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. X.--14. But some one may say that the tares within may more
easily be converted into wheat. I grant that it is so; but what has
this to do with the question of repeating baptism? You surely do not
maintain that if a man converted from heresy, through the occasion and
opportunity given by his conversion, should bear fruit before another
who, being within the Church, is more slow to be washed from his
iniquity, and so corrected and changed, the former therefore needs not
to be baptized again, but the churchman to be baptized again, who was
outstripped by him who came from the heretics, because of the greater
slowness of his amendment. It has nothing, therefore, to do with the
question now at issue who is later or slower in being converted from
his especial waywardness to the straight path of faith, or hope, or
charity. For although the bad within the fold are more easily made
good, yet it will sometimes happen that certain of the number of those
outside will outstrip in their conversion certain of those within;
and while these remain in barrenness, the former, being restored to
unity and communion, will bear fruit with patience, thirty-fold, or
sixty-fold, or a hundred-fold.[228] Or if those only are to be called
tares who remain in perverse error to the end, there are many ears of
corn outside, and many tares within.
15. But it will be urged that the bad outside are worse than those
within. It is indeed a weighty question, whether Nicolaus, being
already severed from the Church,[229] or Simon, who was still within
it,[230] was the worse,--the one being a heretic, the other a sorcerer.
But if the mere fact of division, as being the clearest token of
violated charity, is held to be the worse evil, I grant that it is
so. Yet many, though they have lost all feelings of charity, yet do
not secede from considerations of worldly profit; and as they seek
their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's,[231] what they
are unwilling to secede from is not the unity of Christ, but their own
temporal advantage. Whence it is said in praise of charity, that she
"seeketh not her own."[232]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account