26. Ep. 33.5 (CCL 31:122–23); trans. Parsons, FOTC 12:129–30.
Divided Towns, Divided Families
Augustine tried initially to engage Donatists using a variety of tactics: friendly conversations, exchanges of letters, public debates. He may have thought public debate, which had been rather effective in dealing with the Manichees, might work against the Donatists. Around 396, he wrote his cross-town rival, Proculeian, the Donatist bishop of Hippo (bp. 395–410), asking to meet and discuss and, if need be, formally debate the issues. In his letter, Augustine alludes to the way the schism divided families. He also contrasts the daily routine of bishops acting as judges settling their congregation's lawsuits with the inability of rival bishops to settle disputes with one another. From Letter 33:
(5) I ask you: What have we to do with those old quarrels such that wounds, which the antagonism of proud men has inflicted on your members, should have lasted so long? By the putrefying of those wounds we have lost all feeling of pain which ordinarily makes one call in a doctor. You see with what great and what wretched foulness the families of Christian homes are defiled. Husbands and wives agree about their bed and disagree about the altar of Christ. They swear by Him in order to have mutual peace, but they cannot have it in Him. Sons share one home with their parents, but they do not share the same house of God. They wish to receive the inheritance of those with whom they quarrel about the inheritance of Christ; slave and master tear asunder the common God who "took the form of a servant" (Phil 2:7) that He might free us all from slavery. Yours honor us, ours honor you; yours swear to us by our crown, ours swear to you by yours. We take the word of everyone; we wish to offend none; but what injury has Christ done us that we tear His members apart? People, wishing to advance their worldly aims through us— as far as we are useful to them—call us saints indeed and servants of God, so as to further the interest of their own lands. Let us, then, work at the business of their salvation and of our own. We are daily greeted by people with suppliant heads, begging us to settle their quarrels, but the disgraceful and dangerous division between [our congregations] is not a question of gold or silver, or of land and flocks. It is a dispute about our very Head. Those who salute us may bow their heads as low as they will, begging us to reconcile them on earth, but our Head has bowed down from heaven to the cross, and we are not reconciled in Him.26
26. Ep. 33.5 (CCL 31:122–23); trans. Parsons, FOTC 12:129–30.
Against the Donatists
Origin of the Schism
Augustine may rhetorically have asked, "What have we to do with those old quarrels?" but he certainly knew that to combat Donatist claims he had to study the long, bitter history of the controversy, a task which required mastering various dossiers of documents from both government and church archives. Here, in a letter written in late 396 or early 397 to a group of moderate Donatist laymen, Augustine gives his synopsis of the schism's origins and implications. From Letter 43:
(1.2) If I were writing you about the business of a farm or of quashing a financial lawsuit, probably no one would object. So dear is the world to human beings, and so cheap are they to themselves! This letter, then, will be a witness in my defense at the judgment of God, who knows with what motive I have acted and who has said: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God" (Mt 5:9).
(2.3) Therefore, you will kindly call to mind that, when we were in your city [of Carthage] and were treating some questions about the nature of Christian unity, certain public records were produced by your partisans, in which it was related that about seventy bishops had once condemned Caecilian, a bishop of the church of Carthage of our communion, together with his colleagues and consecrators. There the case of Felix of Abthungi also was trumpeted about much more violently and more objectionably than the others.27 When these records had been read, we answered that it was no wonder if the people who were responsible for that schism (as well as for the correctness of the records) should think that the absent were to be rashly condemned without a hearing, roused as they were against them by envious and wicked persons. But we have other records of the church, in which Secundus of Tigisis, who then held the primacy in Numidia, left proven and avowed traditores to the judgment of God and even allowed them to occupy their episcopal thrones. And their names are listed among the accusers of Caecilian.
(2.4) Then we said, sometime after the ordination of Majorinus, whom they wickedly raised up against Caecilian, setting altar against altar, and rending the unity of Christ with frightful divisions, that they had requested Constantine, then emperor, to appoint bishops as judges to arbitrate the differences that had arisen to break the bond of peace in Africa. But when this was granted, in the presence of Caecilian and those who had gone abroad
27. "Felix of Abthungi": Abthungi (modern Henchir es-Souar) was a small town south of Carthage. Felix was one of Caecilian's consecrators and was accused of traditio by the Donatist party. According to Donatist theology, if Felix had committed traditio, he would have lost the Holy Spirit and thus lost the spiritual power to ordain; one cannot give the Holy Spirit if one does not have the Holy Spirit. That is why such a minor character would be such a bitter point of contention.
to appear against him, Miltiades, Bishop of Rome, acting as judge, with his colleagues whom the emperor had sent at the request of the Donatists, had decided that nothing could be proved against Caecilian, that he was thereby confirmed in his bishopric, and that Donatus, who had appeared against him, was censured. After this development, it was noted that, when all of them persisted obstinately in their detestable schism, the emperor made provision for examining the same case more carefully and for concluding it at Arles, but they appealed the ecclesiastical verdict and asked for a hearing by Constantine. After this meeting, with both sides present, Caecilian had been declared innocent, and they had returned defeated, but perversely determined not to give in. Nor was the case of Felix of Abthungi passed over; by order of the same emperor his record was cleared in the proconsular archives. . . .
(5.14) If the proconsular records displease you, turn to the ecclesiastical ones. All the facts are set out in order for you. But perhaps Miltiades, bishop of the church of Rome, with his colleagues, the overseas bishops, should not have taken over the jurisdiction of a case which had been concluded by seventy Africans under the primacy of Tigisis? The emperor, when requested, sent bishop-judges to sit with him and decide what seemed just to them about the whole affair. We prove this by the petition of the Donatists and the emperor's own record. You recall that both were read to you, and you now have the liberty of examining and transcribing them. Read them all and weigh them well. See how carefully all the discussions were carried on with a view to preserving or restoring peace and unity; how the character of the accusers was treated, and, in the case of some of them, how it was degraded when it became clear by the evidence of those present that they had nothing to say against Caecilian.
(5.16) . . . Yet what kind of final verdict was given by blessed Miltiades! How blameless, how upright, how far-seeing and peaceful! By it he did not try to remove from his flock colleagues who had nothing against them, but when he had laid the blame on Donatus alone, whom he found to be the cause of all the trouble, he gave the rest full opportunity to recover spiritual health. He was even ready to send pastoral letters to those who were admittedly ordained by Majorinus, with the provision that, wherever there were two bishops, because dissension had doubled the office, he would confirm the one who had been ordained first. For the other, another flock would be found over whom he could rule. O excellent man! O son of Christian peace and father of Christian people! . . .
(7.19) But when [Caecilian's accusers] had learned by this experience that Caecilian was in union with the rest of the world and that pastoral letters from the overseas churches had recognized him and not the one whom they had wrongfully ordained, they were ashamed of their silence, because they could not answer the objection that a church, unknown in so many countries, was in communion with the condemned, but they had cut themselves off from communion with all the rest of the blameless world. . . .
(7.20) What they did afterward is very plainly shown from the emperor's letter. They presumed to criticize, on the grounds of false verdict, the ecclesiastical judges—bishops of such influence, by whose judgment the innocence of Caecilian and their own malice were published—and this, not to their colleagues but to the emperor. He gave them another trial at Arles, doubtless with other bishops, not because it was necessary, but by way of yielding to their obstinacy and wishing by all means to restrain their excessive boldness. Yet as a Christian emperor, he did not venture to sustain their disorderly and unfounded complaints by giving a judgment on the court of bishops which had sat at Rome, but, as I said, he appointed other bishops. And even from these they chose to appeal to the emperor in person. . . . He ordered that both sides come to him at Rome to try the case. . . . [Shifting the venue to Milan,] when Caecilian also arrived, he had him appear, heard his case, and with the care, precaution, and foresight manifested in his letters, he declared him completely innocent, and his accusers guilty of base injustice.
(8.21) And still they baptize outside the Church, and, if they could, would rebaptize the whole Church. They offer the sacrifice in a state of disunion and schism, and greet people in the name of peace whom they cut off from the peace of salvation. The unity of Christ is blasphemed, the baptism of Christ is scorned, and they refuse to be corrected of those sins by common human authority, through temporal penalties, which would ward off the eternal chastisement due to their great blasphemies. We sharply criticize them for the violence of schism, the madness of rebaptism, the sinful separation from the inheritance of Christ, which [in its true form] is spread abroad among all peoples. Not only from our documents, but even from theirs, we can list [the apostolic] churches whose names they read today, but with which they are not in communion.28 When these names are read in their places of assembly, they say to their readers: "Peace be to you!" but they do not share peace with the peoples to whom those epistles were written. And they bring against us the false charges of dead men, not realizing that, even if they were true, they would have nothing to do with our complaints against them. . . .
(9.27) Go, then, consult together; discover what [Donatist leaders] can answer to these arguments of ours. If they bring out documents, we bring out documents; if they say ours are spurious, they cannot resent our saying the same of theirs. No one blots out of heaven the ordinance of God; no one
28. "Churches whose names they read": New Testament churches of Ephesus, Corinth, etc. Augustine develops this point on catholicity more clearly in ep. 87.1–5 (cited below).