57. On Count Boniface, see p. 121, n. 63.
Against the Donatists 271 the world—let's listen to him—if we are born from God—as he gives advice in the spirit of truth. "Beloved": That follows what came earlier. See what's next: "We are from God. The one who knows God knows us; the one who is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we know the spirit of truth and that of error" (1 Jn 4:6). Now he's got our attention. The one who knows God is the one who listens; however, the one who does not know Him does not listen; and this is how one discerns the spirit of truth and that of error. Let us see what's being advised, what we need to listen to him about: "Beloved, let us love one another" (1 Jn 4:7). Why? Because a human being is advising it? "Because love is from God" (1 Jn 4:7). He has commended love a great deal because it is "from God" (1 Jn 4:7). He's going to say more. Let's listen intently. Now he says: "Love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God" (1 Jn 4:7–8). Why? "Because God is love" (1 Jn 4:8). What more could be said, brothers and sisters? If nothing more were said in praise of love in all the pages of his epistle—if nothing else in any other pages of the Scriptures—and if this were the one and only thing we hear from the voice of God's Spirit, that "God is love," then there's nothing more we have to search for. . . .
(7) See, it's because love alone discerns. See, it's because that alone distinguishes [between] human deeds. (8) . . . A father beats his boy; a slave-trader flatters him. If you set out the two things, beatings and flattery, who would not choose flattery and flee a beating? If you pay attention to the person doing it, love beats, iniquity flatters. Look, see what we're recommending: that one cannot discern human deeds apart from the root of charity. . . . Even thorn bushes have flowers. In fact, some things seem harsh, seem savage, but they are done for discipline according to the dictates of charity. Once and for all, therefore, let this brief commandment be given you: Love, and do what you will. Should you be silent, be silent out of love. Should you cry out, cry out out of love. Should you correct someone, correct him out of love. Should you spare someone, spare him out of love. Let the root of love be on the inside. Out of this root, only good can come.56
"Compel Them to Come In"
Around 417, Augustine received a letter from Boniface, a rising military commander.57 As a newcomer to Africa, he was unfamiliar with the Donatist controversy and asked Augustine for advice. Augustine sent back a treatise-length letter tracing the history of
56. Ep. Jo. 7.4–8 (SC 75:320–28); my trans. 57. On Count Boniface, see p. 121, n. 63.
the schism and a detailed survey of disputed issues. Much of the letter revisits what we have already seen. Towards the end, Augustine makes a famous plea to enforce the verdict of unity decreed by Flavius Marcellinus at the Conference of Carthage of 411. Augustine plays on Jesus' parable of the wedding feast to call on Boniface to "compel them to come in" (coge intrare). From Letter 185 (also called On the Correction of the Donatists):
(22) Who can love us more than Christ, who laid down His life for His sheep? Nevertheless, although He called Peter and the other Apostles by word alone, in the case of Paul, previously Saul, a dread destroyer of the Church, and afterward its great builder, He not only compelled him by words, but used His power to strike him prostrate, and, in order to force him to leave off the savagery of his dark unbelief and to desire the light of his heart, He afflicted him with corporeal blindness. If it had not been for that punishment, he would not have been healed of it afterward, and since he saw nothing, though his eyes were open, if he had been able to see, Ananias would not have laid his hands upon him that his sight might be restored, when, as Scripture relates, there fell from his eyes, as it were, scales with which they had been closed. What ground is there for the cry generally raised by schismatics: "There is freedom to believe or not to believe"? See, now they have the Apostle Paul. Let them acknowledge in him Christ first compelling and afterward teaching, first striking and afterward consoling. It is a wonderful thing how he who came to the Gospel under the compulsion of bodily suffering labored more in the Gospel than all the others who were called by word alone, and that in him whom greater fear drove to love, "perfect charity casts out fear" (1 Jn 4:18).
(23) Why, then, should the Church not compel her lost sons to return if the lost sons have compelled others to be lost? And yet, even in the case of those whom they have not compelled but only enticed, if they are called back to the bosom of the Church by stern but salutary laws, their loving mother embraces them more kindly and rejoices much more over them than over those whom she has never lost. Is it no part of the shepherd's care, when he has found those sheep, also, which have not been rudely snatched away but have been gently coaxed and led astray from the flock, and have begun to be claimed by others, to call them back to the Lord's sheepfold by threats or pain of blows if they try to resist? And especially if their numbers are increased by fruitful generation in the midst of runaway slaves and bandits, has he not more authority over them because he recognizes on them the brand mark of the Lord which is not tampered with in those whom we receive back without rebaptism? The wandering of the sheep is to be remedied without destroying in it the mark of the Redeemer. But if anyone is tattooed with the royal mark by a deserter who has himself been branded, and if they both find mer-