versicn is, "Peace be within thy walls."
POLITICAL WRITINGS 235 body, which is alone enlivened by the Holy Spirit, they have usurped the sacraments of the Church outside the Church and in hostility to the Church, and have fought against us in a kind of civil war, with our own arms and our own standards raised in opposition to us. Let them come; let peace be concluded in the virtue of Jerusalem, which virtue is Christian charity,—to which holy city it is said, "Peace be in thy virtue, and plenteousness within thy palaces." ^^ Let them not exalt themselves against the solicitude of their mother, which she both has entertained and does entertain with the object of gathering within her bosom themselves, and all the mighty nations whom they are, or recently were, deceiving; lei them not be puffed up with pride, that she receives them in such wise; let them not attribute to the evil of their own exaltation the good which she on her part does in order to make peace. So it has been her wont to come to the aid of multitudes who were perishing through schisms and heresies. This displeased Lucifer,^^ when it was carried out in receiving and healing those who had perished beneath the poison of the Arian heresy; and, being displeased at it, he fell into the darkness of schism, losing the light of Christian charity. In accordance with this principle, the Church of Africa has recognised the Donatists from the very beginning, obeying herein the decree of the bishops who gave sentence in the Church at Rome between Caecilianus and the party of Donatus; and having condemned one bishop named
45. Ps. cxxii. 6: Fiat pax in virtute tua. The English versicn is, "Peace be within thy walls." 46. Bishop of Calarita. Comp. De Agone Christiano, c. 30.