Proceedings with Emeritus

1In the consulship of the most glorious emperors Honorius for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of October, at Caesarea in the greater church, Deuterius, metropolitan bishop of Caesarea, together with Alypius of Thagaste, Augustine of Hippo, Possidius of Calama, Rusticus of Cartenna, Palladius of Tigabitanus, and the other bishops, came forward into the hall, with the presbyters, deacons, the whole clergy, and a very large crowd of people present. Emeritus, bishop of the Donatist party, was also there. Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said:

Dearest brothers, you who have been Catholics from the beginning, and all of you who have come to the Catholic Church from the error of the Donatists and have come to know the peace of this holy Catholic Church and have held it with a true heart, and you who perhaps still doubt the truth of Catholic unity: listen to us, who are anxious for you with pure love. When our brother Emeritus, still a bishop of the Donatists, came to this city the day before yesterday, it was suddenly reported to us that he was present. And since we longed for his presence with the love that God sees, we hurried at once to see him. We found him standing in the street. After we greeted one another, we urged him that it would be harsh and shameful for him to remain in the street, and that he should come with us to the church. He agreed without any refusal. There we thought he would not refuse the Catholic fold, just as he had either offered his coming of his own accord or had not hesitated at all to come to the church. But while he lingered in heretical perversity, even though inside the Catholic Church, I spoke to your love, as you are good enough to remember. I said many things, which you heard and which without doubt you also remember as much as you can: many things about peace, many about love, many about the unity of the holy Catholic Church, which God promised and has brought about. In that sermon of mine I was speaking to you and exhorting him, and as far as the bowels of love could work in me, I was in labor with all who were placed in danger of their souls, and I longed to give birth to them for the Lord. For the blessed apostle Paul also said to certain people: 'My little children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you' (Galatians 4:19). But even after our sermon, when he still persisted in his stubbornness, we did not think we should despair even then. Nor do we think we should despair of any person, as long as he lives in this body. For I did not say the day before yesterday that I had not despaired, only to dare to despair today.

2But the case has now been brought to this point: since he has come, and as far as we know has come of his own will, his arrival should not be without fruit for this church. Either—what we desire and long for more—we will rejoice with you in Catholic peace over his salvation, or, if—what we abhor and detest—he persists in that stubbornness, his presence should make you better know what the difference is between Catholic peace and heretical dissension. He is a bishop of the Donatist party, but he was ordained by the Donatists of this city. We have already received those Donatists into the Catholic fold in the name of Christ, for the most part, so that we rejoice that almost all have been joined to the Catholic fold. But since even those who have already communicated—not all, but some—seem to doubt the Catholic truth itself, as I said a little earlier, while others do not even doubt but still have their hearts placed in the Donatist party and show us only a bodily presence, whether men or women, flesh within, spirit without, we judge it good to question their bishop. If he has anything still to say for that party, after the conference held at Carthage which everyone knows, if he has anything still to say, let him say it without prejudice to the Donatist party—what he thinks can benefit us, in whose city he considers himself ordained for your salvation in Christ. And we will answer without prejudice to the Catholic party, since his party has now imposed on him no role of defense. This, as we think and wish, can benefit you who are present against one who is present, so that if he has been led astray, he may not lead others astray; but if we were the ones leading astray, with him present—who perhaps boasts many things outside—let us be accused, refuted, convicted, taught. I said this so that he may not refuse to speak because he can say: 'My party has now imposed on me no role of defense.' For he did not stop speaking after that conference, or fail to come to this city after that conference, or ever leave this province, or do we believe that after that conference he said not a word to anyone on behalf of the Donatist party. I know what was being said to you—I am speaking to you who came from that party—I know what was said to you: that we bought the judge's verdict. I know it was said to you that he was of our communion, and for that reason he did not allow them to say everything they wanted, and he crushed them by power rather than rejecting what they said on honest grounds. All these things were thrown around after the conference, whether by him or by people of that communion. What does it matter by whom you are disturbed, when we want you to be at peace in Catholic peace? If he were absent, I would say to you about him: 'Whoever is troubling you will bear the judgment, whoever he is' (Galatians 5:10). For these words I have quoted are the words of the blessed Paul against those who were absent, by whom the simple were being troubled. But now he is present: let him now deign to tell us why he came.

3Brother Emeritus, you are here. You took part in the conference with us. If you were defeated, why did you come? But if you do not think you were defeated, tell us why you consider yourself the victor. You were defeated only if you were defeated by truth. But if you seemed defeated by power and you conquered by truth, there is no power here by which you seemed defeated. Let your fellow citizens hear why you presume you are the victor. And if you know that truth was victorious against you, why do you still reject unity?

Emeritus, bishop of the Donatist party, said: The records show whether I was defeated or I conquered, whether I was defeated by truth or crushed by power.

Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: Then why did you come?

Emeritus, bishop of the Donatist party, said: To say what you are asking.

Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: I am asking why you came. I would not be asking this if you had not come.

Emeritus, bishop of the Donatist party, said to the notary who was taking it down: Do it.

4And when he kept silent, Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: If then you kept silent under truth, you did not come without a reason—except that you wanted to deceive these people. And when he kept silent for a long time, Augustine, bishop of the Catholic Church, said: You see, brothers, how long he has been silent. I warn you to wish that he come to his senses; I beg you not to follow him as he perishes.

But since he brought up the records of our conference, where he said it could appear whether he was defeated by truth or crushed by power, there are indeed many places where they piled up the records with superfluous and delaying proceedings, doing nothing else with great efforts except that nothing should be done. But with the Lord presiding and pleading his own cause, it came to the point they did not want. The case was stated and decided.

But if we wanted to read all the records to you—although in your presence I bind my brother and fellow bishop Deuterius, so that just as is done at Carthage, at Thagaste, at Constantina, at Hippo, and in all the churches that care, he should not be slow to do the same from now on: that every year during the days of fasting, that is, the forty days before Easter, when you have the most time to listen because you are fasting, the same records of the conference should be read aloud in full, from beginning to end, in order, each year—nevertheless, as I had begun to say, because we cannot read everything to you now, deign first to hear what letter we sent to the judge before the conference, where we promised both how we would want to be received if we were defeated, and how we would receive them if we won, so that it might be seen that victory lies not in contention but in humility.

5Alypius, bishop of the Catholic Church, read aloud a letter: "To our honorable and most beloved son, the most distinguished and eminent man, tribune and notary Marcellinus: Aurelius, Silvanus, and all the Catholic bishops. By these letters we make known that we agree in everything with your eminence's edict, by which provision was made for preserving the tranquility and quiet of our conference and for making the truth clear and secure, as you were kind enough to advise. Trusting in that truth, we also bind ourselves by the bond of a condition: if those with whom we are dealing can demonstrate to us that, when the Christian people had already grown everywhere according to God's promises and filled a great part of the world and were spreading out to fill the rest, the Church of Christ suddenly perished by the contagion of the sins of certain men whom they accuse, and remained only in the Donatist party—if, as I said, they can demonstrate this, we will seek no honors of a bishopric among them, but we will follow their counsel for salvation alone, since we will owe them the grace of so great a benefit for the truth we have recognized. But if we are able to show instead that the Church of Christ, already holding the most fertile expanses of many nations with a multitude of peoples, not only in the African provinces but also in those across the sea, and, as it is written, bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, as it is written, could not have perished through the sins of any men mixed in with it; if, finally, the question of those very men whom they wanted to accuse rather than were able to convict has been settled—although the Church does not consist in them—and Caecilian was judged innocent, while those men were judged violent and slanderous by that emperor to whose examination they sent their accusations by their own choice; and if, after all this, whatever they say about the sins of any men, we prove either by human documents or by divine ones that their innocence was attacked with false charges, or that the Church of Christ, to whose communion we cling, has not been destroyed by any of their offenses—then let them hold unity with us in such a way that they not only find the way of salvation but do not lose the honor of a bishopric. For we do not detest in them the sacraments of divine truth, but the fabrications of human error. When those are removed, we will embrace a brotherly breast joined to us by Christian love, which we now grieve is separated by diabolical dissension. Each one of us, joined with a colleague in honor, will be able to sit in turn in the more prominent seat, as when a foreign bishop sits beside a colleague. This is granted to both sides in alternating basilicas, each one anticipating the other with mutual honor, because where the command of love has enlarged hearts, the possession of peace does not become narrow. Then, when one of the two dies, from then on single bishops succeed single bishops according to the ancient custom. Nor will anything new happen; for from the very beginning of the separation, Catholic love has preserved this among those who, having condemned the error of wicked dissension, came to appreciate the sweetness of unity, even if late. Or if perhaps the Christian people delight in single bishops and cannot tolerate the partnership of two because of the unfamiliar appearance of things, let both of us withdraw from the middle, and let single bishops be appointed in the necessary places for single churches, once the cause of schism has been condemned and the churches established in peaceful unity, with single bishops in single churches consenting to unity."

6While he was reading, Bishop Augustine said: I will tell your charity, and call to mind, something most sweet and most pleasant that we experienced with the Lord's help. Before the conference itself, when some of us brothers were talking together about this matter—because for the peace of Christ bishops ought either to exist or not to exist, which we must admit—as we looked around at all our brothers and fellow bishops, it was not easy for us to think of any who would want to take this on and sacrifice to the Lord by such humility. We said, as people do, 'That one can do it, that one cannot; that one agrees to it, that one will not tolerate it'—speaking more from our own suspicions, since we could not see their hearts at all. But when it came to the point that this was done openly, in a council of all together, so crowded with nearly three hundred bishops, it pleased everyone so much, and everyone burned with such zeal, that they were ready to lay down the bishopric for the unity of Christ—not to lose it, but to commend it more safely to God. There were barely two found there who were displeased: one an aged old man, who even dared to say this rather freely; the other indicated his wish by a silent face. But after the brotherly correction of all overwhelmed that old man who spoke so freely, and he changed his opinion, that other one also changed his face. Listen, then, to the ways in which the exhortation itself was made, for the sake of him who said: he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 14:11).

7Why should we hesitate to offer our Redeemer the sacrifice of this humility? Did he descend from heaven into human limbs so that we might be his limbs, and do we fear to descend from our chairs so that those very limbs of his may not be torn apart by a cruel division? For ourselves, nothing is more fitting than to be faithful obedient Christians; so let us always be that. But bishops are ordained for the sake of Christian peoples; so whatever benefits Christian peoples for Christian peace, let us do that with our bishopric.

Augustine the bishop said: For your sakes we ought to be what you are. What ought you to be—you, whoever I am speaking to among you? A faithful obedient Christian. That you are for yourself, and that I am for myself. So what you are for yourself and I am for myself, we ought always to be; but what I am for your sake, let me be if it benefits you, and not be if it harms you. Pay attention to what has been said.

He read on: If we are useful servants, why do we begrudge the Lord eternal gains for the sake of our temporal heights? The dignity of a bishop will be more fruitful for us if, laid down, it gathers the flock of Christ rather than, kept, it scatters them. And while he was reading, Augustine the bishop said: My brothers, if we think of the Lord, this higher place is a vinedresser's watchtower, not a proud man's pinnacle. If, when I want to keep my bishopric, I scatter the flock of Christ, how is the loss of the flock the honor of the shepherd?

He read on: For with what face shall we hope for the honor promised by Christ in the age to come, if our honor in this age hinders Christian unity? We have taken care to write these things to your eminence, and we ask that they be made known to all, so that with the help of the Lord our God—by whose admonition we promise these things and by whose aid we trust we can fulfill them—even before the conference, if it can happen, loving charity may either heal or subdue the weak or hard hearts of men, and so with minds already at peace we may not resist the most manifest truth, and may either precede the debate with concord or follow it. For we ought not to despair, if we recall that the peacemakers are blessed, for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:9), that it is much more worthy and easy for them to want the Donatist party to be reconciled to the whole Christian world than for the whole Christian world to be rebaptized by the Donatist party—especially since, in the case of those coming from the sacrilegious and condemned schism of Maximianus, whom they even took care to correct by pursuing them with the orders of earthly powers, they sought them with such great diligence that they did not dare to invalidate the baptism given by them, and they received some of them who had been condemned without any diminution of honor, while they judged others to be unpolluted in the fellowship of that division. We do not begrudge their concord among themselves, but they ought to notice how devoutly the Catholic root seeks the branch broken from itself with such great effort, if the branch itself likewise labored to gather a small fragment cut from itself. And in another hand: We desire that you be well in the Lord, son.

8When it had been read, Augustine the bishop said: Listen, you who do not know; listen, I beg you. Thanks be to God, because I am speaking with him present. This case of the Maximianists, which I want to set out for you now, is where they broke the ship of all their false accusations as if of bad merchandise. When we had thrown this case of the Maximianists against them so many times in our conference, they could say nothing against it—that is, against our objection so many times inserted, so many times repeated, so many times dashed against their foreheads. They could answer nothing at all, because they found nothing to answer. So listen to it carefully. Here he is; he hears me. If I lie, let him refute me, let him compel me to prove it. The records themselves are not here, but let the case be there. Let us bear whatever grace periods, so that we may come to the necessary documents, if I prove what I say. If, however, he doubts it or—God forbid—pretends to doubt it, and I say this with his leave, let him not be in communion with us if I do not prove it. But if he already knows that I am speaking the truth and knows that he refused to answer because he could find nothing to answer, then I ask you to judge for yourselves which is more tolerable: to receive into his own rank one condemned by him, or to acknowledge a brother not ever convicted by him. Pay attention, I beg you; listen to the account.

9There was a certain deacon in Carthage named Maximianus, in the Donatist party. Whether deservedly for his pride or, as they think, deservedly for his righteousness, he offended his bishop—that is, Primianus of Carthage—either unjustly, if he was a proud man against a better one, or justly, if he was an upright man against a worse one. He was excommunicated by Primianus. He went to the neighboring bishops, stirred up resentment against Primianus, and accused him before them. They came to Carthage. Many Donatist bishops who had come wanted Primianus to come to them, just as their predecessors wanted Caecilian to come to them. When the faction became known, Primianus refused to come to them, just as Caecilian refused to come to those earlier ones. Primianus was condemned by them in his absence, just as Caecilian was condemned by those earlier ones in his absence. What a picture of events God chose to place before our eyes in recent times, because forgetfulness was already erasing things too ancient! He was condemned in his absence. Primianus was restored to communion by other bishops of the Donatist party—or rather, because they had not deposed him, he was confirmed in his own see. The Maximianists were condemned, just as Donatus deserved condemnation when Caecilian had been acquitted by foreign and overseas bishops. Maximianus was condemned along with the twelve who ordained him. The faction itself contained many people; there were perhaps a hundred bishops. But so that no greater split would occur, these men refused, with a few cast down, to impose discipline on the many. They condemned only those who were present at Maximianus's ordination, when a bishop was unlawfully elevated against their own bishop. The rest who remained in that faction, if they wished to return to the church, were to be allowed to keep their honors. By their own words they showed that those people were outside the church; for the one you urge to enter is outside. So a day was set, within which if they returned, nothing that was said against Primianus would harm them, and they confirmed it by the decree of Bagai. Maximianus was condemned along with the twelve. Then action began to be taken to drive the condemned men from their basilicas. Judges were petitioned, proconsuls were petitioned, the episcopal council of Bagai was cited in court. They were called heretics, they were shown to be condemned, orders were obtained, forces were gathered, and they came to eject from the basilicas men who were condemned and fixed in their stubbornness. The people who favored those condemned men supported them; where they could not resist they were defeated, and in place of those defeated and expelled others were ordained. Of these we know two—to say nothing of the rest—one Felicianus of Musti, the other Praetextatus of Assuras. After two or three years, through Optatus the Gildonian, after many persecutions had been inflicted on them through judicial prosecutions and the full harshness of the authorities, they received them back in their honors. After their condemnation, after their expulsion, after persecutions, they received them in their honors as partners and colleagues. For in the place of one of them, Praetextatus of Assuras, they had already ordained another man named Rogatus, who is now a Catholic, whose tongue and hand the army of those people—that is, the band of Circumcellions—cut off. But those who were baptized by the condemned men during the time when those men were outside, for nearly three years, were baptized outside the church of those men, and they were received in this way. No one said, 'You do not have baptism, because you were baptized outside.' And yet a person who comes from Ephesus, from Smyrna, from Thessalonica, from the other churches that the apostles planted by their labor and to which we read that the apostles' letters were sent, which we hear read in church—that person is rebaptized.

10The sentence is held, and as we heard from our brother himself—may God make him our peaceful brother—this sentence by which they were condemned was spoken by Emeritus here. Let the very sentence by which they were condemned be read, and let the sentence by which their ancestors condemned Caecilian be read, and let us see which men were made the worse criminals, which were punished with a heavier sentence, which were condemned with greater uproar. There he said: 'For although the channel of the poisoned womb long covered the harmful offspring of viper seed, and the wet curdlings of conceived crime warmed into the limbs of asps with slow heat, yet the conceived venom could not be hidden once the shadow was gone. For although late, still the parricide and its crime were brought to public birth by the vows pregnant with crimes, as was foretold: "She travailed with injustice, conceived pain, and gave birth to iniquity" (Psalm 7:14). But since the clear sky now shines from the cloud and the forest of crimes is no longer tangled, when the names have been marked out for punishment—for there had been indulgence before—while we let out the line of clemency, the case finds whom to punish.' And among other things: 'Let us speak, dearest brothers, of the causes of the schism, because we can no longer keep silent about the persons. Maximianus, rival of the faith, corrupter of the truth, enemy of mother church, minister of Dathan, Korah and Abiram.' These are the words of the Donatist party against the Maximianists, brought forth, as we heard, with this man dictating. You know who Dathan, Korah and Abiram are. They first made a schism, and the usual punishment was not enough for them: the open earth devoured them alive. 'Minister of Dathan, Korah and Abiram'—these are his own words—he hurled the thunderbolt of a sentence from the bosom of peace. Listen further: 'And because the gaping earth did not swallow him too,' he says, 'it reserved him for a greater judgment above. For snatched away, he had gained the penalty of his own death prematurely; now he collects the interest of a heavier debt, since dead he is present among the living.' These are his own words condemning Maximianus, or rather, as he himself says, thundering with a 'truth-speaking mouth.' And yet they were received back—asps, vipers, parricides—and the baptism given by an asp, a viper, a parricide is not exsufflated. You heard how great a fire of eloquence blazed up when it found straw it could burn. Brother Emeritus, you embraced your brother Felicianus, condemned by the thunderbolt of your own mouth: acknowledge your brother Deuterius, joined to you even by family.

11My brothers, every time we raised this case of the Maximianists against them in the conference—the case I have laid out for you as best I could—he was more silent about it then than he is now about everything. Let them not hide themselves with a quibbling not-defense but flight. For they say that they gave them a grace period and received them back within the grace period. This is false. Twelve men were condemned with Maximianus, but the rest were not present at his ordination when hands were laid on him. They gave those others a grace period. For these are his own words: 'And not only him,' he says, 'does a just death condemn for his crime; the chain of sacrilege drags very many others into partnership in the offense, of whom it is written: the poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes' (Psalm 13:3 LXX; cf. Romans 3:13-18). 'We would not wish, of course, to cut the joint as if it were our own body. But since the pestilential rottenness of a wasting wound has more relief in cutting off than in the application of medicine, a more wholesome course was found, so that the pestilent virus should not creep through all the limbs: that the wound, once formed, should fall away by brief pain.' So he names twelve men as guilty of a notorious crime, among them Felicianus and Praetextatus—though the names of all of them do not come to my mind—and then he concludes: 'Know that those who by the deadly work of destruction defiled a filthy vessel with gathered dregs, and also the clerics of the church of Carthage at one time, who by taking part in the crime offered pandering to an illicit incest, have been condemned by the judgment of the presiding God through the truth-speaking mouth of the universal council. But those whom the shoots of the sacrilegious one did not pollute as young plants—that is, those who drew back their own hands from Maximianus's head with the shame of a reverent faith—we have permitted to return to mother church.' They wanted to pumice their face, because they were pardoning sacrilegious men and openly granting schismatics a way to return. What is this, I ask? Let him now deign to explain to me how the shoots of the sacrilegious one did not pollute them as young plants. Why do you give them a grace period, if they could have had no part in Maximianus's schism? But if they are partners in the faction, even though they were not present at the ordination, how does Maximianus not defile them, while Caecilian—once condemned in his absence, and for the third time acquitted in his presence—defiles the whole world? An African does not defile Africans, a living man the living, a known man the known, a participant his partners—and Caecilian defiles those across the sea, defiles those far away, defiles the unknown, defiles those not yet born? Felicianus sat with you after being condemned by you, and he did not defile you? I never saw him; you knew him. I believe him innocent; you condemned him as guilty. Or if you admit that you received an innocent man, you admit that you condemned an innocent man.

12And yet, my brothers, we do not begrudge them their concord. They brought to an end the diabolical hatreds they had stirred up among themselves, and returned to peace, as they think. But this is what I say: if a broken branch went looking for a small branch broken from itself, with what care should the tree itself seek the branch broken from itself? That is why we sweat, why we labor, why we have been endangered amid their weapons and the bloody furies of the Circumcellions, and why we still endure their remnants with whatever patience God has given us—while the tree seeks its branch, while the flock seeks the lost sheep from Christ's fold. If we are endowed with pastoral bowels, we must press ourselves through hedges and thorns. With torn limbs, let us seek the sheep and carry it back with joy to the shepherd and ruler of all. We have said much, even though we are weary, and yet our brother—for whose sake we say these things to you, and to whom we say them equally, and for whom we do so much—still stands stubborn. Cruel strength thinks itself constancy. Let him no longer glory in empty and false strength. Let him hear the apostle say: "Power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). Let us pray for him. How do we know what God wills? Many are the thoughts in a man's heart, as it is written, but the counsel of the Lord remains forever (Psalm 33:11 (LXX 32:11)).