Writings in Connection with the Donatist ControversyAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Donatists; Donatists -- Controversial literature
CHAP. XXII.--49. PETILIANUS said: "It may be urged that Christ said
to His apostles, as you are constantly quoting against us, 'He that
is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every
whit.' Now if you discuss those words in all their fulness, you are
bound by what immediately follows. For this is what He said, in His
very words: 'He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but
is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For He knew who
should betray Him; therefore said He, Ye are not all clean.'[756]
Whosoever, therefore, has incurred the guilt of treason, has forfeited,
like you, his baptism. Again, after that the betrayer of Christ had
himself been condemned, He thus more fully confirmed His words to the
eleven apostles: 'Now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken
unto you. Abide in me, and I in you.'[757] And again He said to these
same eleven, 'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.'[758]
Seeing, then, that these things were said to the eleven apostles, when
the traitor, as we have seen, had been condemned, you likewise, being
_traditors_, are similarly without both peace and baptism."
50. AUGUSTINE answered: If therefore every _traditor_ has forfeited his
baptism, it will follow that every one who, having been baptized by
you, has afterwards become a _traditor_, ought to be baptized afresh.
And if you do not do this, you yourselves sufficiently prove the
falseness of the saying, "Whosoever therefore has incurred the guilt of
treason, has forfeited, like you, his baptism." For if he has forfeited
it, let him return and receive it again; but if he returns and does
not receive it, it is clear that he had not forfeited it. Again, if
the reason why it was said to the apostles, "Now are ye clean," and
"My peace I give unto you," was that the traitor had already left
the room, then was not that supper of so great a sacrament clean and
able to give peace, which He distributed to all before his going out?
And if you venture to say this with your eyes closed against the
truth, what can we do save exclaim the more, See how blindness comes
in punishment of the madness of those who wish to be, as the apostle
says, "teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor
whereof they affirm?"[759] And yet, unless blindness came in the way of
their pertinacity, it was not a very difficult matter that you should
understand and see that the Lord did not say in the presence of Judas,
Ye are not yet clean, but "Now are ye clean." He added, however, "But
not all," because there was one there who was not clean; yet if he
had been polluting the others by his presence, it would not have been
declared to them, "Now are ye clean," but, as I said before, Ye are
not yet clean. But, after Judas had gone out, He said to them, "Now
are ye clean," and did not add the words, But not all, because he had
now departed in whose presence indeed, as had been said to them, they
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