Chapter 23.—51. Petilianus said: "But if you say that we give baptism twice over, truly it is rather you who do this, who slay men who have been baptized; and this we do not say because you baptize them, but because you cause each one of them, by the act of slaying him, to be baptized in his own blood. For the baptism of water or of the Spirit is as it were doubled when the blood of the martyr is wrung from
him. And so our Saviour also Himself, after being baptized in the first instance by John, declared that He must be baptized again, not this time with water nor with the Spirit, but with the baptism of blood, the cross of suffering, as it is written, ‘Two disciples, the sons of Zebedee, came unto Him, saying, Lord, when thou comest into thy kingdom grant that we may sit, one on Thy right hand, and the other on Thy left hand. But Jesus said unto them, Ye ask a difficult thing: can ye drink of
the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They said unto Him, We are able. And He said unto them, Ye can indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized,’2045
and so forth. If these are two
baptisms, you commend us by your
malice, we must needs confess. For when you
kill our bodies, then we do celebrate a second
baptism; but it is that we are
baptized with our
baptism and with
blood, like
Christ. Blush, blush, ye persecutors. Ye make martyrs like unto
Christ, who are sprinkled with the
baptism of
blood after the
water of the genuine
baptism."
52. Augustin answered: In the first place, we reply without delay that we do not kill you, but you kill yourselves by a true death, when you cut yourselves off from the living root of unity. In the next place, if all who are killed are baptized in their own blood, then all robbers, all unrighteous, impious, accursed men, who are put to death by the sentence of the law, are to be considered martyrs, because they are baptized in their
own blood. But if only those are baptized in their own blood who are put to death for righteousness’ sake, since theirs is the kingdom of heaven,2046
you have already seen that the first
question is why you
suffer, and only afterwards should we ask what you
suffer. Why therefore do you puff out your cheeks before you have shown the
righteousness of your
deeds? Why, does your
tongue resound before your character is approved? If you have made a
schism, you are impious; if you are impious, you
die as one
guilty of
sacrilege, when you are
punished for impiety; if you
die as one
guilty of
sacrilege, how are you
baptized
in your
blood? Or do you say, I have not made a
schism? Let us then inquire into this. Why do you make an outcry before you
prove your case?
53. Or do you say, Even if I am guilty of sacrilege, I ought not to be slain by you? It is one question as to the enormity of my action, which you never prove with any truth, another as to the baptism of your blood, from whence you derive your boast. For I never killed you, nor do you prove that you are killed by any one. Nor even if you were to prove it would it in any way affect me, whoever it was that killed you, whether he did it justly in virtue of
power lawfully given by the Lord, or committed the crime of murder, like the chaff of the Lord’s harvest, through some evil desire; just as you are in no way concerned with him who in recent times, with an intolerable tyranny, attended even by a company of soldiers, not because he feared any one, but that he might be feared by all, oppressed widows, destroyed pupils, betrayed the patrimonies of other men, annulled the marriages of other men, contrived the sale of the property of the innocent,
divided the price of the property when sold with its mourning owners. I should seem to be saying all this out of the invention of my own head, if it were not sufficiently obvious of whom I speak without the mention of his name.2047
| 2047 Optatus Gildonianus is the person to whom he refers.
|
And if all this is undoubtedly true, then just as you are not concerned with this, so neither are we concerned with anything you say, even though it were true. But if that colleague of yours, being really a just and
innocent man, is maligned by a
lying tale, then should we also
learn in no way to give credit to
reports, which have been spread abroad of
innocent men, as though they had
delivered up the
sacred books, or
murdered any of their fellow-men. To this we may
add, that I refer to a man who lived with you, whose
birthday you were wont to celebrate with such large
assemblies, with whom you joined in the
kiss of
peace in the sacraments, in whose
hands you placed the Eucharist, to whom in turn you extended your
hands to receive it from his ministering, whose
ears, when they were
deaf amid the groanings of all Africa, you durst not offend by free
speech; for paying to whom, even indirectly, a most witty compliment, by saying that in the
Count
2048
| 2048 Gildo, from subservience to whom Optatus received the name Gildonianus, was "Comes Africæ." The play on the meanings of "Comes," in the expression "quod Comitem haberet Deum," is incapable of direct translation. Cp. 37, 88; 103, 237.
|
he had a
god for his companion, some one of your party was extolled to the
skies. But you
reproach us with the
deeds of men with whom we never lived, whose faces we never saw, in whose lifetime we were either
boys, or perhaps as yet not even
born. What is the meaning, then, of your great unfairness and perversity, that you should wish to impose on us the burdens of those whom we never knew, whilst you will not bear the burdens of your
friends? The
divine Scriptures
exclaim: "When thou sawest a
thief, then thou consentedst with him."
2049
If he whom you saw did not pollute you, why do you
reproach me with one whom I could not have seen? Or do you say, I did not consent with him, because his
deeds were displeasing to me? But, at any rate, you went up to the
altar of
God with him. Come now, if you would
defend yourself, make a distinction between your two positions, and say that it is one thing to consent together for
sin, as the two
elders consented together when they laid a plot against the chastity of
Susannah, and another thing to receive the sacrament of the
Lord in
company with a
thief, as the
apostles received even that first
supper in
company with
Judas. I am all in
favor of your
defense. But why do you not consider how much more easily, in the course of your
defense, you have acquitted all the
nations and boundaries of the
earth, throughout which the inheritance of
Christ is
dispersed? For if it was possible for you to see a
thief, and to share the sacraments
with the
thief whom you saw, and yet not to share his
sin, how much less was it possible for the remotest
nations of the
earth to have anything in common with the
sins of African
traditors and persecutors, supposing your charges and assertions to be true, even though they held the sacraments in common with them? Or do you say, I saw in him the
bishop, I did not see in him the
thief? Say what you will. I allow this
defense also, and in this the
world is acquitted of the charges which
you brought against it. For if it was permitted you to ignore the character of a man whom you knew, why is the whole
world not allowed to be ignorant of those it never knew, unless, indeed, the Donatists are allowed to be ignorant of what they do not wish to know, while the
nations of the
earth may not be ignorant of what they cannot know?
54. Or do you say, Theft is one thing, delivery of the sacred books or persecution is another? I grant there is a difference, nor is it worth while now to show wherein that difference consists. But listen to the summary of the argument. If he could not make you a thief, because his thieving was displeasing in your sight, who can make men traditors or murderers to whom such treachery or murder is abhorrent? First, then, confess that you share in all
the evil of Optatus, whom you knew, and even so reproach me with any evil which was found in those whom I knew not. And do not say to me, But my charges are serious, yours but trifling. You must first acknowledge them, however trifling they may be in your case, not before I on my side confess the charges against me, but before I can allow you to say these serious things about me at all. Did Optatus, whom you knew make you a thief by being your colleague, or not? Answer me one or the other.
If you say he did not, I ask why he did not,—because he was not a thief himself? or because you do not know it? or because you disapprove of it? If you say, Because he himself was not a thief, much more ought we not to believe that those with whom you reproach us were of such a character as you assert. For if we must not believe of Optatus what both Christians and pagans and Jews, ay, and what both our party and yours assert, how much less should we believe what you assert of any one? But if
you say, Because you do not know it, all the nations of the earth answer you, Much more do we not know of all that you reproach us with in these men. But if you say, Because you disapproved of it, they answer you with the same voice, Although you have never proved the truth of what you say, yet acts like these are viewed by us with disapproval. But if you say, Lo, Optatus, whom I knew, made me a thief because he was my colleague, and I was in the habit of going to the altar with him when he
committed those deeds; but I do not greatly heed it, because the fault was trivial, but your party made you a traditor and a murderer,—I answer that I do not allow that I too am made a traditor and a murderer by the sins of other men, just because you confess that you are made a thief by the sin of another man; for it must be remembered that you are proved a thief, not by our judgment, but by your own confession. For we say that every man must bear his own burden, as the apostle
is our witness.2050
But you, of your own
accord, have taken the burden of Optatus on your own shoulders, not because you
committed the
theft, or consented to it, but because you declared your
conviction that what another did applied to you. For, as the
apostle says, when speaking of
food, "I know, and am
persuaded by the
Lord Jesus, that there is nothing
unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth anything to be
unclean, to him it is
unclean;"
2051
by the same rule, it may be said that the
sins of others cannot implicate those who disapprove of them; but if any one thinks that they affect him, then he is affected by them. Wherefore you do not
convict us of being
traditors or murderers, even though you were to
prove something of the sort against those who share the sacraments with us; but the guilt of
theft is fastened on you, even if you disapprove of everything that Optatus did, not in
virtue of our
accusation, but by your own decision. And that you may not think this a trivial fault, read what the
apostle says, "Nor shall
thieves inherit the
kingdom of
God."
2052
But those who shall not
inherit the
kingdom of
God will certainly not be on His right
hand among those whom it shall be said, "Come, ye
blessed of my
Father,
inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the
world." If they are not there, where will they be except on the left
hand? Therefore among those to whom it shall be said, "Depart from me, ye
cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his
angels."
2053
In
vain, therefore, do you indulge in your
security, thinking it a trivial fault which separates you from the
kingdom of
God, and sends you into
everlasting fire. How much better will you do to betake yourself to true confusion, saying, Every one of us shall bear his own burden, and the winnowing
fan at the last day shall separate the
chaff from the
wheat!
55. But it is evident that you are afraid of its being forthwith said to you, "Why then, whilst you attempt to place on some men’s backs the burdens of their neighbors, have you dared to separate yourselves from the Lord’s corn, dispersed throughout the world, before the winnowing at the last day?" Accordingly, you who disapprove of the deeds of your party, whilst you are taking precautions against being charged with the schism which you all have made, are involving
yourselves also in their sins which you did not commit; and while the shrewd Petilianus is afraid of my being able to say that am I not such as he thinks Cæcilianus was, he is obliged to confess that he himself is such as he knows Optatus to have been. Or are you not such as the common voice of Africa proclaims him to have been? Then neither are we such as those with whom you reproach us are either suspected to have been by your mistake, or calumniously asserted to have been by your madness,
or proved to have been by the truth. Much less is the wheat of the Lord in all the nations of the earth of such a character, seeing that it never heard the names of those of whom you speak. There is therefore no reason why you should perish in such sin of separation and such sacrilege of schism. And yet, if you are made to suffer for this great impiety by the judgment of God, you say that you are even baptized in your blood; so that you are not content with feeling no remorse for your
division, but you must even glory in your punishment.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
