Chapter 36.—83. Petilianus said: "Which Holy Spirit certainly cannot come on you, who have not been washed even with the baptism of repentance; but the water of the traditor, which most truly needs to be repented of, does but work pollution."
84. Augustin answered: As a matter of fact, not only do you not prove us to be traditors, but neither did your fathers prove that our fathers were guilty of that sin; though, even if that had been proved, the consequence would have been that they would not be our fathers, according to your earlier assertion, seeing that we had not followed their deeds: yet neither should we on their account be severed from the companionship of
unity, and from the seed of Abraham, in which all nations of the earth are blessed.2086
However, if the
water of
Christ be one thing, and the
water of the
traditor another, because
Christ was not a
traditor, why should not the
water of
Christ be one thing, and the
water of a robber another, since certainly
Christ was not a robber? Do you therefore
baptize again after
baptism by your robber, and I will
baptize again after the
traditor, who is neither mine nor yours; or, if one must believe the documents which are produced, who is both
mine and yours; or, if we are to believe the
communion of the whole
world rather than the party of Donatus, who is not mine, but yours. But, by a better and a sounder
judgment, because it is according to the words of the
apostle, every one of us shall bear his own burden;
2087
nor is either that robber yours, if you are not yourselves robbers; nor does any
traditor belong to any one either of us or you, who is not himself a
traditor. And yet we are Catholics, who, following the spirit of that
judgment, do not
desert the
unity of the
Church; but you are
heretics, who, on account of charges, whether true or false, which you have brought against certain men, are
unwilling to maintain Christian charity with the seed of
Abraham.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
