Chapter 22.—24. What if the holy and true Church of Christ were to convince and overcome you, even if we held no documents in support of our cause, or only such as were false, while you had possession of some genuine proofs of delivery of the sacred books? what would then remain for you, except that, if you would, you should show your love of peace, or otherwise should hold your tongues?1958
| 1958 "Obmutescatis" is the most probable conjecture of Migne or "obtumescatis," which could only mean, "you should swell with confusion."
|
For whatever, in that case, you might bring forward in evidence, I should be able to say with the greatest ease and the most
perfect truth, that then you are bound to
prove as much to the full and catholic
unity of the
Church already spread abroad and established throughout so many
nations, to the end that you should remain within, and that those whom you
convict should be expelled. And if you have endeavored to do this, certainly you have not been able to make good your
proof; and being vanquished or enraged, you have separated yourselves, with all the heinous guilt of
sacrilege, from the
guiltless men who could not
condemn on insufficient
proof. But if you have not even endeavored to do this, then with most accursed and unnatural
blindness you have
cut yourselves off from the wheat of Christ, which grows throughout His whole fields, that is, throughout the whole world, until the end, because you have taken offense at a few tares in Africa.
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