9. However, read all the rest and examine it well. Mark whether they have succeeded in proving any charge of evil brought against Cæcilianus himself, through whose person they attempted to compromise the position of the Church. Mark whether they have not rather brought forward much that was in his favour, and confirmed the evidence that his case was a good one, by a number of extracts which, to the prejudice of their own case, they produced and read. Read these or let them be read to you. Consider the whole matter, ponder it carefully, and choose which you should follow: whether you should, in the peace of Christ, in the unity of the Catholic Church, in the love of the brethren, be partaker of our joy, or, in the cause of wicked discord, the Donatist faction and impious schism, continue to suffer the annoyance caused to you by the measures which out of love to you we are compelled to take.
10. I hear that you have remarked and often quote the fact recorded in the gospels, that the seventy disciples went back from the Lord, and that they had been left to their own choice in this wicked and impious desertion, and that to the twelve who alone remained the Lord said, "Will ye also go away?" [2820] But you have neglected to remark, that at that time the Church was only beginning to burst into life from the recently planted seed, and that there was not yet fulfilled in her the prophecy: "All kings shall fall down before Him; yea, all nations shall serve Him;" [2821] and it is in proportion to the more enlarged accomplishment of this prophecy that the Church wields greater power, so that she may not only invite, but even compel men to embrace what is good. This our Lord intended then to illustrate, for although He had great power, He chose rather to manifest His humility. This also He taught, with sufficient plainness, in the parable of the Feast, in which the master of the house, after He had sent a message to the invited guests, and they had refused to come, said to his servants: "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." [2822] Mark, now, how it was said in regard to those who came first, "bring them in;" it was not said, "compel them to come in,"--by which was signified the incipient condition of the Church, when it was only growing towards the position in which it would have strength to compel men to come in. Accordingly, because it was right that when the Church had been strengthened, both in power and in extent, men should be compelled to come in to the feast of everlasting salvation, it was afterwards added in the parable, "The servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servants, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in." Wherefore, if you were walking peaceably, absent from this feast of everlasting salvation and of the holy unity of the Church, we should find you, as it were, in the "highways;" but since, by multiplied injuries and cruelties, which you perpetrate on our people, you are, as it were, full of thorns and roughness, we find you as it were in the "hedges," and we compel you to come in. The sheep which is compelled is driven whither it would not wish to go, but after it has entered, it feeds of its own accord in the pastures to which it was brought. Wherefore restrain your perverse and rebellious spirit, that in the true Church of Christ you may find the feast of salvation.
[2812] An example is furnished in the case of Castorius, Letter LXIX.; Letters, p. 326.
[2813] Eccles. xxx. 12.
[2814] Prov. xxiii. 14.
[2815] Ezek. xxxiv. 4.
[2816] 1 Cor. xiii. 3.
[2817] Dan. iii. 28.
[2818] Primianus, Donatist bishop in Carthage, was in 393 deposed by a factious clique of bishops, who appointed Maximianus in his place. The other Donatist bishops, however, assembled in the following year at Bagai in Numidia, and, reversing the decision of their co-bishops deposed them in turn, and passed a sentence to which, as stated in the text, they did not inexorably adhere. The matter is referred to in Letter XLIII. p. 276.
[2819] Ecclus. xxxiv. 25, translated, accurately enough, in our English version: "He that washeth himself after touching a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his washing?" The Donatist, in quoting the passage to support their practice of re-baptizing Catholics, omitted the clause, "et iterum tangit mortuum," and translated the sentence thus: "He that is baptized by one who is dead, what availeth his baptism?" It would be difficult to quote from the annals of controversy a more flagrant example of ignorant ingenuity in the wresting of words to serve a purpose.
[2820] John vi. 67.
[2821] Ps. lxxii. 11.
[2822] Luke xiv. 21-23.