Chapter 353 (continued)
it made no difference where we held the faith of Christ, but thanks be to the Lord who has gathered us out of our separation, and has shown us that it befits one God that men should dwell in unity."
(5.19) Was I to resist or contradict my colleagues and thereby prevent these gains for the Lord, that the sheep of Christ, wandering on your mountains and hills—that is, on the swelling of your pride—should not be gathered into the sheepfold of peace, where there is "one fold and one shepherd" (Jn 10:16)? Ought I to have opposed this arrangement, to keep you from losing the property which you call yours, and thereby leave you to proscribe Christ without danger? Were you to safeguard your wills by Roman law, and break by slanderous accusations the testament safeguarded for the Fathers by divine law, where it is written: "In your seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed" (Gn 22:18)? Were you to have freedom of contract in buying and selling and then dare to divide for yourselves what Christ bought by being sold Himself? Should the gifts which you make to anyone have value, and what the God of gods gave to those called His sons "from the rising of the sun even to the going down thereof" (Ps 49:1) have no value? Should you be saved from being sent into exile from your earthly land, yet attempt to make Christ an exile from the kingdom of His blood, "from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth" (Ps 71:8)? Rather, let the kings of the earth serve Christ even by making laws in behalf of Christ. Your forefathers exposed Caecilian and his companions to punishment by the kings of the earth on false charges; let the lions turn to break the bones of the calumniators, and let Daniel himself, proved innocent, not intercede for them, for he "that digs a pit for his neighbor, himself shall justly fall into it" (Prv 26:27).55
Love, and Do What You Will
One of Augustine's most famous sayings is "Love, and do what you will" (dilige et quod vis fac). Few realize the original context is the Donatist controversy. It appears in a sermon delivered just after Easter, 407. Augustine invokes the principle as a way to justify what hardly looked like or felt like love to Donatist Christians, namely, the tough laws and penalties forcing Donatists into unity with the Catholics. From Tractate on the First Epistle of John 7:
(4) "We are from God" (1 Jn 4:6). Let's see why. . . . Let's see what [John] advises, and let's listen—not to antichrists, not to lovers of the world, not to
55. Ep. 93.5.16–5.19 (CCL 31A:178–81); trans. Parsons, FOTC 18:72–75. See Emilien Lamirande, Church, State, and Toleration: An Intriguing Change of Mind in Augustine (Villanova: Villanova University Press, 1975); Lamirande, "Coercitio," Aug-Lex 1:1038–46.