An Analysis of Augustin's Writings Against the Donatists (part 3 of 3)

The second epistle of Gaudentius is mainly a protest from Scriptural grounds; against persecution he brings forward the case of Gabinus, who, if bad, should not have been received without correction, that is, baptism; but if innocent, why kill the innocent Donatists from whom he came to you? The false rumor about Emeritus, as having turned Catholic, is another instance of this persecution. The duty of a persecuted pastor is to be a doer of the law and to lay down his life for the sheep; there is no place whither the persecuted may now flee; the divine right of free will is restrained by the arbitrary laws of the emperor; persecution is a note of the Church from the blessings attached to it by Christ and the apostles. The peace of Christ invites the willing but does not compel the unwilling; a thing very different from the war-bearing peace and the bloody unity which their oppressors present. We rejoice in the hatred of the world; there is a martyr host of the apocalypse; Christians may yield up their souls in testimony against sacrilege, as Razius did. He begs Dulcitius to turn to the few who have the solidity and not the semblance of truth. God gave prophets not kings to teach the people: the Saviour sent fishermen not soldiers. God never needs the aid of soldiers. Gaudentius charges the Catholics with coveting the Donatist possessions. The farewell is in another handwriting, in which he wishes Dulcitius well, and advises him to pursue a lenient and temperate course.

The points of Augustin's reply are in no way different save form from those so constantly presented, unless there be an increase of roughness and a more hardened idea of the Church's right to use coercion. As to Gabinus, the Church's course with regard to him is a vindication of the right to receive a convert without rebaptism: in communion with charity and unity he received the profit of that rite which had been administered among the Donatists. In the case of Emeritus, Augustin confesses that the rumor of his having turned Catholic was false; but Emeritus came to Cæsarea of his own will; he came to the Church where a multitude was present; he could say nothing for his or his party's defense; he kept quiet. The argument against suicide from the case of Razius is well made; he died rather in suffering for the state; and besides the narrative does not commend the deed, but only states it; then too the books have not the weight that the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms carry with them. The plea for correction is precisely as usual. The doctrines of universality and unity and charity are incidentally brought forward. Circumcelliones, Secundus and Maximianists furnish the concluding parallels.

Book II. Gaudentius had written a reply to Augustin's first book. He had taken refuge under the example of Cyprian; but Augustin now refers him to the writings of Cyprian on De Simplicitate Prælatorum seu De Catholicæ Ecclesiæ unitate, showing Cyprian's belief in the universality of the Church which Augustin expands by the explanation of the term Catholic. Purgation of the Church is not by separation, but by toleration, as Cyprian too held in his letter to Maximus and others. The explanation of the field not as the Church, but rather as the world outside of the Church, had been supported at the Conference and is repeated by Gaudentius; and also its alternative, that were the field the Church then it must have perished from the tares which were in it. If so, says Augustin, then the ancestors of the Donatists would have perished. The period of separation is at the end, when the Gospel shall have been preached in the whole world. As to their theme of rebaptism, Augustin replies that he had already before referred him to his Maximianist practice, so that the action of Agrippinus and Cyprian are vain for him. And then too, according to Cyprian's own confession, and Stephen's testimony, there were crimes in the Church in their day; did the Church perish then? If so where was Donatus born? If not, then why did the party of Donatus separate? They are guilty of the very schism which Cyprian particularly deprecated as a cure, instead of toleration and discipline, for the ills of the Church. As to baptism: The Catholics recognize the Donatist rite, for the sacrament cannot be lost upon those who receive it among Catholics and then pass over to heretics; they have the truth but in iniquity; the truth is not the property of the Donatists. The apostle recognized such truth as he found among the Gentiles. Gaudentius had vindicated his reference to the tribune's letter, as to the Donatists having the names of God and of his Christ, and quoted the passage in proof. Augustin acknowledges his mistake, which, however, was not intentional, and he apologizes for the tribune's error as that of a military man who was not familiar with theology. Since Gaudentius had called the tribune religious in his first letter, Augustin accuses him of insincerity and berates him as superstitious. He also corrects Gaudentius for saying that God sent Jonah not to the king but only to the people of Nineveh, for the king compelled the humiliation of his subjects. In conclusion he quotes from Cyprian's letter to Maximus in behalf of universality and tolerant unity. His exordium is an earnest appeal to the Catholics to maintain all the notes of the Church. [Cp. Retractt. II. lix.].

Felicia had been a Donatist originally and was converted by force. She had devoted herself to the virgin life and apparently had become head of a religious house; but by reason of some wicked deeds of the clergy, possibly the extortion and rapacity of Antonius at Fussala, she was much disturbed and seemed inclined to relapse into her earlier puristic notions, if not to return to the body that upheld them. To quiet her doubts Augustin writes Ep. ccviii. c. 423. The Lord had predicted offenses. There are two kinds of shepherds over the flock, and will be to the end: the flock too has the good and the bad in it. The gathering is the present duty, the separation will be the future one; this latter is the Lord's prerogative. To abide in unity under such circumstances is a duty until the winnowing, and one is to believe what these shepherds teach, not what they do. Good and bad are therefore in the world under the widely diffused Catholic Church; the Donatist has no such note of universality. Love Christ and the Church, and then He will not permit you to lose the fruit of your virginity and to perish with the lost. If you go out of this life, separated from the unity of the body of Christ, this preserved integrity of the body will not profit you. You were compelled to come in; be thankful to those who compelled you. Show your devotion to the Lord, as your only hope, by being unmoved with these offenses, and by cleaving to his body, the Church.

A letter addressed to Pope Coelestine is ascribed to Augustin [Ep. ccix. c. 423]; its authenticity has been disputed. The author, in giving an account of the appointment of Antonius as bishop of Fussala, remarks that at Fussala, a castellum about forty miles distant from Hippo, as in all the adjoining region, there had been a Donatist population; in Fussala itself there had not been a solitary Catholic; the Punic was the common language. The coercive measures had converted the whole territory, but the process had also aroused a violent opposition in the form of robbery, beating, blinding, murder. After its conversion, the distance from Hippo and the great numbers to be instructed, required a new bishopric, the history of which and the troubles growing out of it, the author further relates.

In that valuable book De doctrina christiana, (begun in 397, but ended in 426, including the part having reference to our subject III. xxx. 42), Augustin quotes approvingly from the book of Tychonius the De septem regulis, and prefaces a discussion of these rules by an allusion to the treatise of Tychonius, which had refuted some of the narrow and puristic doctrines of the Church, as held by his own party; this we have already seen was answered by Parmenian, whose letter in turn was dissected by Augustin. The first, second, fourth and seventh of these rules bear especially upon the doctrinal points under discussion. [Cp. Retractt. II. iv. and Tychonius de Septem Regulis is reprinted in Migne. Pat. Lat. xviii.]

In his de Hoeresibus [c. 428 A.D.] Chapter lxix. gives a brief account of the Donatiani or Donatistæ: (a) as to origin and progress; (b) Donatus's view of the Trinity; (c) the Montenses at Rome; (d) the Circumcelliones; (e) the schism of Maximian.

This was his parting arrow after the thirty-six years of battle. Catholics and Donatists passed under the persecutions of the Arian Vandals. Two years after this treatise Augustin laid aside his weapons to enter the land of eternal peace and unity.

More or less extended allusions are made to Donatism in the following sermons, arranged in the order of the Benedictine editions; for the years in which they were delivered cannot be determined. Want of space prevents the presentation of any analysis.

Sermo X. 1 Kings iii. 16-28.

Sermo XLV. Is. lvii. 13 and 2 Cor. vii. 1.

Sermo XLVI. Ez. xxxiv. 1-16.

Sermo XLVII. Ez. xxxiv. 17-31.

Sermo LXXI. Matt. xii. 32.

Sermo LXXXVIII. Matt. xx. 30-34.

Sermo XC. Matt. xxii. 1-14.

Sermo CVII. Luc. xii. 13-21.

Sermo CXXIX. Jo. v. 39-47.

Sermo CXXXVII. Jo. x. 1-16.

Sermo CXXXVIII. Jo. x. 11-16.

Sermo CLXXXIII. 1 Jo. iv. 2.

Sermo CCXVIII. Luc. xxiv. 38-47.

Sermo CCXLIX. Jo. xxi. 1-14.

Sermo CCLII. Jo. xxi. 1-14.

Sermo CCLXV. The Ascension.

Sermo CCLXVI. Ps. cxli. (cxl.) 5.

Sermo CCLXVIII. Pentecost.

Sermo CCLXIX. Pentecost.

Sermo CCLXXXV. Anniversary of the martyrs Castus and Æmilus.

Sermo CCXCII. John the Baptist.

Sermo CCCXXV. Anniversary of the Twenty Martyrs.

Similar references are to be found in the expositions and sermons based on the Psalms. The first column is the Hebrew and English order; the second that of LXX. and Vulgate.

Exposition of Psalms XI. (X.)

Exposition of Psalms XXVI. (XXV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms XXXI. (XXX.) Sermons I. and II.

Exposition of Psalms XXXIII. (XXXII.) Sermon II.

Exposition of Psalms XXXIV. (XXXIII.) Sermon II.

Exposition of Psalms XXXVI. (XXXV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms XXXVII. (XXXVI.) Sermons II. (archival) and III.

Exposition of Psalms XL. (XXXIX.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms LV. (LIV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms LVIII. (LVII.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms LXXXVI. (LXXXV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms XCIX. (XCVIII.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXX. (CXIX.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXXV. (CXXIV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXXXIII. (CXXXII.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXLVI. (CXLV.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXLVII. 12-20 (CXLVII.) Sermon.

Exposition of Psalms CXLIX. Sermon.

The time of writing the de Utilitate Jejunii is unknown. Chapter V. 9, contrasts pagan, heretical and Catholic fasts; heretics claim indeed to fast in order to please God; how can they, when they sever the unity? All heretics perish; they are the dividers of the inheritance of Christ.

In conclusion the reviser desires to commend the fidelity and lucidity of the translation made by the Rev. J. R. King, M.A.

No changes made by the reviser have been indicated, since all could not be without confusion. The translation had taken most of its notes and references from the Benedictines. The citations of Cyprian are according to the numerals in Hartel's edition.