Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
120 / ST. AUGUSTINE he says, "say, I do not have." "But I do have this; if I say, I do not have, I lie; for what I have, I have." "You do not have," he says. "Show me that I do not have." "A wicked person gave [it] to you." "If Christ is evil, an evil person gave [it] to me." "Christ is not evil," he says, "but Christ did not give [it] to you." "Then who gave [it] to me? Answer me; I know that I received from Christ." "[Someone] gave it to you, but some traditor,"^^ he says, "not Christ."
(3) "I shall see who was the minister, I shall see who was the bailiff. I am not arguing about the [judge's] attendant; I concentrate my attention on the Judge. And your objection against the attendant is probably a lie. But I don't want to keep on probing. Let the Lord of both of us examine the case of his attendant. Perhaps if I demand proof of you, you have no proof. Rather, you are lying. It has been proven that you could not have proven it.^^ But I do not rest my case on that; so do not think that, when I have eagerly begun to defend innocent men, I have placed my hope only in innocent men. Let the men be whatever it pleases [you to call them]; I have received from Christ, I have been baptized by Christ." (4) "No," he says, "but that bishop baptized you; and that bishop is in communion with them." "I have been baptized by Christ; I know." "How do you know?" "The dove which John saw taught me. Oh wicked hawk, you are not tearing me from the bowels of the dove; I am numbered among the members of the dove, because I know what the dove taught. You say to me that this man baptized you or that man baptized you.
Through the dove it is said to me and to you, 'He it is who baptizes.' Whom do I believe, the hawk or the dove?"
25. The Latin term is traditor, a person who, during the persecution of Diocletian, handed over his copy of the Scriptures to the authorities to be burned. Cf. Frend, Donatist Church, 8. The Donatists applied the term also to those bishops and presbyters whose consecrations and ordinations could be shown to have come from a traditor.
26. Augustine is referring to the election of Caecilianus to the bishopric of Carthage in 311 or 312 A.D. and his consecration by three bishops, one of whom, Felix, was accused of traditio, falsely, it would appear. This dispute finally melded the scattered and ill-organized anti-ecumenical parties in North Africa into a solid schismatic sect.