Chapter 43.—101. Petilianus said: "Can it be that the traitor Judas hung himself for you, or did he imbue you with his character, that, following his deeds, you should seize on the treasures of the Church, and sell for money to the powers of this world us who are the heirs of Christ?"
102. Augustin answered: Judas did not die for us, but Christ, to whom the Church dispersed throughout the world says, "So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in Thy word."2117
When, therefore, I hear the words of the
Lord, saying, "Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in
Samaria, and even in the whole
earth,"
2118
and through the voice of His
prophet, "Their sound is gone out through all the
earth, and their words into the ends of the
world,"
2119
no bodily admixture of
evil ever is able to disturb me, if I know how to say, "Be surety for Thy
servant for good: let not the
proud oppress me."
2120
I do not, therefore, concern myself about a
vain calumniation when I have a substantial
promise. But if you complain about matters or places appertaining to the
Church, which you used once to hold, and hold no longer, then the
Jews also may say that they are
righteous, and
reproach us with
unrighteousness, because the
Christians now occupy the place in which of old they impiously
reigned. What then is there unfitting, if, according to a similar will of the
Lord, the
Catholics now hold the things which formerly the
heretics used to have? For against all such men as this, that is to say, against all impious and
unrighteous men, those words of the
Lord have force, "The
kingdom of
God shall be taken from you, and be given to a
nation bringing forth the fruits thereof;"
2121
or is it written in
vain, "The
righteous shall eat of the
labors of the impious"?
2122
Wherefore you ought rather to be
amazed that you still possess something, than that there is something which you have lost. But neither need you wonder even at this, for it is by degrees that the whitened wall falls down. Yet look back at the followers of Maximianus, see what places they
possessed, and by whose agency and under whose attacks they were driven from them, and do you venture, if you can, to say that to
suffer things like these is
righteousness, while to do
them is
unrighteousness. In the first place, because you did the
deed, and they
suffered them; and secondly, because, according to the rule of this
righteousness, you are found to be inferior. For they were driven from the ancient
palaces by Catholic
emperors acting through judges, while you are not even driven forth by the mandates of the
emperors themselves from the basilicas of
unity. For what reason is this,
save that you are of less merit, not only than the
rest of your colleagues, but
even than those very men whom you assuredly condemned as guilty of sacrilege by the mouth of your plenary Council?
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