
persecution, are settled in peace in the possessions which were
your own, or which you have taken from others, while we suffer such
unheard-of wrongs at the hands of your party. You say that you are
persecuted, while we are killed with clubs and swords by your armed
men. You say that you are persecuted, while our houses are pillaged
by your armed robbers. You say that you are persecuted, while many
of us have our eyesight destroyed by the lime and acid with which
your men are armed for the purpose. Moreover, if their course of
crime brings some of them to death, they make out that these deaths
are justly the occasion of odium against us, and of glory to them.
They take no blame to themselves for the harm which they do to us,
and they lay upon us the blame of the harm which they bring upon
themselves. They live as robbers, they die as Circumcelliones, they
are honoured as martyrs! Nay, I do injustice to robbers in this
comparison; for we have never heard of robbers destroying the
eyesight of those whom they have plundered: they indeed take away
those whom they kill from the light, but they do not take away the
light from those whom they leave in life.
9. On the other hand, if at any time we get
men of your party into our power, we keep them unharmed, showing
great love towards them; and we tell them everything by which the
error which has severed brother from brother is refuted. We do as
the Lord Himself commanded us, in the words of the prophet Isaiah:
“Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His word; say, Ye
are our brethren, to those who hate you, and who cast you out, that
the name of the Lord may be glorified, and that He may appear to
them with joy; but let them be put to shame.”2112
And thus some of them we persuade,
through their considering the evidences of the truth and the beauty
of peace, not to be baptized anew for this sign of allegiance to
our king they have already received (though they were as
deserters), but to accept that faith, and love of the Holy Spirit,
and union to the body of Christ, which formerly they had not. For
it is written, “Purifying their hearts by faith;”2113
and again,
“Charity covereth a multitude of sins.”2114
If, however, either through too
great obduracy, or through shame making them unable to bear the
taunts of those with whom they were accustomed to join so
frequently in falsely reproaching us and contriving evil against
us, or perhaps more through fear lest they should come to share
along with us such injuries as they were formerly wont to inflict
on us,—if, I say, from any of these causes, they refuse to be
reconciled to the unity of Christ, they are allowed to depart, as
they were detained, without suffering any harm. We also exhort our
laity as far as we can to detain them without doing them any harm,
and bring them to us for admonition and instruction. Some of them
obey us and do this, if it is in their power: others deal with them
as they would with robbers, because they actually suffer from them
such things as robbers are wont to do. Some of them strike their
assailants in protecting their own bodies from their blows: while
others apprehend them and bring them to the magistrates; and though
we intercede on their behalf, they do not let them off, because
they are very much afraid of their savage outrages. Yet all the
while, these men, though persisting in the practices of robbers,
claim to be honoured as martyrs when they receive the due reward of
their deeds!
10. Accordingly our desire, which we lay before you,
venerable sir, by this letter and by the brethren whom we have
sent, is as follows. In the first place, if it be possible, let a
peaceable conference be held with our bishops, so that an end may
be put to the error itself, not to the men who embrace it, and men
corrected rather than punished; and as you formerly despised their
proposals for agreement, let them now proceed from your side. How
much better for you to have such a conference between your bishops
and ours, the proceedings of which may be written down and sent
with signature of the parties to the Emperor, than to confer with
the civil magistrates, who cannot do otherwise than administer the
laws which have been passed against you! For your colleagues who
sailed from this country said that they had come to have their case
heard by the prefects. They also named our holy father the Catholic
bishop Valentinus, who was then at court, saying that they wished
to be heard along with him. This the judge could not concede, as he
was guided in his judicial functions by the laws which were passed
against you: the bishop, moreover, had not come on this footing, or with any such
instructions from his colleagues. How much better qualified
therefore will the Emperor himself be to decide regarding your
case, when the report of that conference has been read before him,
seeing that he is not bound by these laws, and has power to enact
other laws instead of them; although it may be said to be a case
upon which final decision was pronounced long ago! Yet, in wishing
this conference with you, we seek not to have a second final
decision, but to have it made known as already settled to those who
meanwhile are not aware that it is so. If your bishops be willing
to do this, what do you thereby lose? Do you not rather gain,
inasmuch as your willingness for such conference will become known,
and the reproach, hitherto deserved, that you distrust your own
cause will be taken away? Do you, perchance, suppose that such
conference would be unlawful? Surely you are aware that Christ our
Lord spoke even to the devil concerning the law,2115
and that by the Apostle Paul
debates were held not only with Jews, but even with heathen
philosophers of the sect of the Stoics and of the Epicureans.2116
Is it,
perchance, that the laws of the Emperor do not permit you to meet
our bishops? If so, assemble together in the meantime your bishops
in the region of Hippo, in which we are suffering such wrongs from
men of your party. For how much more legitimate and open is the way
of access to us for the writings which you might send to us, than
for the arms with which they assail us!
11. Finally, we beg you to send back such
writings by our brethren whom we have sent to you. If, however, you
will not do this, at least hear us as well as those of your own
party, at whose hands we suffer such wrongs. Show us the truth for
which you allege that you suffer persecution, at the time when we
are suffering so great cruelties from your side. For if you convict
us of being in error, perhaps you will concede to us an exemption
from being rebaptized by you, because we were baptized by persons
whom you have not condemned; and you granted this exemption to
those whom Felicianus of Musti, and Prætextatus of Assuri, had
baptized during the long period in which you were attempting to
cast them out of their churches by legal interdicts, because they
were in communion with Maximianus, along with whom they were
condemned explicitly and by name in the Council of Bagæ. All which
things we can prove by the judicial and municipal transactions, in
which you brought forward the decisions of this same Council of
yours, when you wished to show the judges that the persons whom you
were expelling from your ecclesiastical buildings were persons by
schism separated from you. Nevertheless, you who have by schism
severed yourselves from the seed of Abraham, in whom all the
nations of the earth are blessed,2117
refuse to be expelled from our
ecclesiastical buildings, when the decree to this effect proceeds
not from judges such as you employed in dealing with schismatics
from your sect, but from the kings of the earth themselves, who
worship Christ as the prophecy had foretold, and from whose bar you
retired vanquished when you brought accusation against
Cæcilianus.
12. If, however, you will neither instruct us nor
listen to us, come yourselves, or send into the district of Hippo
some of your party, with some of us as their guides, that they may
see your army equipped with their weapons; nay, more fully equipped
than ever army was before, for no soldier when fighting against
barbarians was ever known to add to his other weapons lime and acid
to destroy the eyes of his enemies. If you refuse this also, we beg
you at least to write to them to desist now from these things, and
refrain from murdering, plundering, and blinding our people. We
will not say, condemn them; for it is for yourselves to see how no
contamination is brought to you by the toleration within your
communion of those whom we prove to be robbers, while contamination
is brought to us by our having members against whom you have never
been able to prove that they were traditors. If, however, you treat
all our remonstrances with contempt, we shall never regret that we
desired to act in a peaceful and orderly way. The Lord will so
plead for His Church, that you, on the other hand, shall regret
that you despised our humble attempt at conciliation.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
