Books 1 and 2 date to 400–401, while Book 3 dates sometime between 403 and 405.
(3) . . . If one [outside] could baptize, he could also give the Holy Spirit. But if he cannot give the Holy Spirit because, established outside, he is not with the Holy Spirit, he cannot baptize the one who comes since baptism is also one, and the Holy Spirit is one, and the Church founded by Christ upon Peter in the order and established plan of unity is also one. Thus it happens that, since all things are useless and false among those men, none of those things which they have done ought to be approved by us.16
Donatists in Their Own Voice
Petilian of Constantine (d. ca. 419) was a Donatist contemporary of Augustine and an articulate exponent of Donatist views. He had been raised by Catholic parents, and while still a Catholic catechumen, was forcibly baptized into the Donatist church. Around 393, he was forcibly ordained as bishop of Constantine/Cirta (now Ksantina, Algeria). Around 399 or 400, Augustine stumbled across an excerpt of a pastoral letter by Petilian and dashed off a response. This became Book 1 of his treatise Against the Letters of Petilian.17 Later Augustine got hold of the entire letter and, for Book 2, composed a lineby-line rebuttal. These piecemeal quotations allow us to reconstruct Petilian's original letter. Petilian's text gives one a good taste of the mud-slinging and inflammatory language some Donatists favored. From his Letter to the Presbyters and Deacons, reconstructed from Augustine, Against the Letters of Petilian, Book 2:
(1.2) Bishop Petilian, to his most beloved brethren, fellow presbyters and deacons, who are ministers with us, appointed in the holy Gospel throughout the diocese: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
(2.4) We are criticized for baptizing a second time by people who have polluted their souls with an unlawful washing, a baptism in name only. They are people who, because of their perverse cleansing, emerge defiled by the water they dipped in, people so loathsome that the lowest filth is cleaner. (3.6) Now what we look to is for the conscience of the giver, in holiness, to cleanse that of the receiver.18 (4.8) For the one who knowingly embraces faith from the faithless receives not faith but guilt. (5.10) For everything gets its existence from its origin and its roots; and if it does not have something as its head, it is nothing; nor does something regenerate well unless regenerated from a good seed. (6.10) Since this is so, brethren, what kind of perversity must it be to think that one guilty of crimes can make someone else innocent? For
16. Cyprian, ep. 70.1–3 (CCL 3: 501–13); trans. Donna, FOTC 51:259–61. See also Cyprian, ep. 69 and 71– 73. See Burns, Cyprian the Bishop, esp. 100–150. 17. This work has traditionally been dated to 400. Hombert, Nouvelles recherches, 189–93, argues that Books 1 and 2 date to 400–401, while Book 3 dates sometime between 403 and 405.
18. "In holiness" (sancte): In his citation of Petilian's letter, Augustine had dropped this phrase, as well as "knowingly" (sciens) from the next sentence. Petilian later chided Augustine for dropping both words: see Contra litteras Petiliani 3.23.27 (BA 30:638–40).