Augustine in His Own Words
Against the Donatists 263 let us endure, let us hope. The mercy of God will be at hand that the fire of the Holy Spirit might flame forth in your simplicity, and they will come. We must not despair. Pray, preach, love. The Lord is absolutely powerful. Already they have begun to recognize their impudence. Many have recognized it. Many have blushed. Christ will be present so that the rest, too, may recognize it. And certainly, my brothers, let the chaff alone remain there. Let all the grains be gathered. Whatever has borne fruit there, let it return to the ark through the dove.42
Disputing Cyprian's Legacy
By 400, Augustine had come to appreciate how elements of Donatist theology depended on Cyprian's. So he decided to grapple at length and in detail with Cyprian's theological legacy, devoting Books 2–5 of his voluminous On Baptism to a close analysis of key letters. Augustine argued that Cyprian, like St. Peter (Gal 2:14), had made a fundamental theological misjudgment, but that did not diminish his heroic stature as a leader and a martyr. Around 407 or 408, Augustine wrote Vincent of Cartenna, bishop of a Donatist splinter group, known as the Rogatists. In this letter, Augustine cogently summarizes his earlier arguments on and assessment of Cyprian: namely, that the Donatists had faithfully and wrongly followed Cyprian's misguided policy of rebaptism, while at the same time they had betrayed Cyprian's deeper and rightful commitment to unity. From Letter 93:
(10.36) You like the testimony of Cyprian, a holy bishop and illustrious martyr, which, indeed, as I said, we distinguish from the authority of the canonical Scriptures. Why do you not also like the fact that he held with firm affection to the unity of the whole world and of all nations; that he defended it by his arguments; that he considered the self-righteous, who wished to separate from it, as utterly arrogant and proud? He even laughed at them for daring to arrogate to themselves what the Lord did not allow to the Apostles: that they should gather the weeds before the time; that they should separate the chaff from the good grain, as if it had been permitted them to carry off the chaff and clean the threshing-floor. Cyprian also showed that no one can be stained by another's sins, something which all the authors of this accursed revolt [of yours] allege as the sole cause of the separation, and he gave as his opinion that his colleagues who held views different from his in this very matter were not to be judged nor to be deprived of the right of communion with him. In that very letter to Jubaianus which was first read in the council43—the one whose au-
42. Jo. ev. tr. 6.1–24 (BA 71:340–96); trans. Rettig, FOTC 78:129–51 (modified). 43. "Letter to Jubaianus": that is, Cyprian's ep. 73. In this letter, he refers Jubaianus back to ep. 70 (quoted above). Augustine examines ep. 73 in De baptismo, Books 3–5, and ep. 70 in Book 5.