Book II

Gaudentius had written a reply to Augustin's first book. He had taken refuge under the example of Cyprian; but Augustin now refers him to the writings of Cyprian on De Simplicitate Prælatorum seu De Catholicæ Ecclesiæ unitate, showing Cyprian's belief in the universality of the Church which Augustin expands by the explanation of the term Catholic. Purgation of the Church is not by separation, but by toleration, as Cyprian too held in his letter to Maximus and others. The explanation of the field not as the Church, but rather as the world outside of the Church, had been supported at the Conference and is repeated by Gaudentius; and also its alternative, that were the field the Church then it must have perished from the tares which were in it. If so, says Augustin, then the ancestors of the Donatists would have perished. The period of separation is at the end, when the Gospel shall have been preached in the whole world. As to their theme of rebaptism, Augustin replies that he had already before referred him to his Maximianist practice, so that the action of Agrippinus and Cyprian are vain for him. And then too, according to Cyprian's own confession, and Stephen's testimony, there were crimes in the Church in their day; did the Church perish then? If so where was Donatus born? If not, then why did the party of Donatus separate? They are guilty of the very schism which Cyprian particularly deprecated as a cure, instead of toleration and discipline, for the ills of the Church. As to baptism: The Catholics recognize the Donatist rite, for the sacrament cannot be lost upon those who receive it among Catholics and then pass over to heretics; they have the truth but in iniquity; the truth is not the property of the Donatists. The apostle recognized such truth as he found among the Gentiles. Gaudentius had vindicated his reference to the tribune's letter, as to the Donatists having the names of God and of his Christ, and quoted the passage in proof. Augustin acknowledges his mistake, which, however, was not intentional, and he apologizes for the tribune's error as that of a military man who was not familiar with theology. Since Gaudentius had called the tribune religious in his first letter, Augustin accuses him of insincerity and berates him as superstitious. He also corrects Gaudentius for saying that God sent Jonah not to the king but only to the people of Nineveh, for the king compelled the humiliation of his subjects. In conclusion he quotes from Cyprian's letter to Maximus in behalf of universality and tolerant unity. His exordium is an earnest appeal to the Catholics to maintain all the notes of the Church. [Cp. Retractt. II. lix.].

Felicia had been a Donatist originally and was converted by force. She had devoted herself to the virgin life and apparently had become head of a religious house; but by reason of some wicked deeds of the clergy, possibly the extortion and rapacity of Antonius at Fussala, she was much disturbed and seemed inclined to relapse into her earlier puristic notions, if not to return to the body that upheld them. To quiet her doubts Augustin writes Ep. ccviii. c. 423. The Lord had predicted offenses. There are two kinds of shepherds over the flock, and will be to the end: the flock too has the good and the bad in it. The gathering is the present duty, the separation will be the future one; this latter is the Lord's prerogative. To abide in unity under such circumstances is a duty until the winnowing, and one is to believe what these shepherds teach, not what they do. Good and bad are therefore in the world under the widely diffused Catholic Church; the Donatist has no such note of universality. Love Christ and the Church, and then He will not permit you to lose the fruit of your virginity and to perish with the lost. If you go out of this life, separated from the unity of the body of Christ, this preserved integrity of the body will not profit you. You were compelled to come in; be thankful to those who compelled you. Show your devotion to the Lord, as your only hope, by being unmoved with these offenses, and by cleaving to his body, the Church.

A letter addressed to Pope Coelestine is ascribed to Augustin [Ep. ccix. c. 423]; its authenticity has been disputed. The author, in giving an account of the appointment of Antonius as bishop of Fussala, remarks that at Fussala, a castellum about forty miles distant from Hippo, as in all the adjoining region, there had been a Donatist population; in Fussala itself there had not been a solitary Catholic; the Punic was the common language. The coercive measures had converted the whole territory, but the process had also aroused a violent opposition in the form of robbery, beating, blinding, murder. After its conversion, the distance from Hippo and the great numbers to be instructed, required a new bishopric, the history of which and the troubles growing out of it, the author further relates.

In that valuable book De doctrina christiana, (begun in 397, but ended in 426, including the part having reference to our subject III. xxx. 42), Augustin quotes approvingly from the book of Tychonius the De septem regulis, and prefaces a discussion of these rules by an allusion to the treatise of Tychonius, which had refuted some of the narrow and puristic doctrines of the Church, as held by his own party; this we have already seen was answered by Parmenian, whose letter in turn was dissected by Augustin. The first, second, fourth and seventh of these rules bear especially upon the doctrinal points under discussion. [Cp. Retractt. II. iv. and Tychonius de Septem Regulis is reprinted in Migne. Pat. Lat. xviii.]

In his de Hoeresibus [c. 428 A.D.] Chapter lxix. gives a brief account of the Donatiani or Donatistæ: (a) as to origin and progress; (b) Donatus's view of the Trinity; (c) the Montenses at Rome; (d) the Circumcelliones; (e) the schism of Maximian.

This was his parting arrow after the thirty-six years of battle. Catholics and Donatists passed under the persecutions of the Arian Vandals. Two years after this treatise Augustin laid aside his weapons to enter the land of eternal peace and unity.

More or less extended allusions are made to Donatism in the following sermons, arranged in the order of the Benedictine editions; for the years in which they were delivered cannot be determined. Want of space prevents the presentation of any analysis.

Sermo X. 1 Kings iii. 16-28.

Sermo XLV. Is. lvii. 13 and 2 Cor. vii. 1.

Sermo XLVI. Ez. xxxiv. 1-16.

Sermo XLVII. Ez. xxxiv. 17-31.

Sermo LXXI. Matt. xii. 32.

Sermo LXXXVIII. Matt. xx. 30-34.

Sermo XC. Matt. xxii. 1-14.

Sermo CVII. Luc. xii. 13-21.

Sermo CXXIX. Jo. v. 39-47.

Sermo CXXXVII. Jo. x. 1-16.

Sermo CXXXVIII. Jo. x. 11-16.

Sermo CLXXXIII. 1 Jo. iv. 2.

Sermo CCXVIII. Luc. xxiv. 38-47.

Sermo CCXLIX. Jo. xxi. 1-14.

Sermo CCLII. Jo. xxi. 1-14.

Sermo CCLXV. The Ascension.

Sermo CCLXVI. Ps. cxli. (cxl.) 5.

Sermo CCLXVIII. Pentecost.

Sermo CCLXIX. Pentecost.

Sermo CCLXXXV. Anniversary of the martyrs Castus and Æmilus.

Sermo CCXCII. John the Baptist.

Sermo CCCXXV. Anniversary of the Twenty Martyrs.

Similar references are to be found in the expositions and sermons based on the Psalms. The first column is the Hebrew and English order; the second that of LXX. and Vulgate.

Exposition of Psalms XI. (X.)

Exposition of Psalms XXVI. (XXV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms XXXI. (XXX.) Sermons I. and II.

Exposition of Psalms XXXIII. (XXXII.) Sermon II.

Exposition of Psalms XXXIV. (XXXIII.) Sermon II.

Exposition of Psalms XXXVI. (XXXV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms XXXVII. (XXXVI.) Sermons II. (archival) and III.

Exposition of Psalms XL. (XXXIX.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms LV. (LIV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms LVIII. (LVII.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms LXXXVI. (LXXXV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms XCIX. (XCVIII.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXX. (CXIX.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXXV. (CXXIV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXXXIII. (CXXXII.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXLVI. (CXLV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXLVII. 12-20 (CXLVII.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXLIX. Sermon.

The time of writing the de Utilitate Jejunii is unknown. Chapter V. 9, contrasts pagan, heretical and Catholic fasts; heretics claim indeed to fast in order to please God; how can they, when they sever the unity? All heretics perish; they are the dividers of the inheritance of Christ.

In conclusion the reviser desires to commend the fidelity and lucidity of the translation made by the Rev. J. R. King, M.A.

No changes made by the reviser have been indicated, since all could not be without confusion. The translation had taken most of its notes and references from the Benedictines. The citations of Cyprian are according to the numerals in Hartel's edition.

Preface

The schism of the Donatists, with which the treatises in the present volume are concerned, arose indirectly out of the persecution under Diocletian at the beginning of the fourth century. At that time Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, and his archdeacon Cæcilianus, had endeavored to check the fanatical spirit in which many of the Christians courted martyrdom; and consequently, on the death of Mensurius in 311, and the elevation of Cæcilianus to the see of Carthage in his place, the opposing party, alleging that Felix, bishop of Aptunga, by whom Cæcilianus had been consecrated, had been a traditor, and that therefore his consecration was invalid, set up against him Majorinus, who was succeeded in 315 by Donatus. The party had by this time gained strength, through the professions that they made of extreme purity in the discipline which they maintained, and had gone so far, under the advice of another Donatus, bishop of Casæ Nigræ in Numidia, as to accuse Cæcilianus before the Roman Emperor Constantine,--thus setting the first precedent for referring a spiritual cause to the decision of a civil magistrate. Constantine accepted the appeal, and in 313 the matter was laid for decision before Melchiades, bishop of Rome, and three bishops of the province of Gaul. They decided in favor of the validity of the consecration of Cæcilianus; and a similar verdict was given by a council held at Arles, by direction of the Emperor, in the following year. The party of Majorinus then appealed to the personal judgment of the Emperor, which was likewise given against them, not without strong expressions of his anger at their pertinacity. This was followed by severe laws directed against their schism; but so far from crushing them, the attack seemed only to increase their enthusiasm and develope their resources. And, under the leadership of Donatus, the successor of Majorinus, their influence spread widely throughout Africa, and continued to prevail, in spite of various efforts at their forcible suppression, during the whole of the fourth century. They especially brought on themselves the vengeance of the civil powers, by the turbulence of certain fanatical ascetics who embraced their cause, and who, under the name of Circumcelliones, spread terror through the country, seeking martydom for themselves, and offering violence to every one who opposed them.

Towards the close of the century, this schism attracted the attention of Augustin, then a priest of Hippo Regius in Numidia. The controversy seems to have had for him a special attraction, not merely because of its intrinsic importance, but also because of the field which it presented for his unrivalled powers as a dialectician. These the Donatists had recently provoked, by inconsistently receiving back into their body a deacon of Carthage named Maximianus who had separated himself from them, and by recognizing as valid all baptism administered by his followers. Hence they naturally shrank from engaging in a contest with an antagonist who was sure to make the most of such a deviation from the very principles on which they based their schism; and, on the other hand, Augustin was so firmly convinced that his own position was impregnable, that he seems to have thought that if he could only secure a thorough and dispassionate discussion of the matter, the Donatists must necessarily be brought to acknowledge not only their theoretical errors, but also the practical sinfulness of their separation from the Church. Throughout the controversy, however, he appears to have put out of sight two considerations: first, the influence of party spirit and prejudice in blinding men to argument; and, secondly, the necessity of treating his opponents in a logical discussion as on an equal footing with himself. The first was in some degree an unavoidable element of disappointment; but Augustin made concession yet more difficult on the part of his opponents, by expecting them to acknowledge his superior position as a member of the Catholic Church, whose duty it was to expose the error of their views. He practically begs the very point at issue, by assuming that he, and not the Donatists, was in the Catholic communion; and though his argument is conducted independently of this premise, yet it naturally rendered them more unwilling to admit its force.

This dogmatism was of less consequence in the first pamphlet which Augustin published on the subject,--his Alphabetical Psalm, in which he set forth the history and errors of the Donatists in a popular form,--since it was not intended as a controversial treatise, but only as a means of enlightening the less educated as to the Catholic tenets on the question in dispute. His next work, written in answer to a letter of Donatus of Carthage, in which the latter tried to prove that the baptism of Christ existed only in his communion, is unfortunately lost; and we can only gather hints as to the further part which he took in the controversy during the next few years from certain of his letters, especially those to the Donatist Bishops Honoratus and Crispinus. From the former he claims the admission that the exclusiveness of the Donatists proves that they are not the Church of Christ; and his letter to the latter contains an invitation to discuss the leading points at issue, which Crispinus seems to have declined.

In the year 400 he wrote two books Against the Party of Donatus, which are also lost; and about the same time he published his refutation of the letter of Parmenianus in answer to Tichonius, in which he handles and solves the famous question, whether, while abiding in unity in the communion of the same sacraments, the wicked pollute the good by their society.

Then followed his seven books On Baptism, included in this volume, in which he shows the emptiness of the arguments of the Donatists for the repetition of baptism; and proves that so far was Cyprian from being on their side, that his letters and conduct are of the highest value as overthrowing their position, and utterly condemning their separation from the Church.

Not long after this, Petilianus, bishop of Cirta or Constantina, the most eminent theologian among the Donatist divines, wrote a letter to his clergy against the Catholics, of which Augustin managed to obtain a copy, though the Donatists used their utmost care to keep it from him; and he replied to it in two books, written at different times,--the first in the year 400, before he was in possession of the whole letter, the remainder in 402. To the first book Petilianus made an answer, of which we gather the main tenor from a third book written by Augustin in reply to it. It appears to have been full of vehement abuse, and to have assumed the question in dispute, that the existence of the true Church, and the catholicity of any branch of it, depended on the purity and orthodoxy of all its ministers; so that the guilt or heresy of any minister would invalidate the whole of his ministerial acts. Hence he argued that Cæcilianus being the spiritual father of the so-called Catholics, and having been a traditor, none of them could possibly have been lawfully baptized, much less rightfully ordained.

Augustin admits neither of his assumptions; but, leaving the guilt or innocence of Cæcilianus as a point which was irrelevant (though practically the case against him utterly broke down), he addresses himself to the other point, and argues most conclusively that all the functions of the clergy in celebrating the rites of the Church being purely ministerial, the efficacy of those rites could in no way depend upon the excellence of the individual minister, but was derived entirely from Christ. Hence there was a certainty of the grace bestowed through the several ordinances, which otherwise there could not possibly have been, had their virtue depended on the character of any man, in whom even an unblemished reputation might have been the fruit of a skilled hypocrisy.

The third treatise in this volume belongs to a later period, being a letter written to Bonifacius, the Roman Count of Africa under Valentinian the Third. He had written to Augustin to consult him as to the best means of dealing with the Donatists; and Augustin in his reply points out to him his mistake in supposing that the Donatists shared in the errors of the Arians, whilst he urges him to use moderation in his coercive measures; though both here and in his answer to Petilianus we find him countenancing the theory that the State has a right to interfere in constraining men to keep within the Church. Starting with a forced interpretation of the words, "Compel them to come in," in Luke xiv. 23, he enunciates principles of coercion which, though in him they were subdued and rendered practically of little moment by the spirit of love which formed so large an element in his character, yet found their natural development in the despotic intolerance of the Papacy, and the horrors of the Inquisition. It is probable that he was himself in some degree misled by confounding the necessity of repressing the violence of the Circumcelliones, which was a real offense against the State, with the expediency of enforcing spiritual unity by temporal authority.

The Donatist treatises have met with little attention from individual editors. There is a dissertation, De Aur. Augustino adversario Donatistarum, by Adrien Roux, published at Louvain in 1838; but it is believed that no treatises of this series have ever before been translated into English, nor are they separately edited. They are in themselves a valuable authority for an important scene in the history of the Church, and afford a good example both of the strength and the weakness of Augustin's writing,--its strength, in the exhaustive way in which he tears to pieces his opponent's arguments, and the clearness with which he exposes the fallacies of their reasoning; its weakness, in the persistency with which he pursues a point long after its discussion might fairly have been closed, as though he hardly knew when he had gained the victory; and his tendency to claim, by right of his position, a vantage-ground which did not in reality belong to him till the superiority of his cause was proved.

J. R. King

Oxford, March, 1870.

the

SEVEN BOOKS OF AUGUSTIN,

BISHOP OF HIPPO,

ON

BAPTISM, AGAINST THE DONATISTS

[DE BAPTISIMO CONTRA DONATISTAS.]

CIRCA A.D. 400.

translated by the

rev. j. r. king, m.a.,

vicar of st. peter's in the east, oxford; and late fellow and tutor of mERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD

The

Seven Books of Augustin,

Bishop of Hippo