'battened on bloody morsels.'
After all this, you have gone on to say:
'Let the greed of vultures consume whatever it will; still the number of doves is greater.'
What, then, has happened to the common saying that a liar should have his memory in due keeping? Have you forgotten what you said a moment before, that in the Canticle of Canticles
'The Church is Christ's one Dove' ?
If yours is the One Church, the Dove is One. What then did you mean by saying that
'the number of doves is greater'?
XIX. The Eucharist was given by the Donatists to dogs. An Ampulla of Chrism was thrown away. Their other sacrileges.
Moreover, a hideous crime (which seems to you something of little importance) was committed, in such a fashion that your above-mentioned fellow-Bishops profaned everything which is most holy. They commanded the Eucharist to be cast to the dogs. This did not pass without evidence of the |100 Divine Judgement, for these same dogs were inflamed with madness, and tore their own masters in pieces as though they had been murderers, and attacked with avenging teeth those guilty of the Holy Body, as if they had been strangers and enemies.
They also threw a phial of chrism out of a window, in order to break it, and although its fall was precipitated by violence, an angel's hand was there to bring it down gently to earth, with the support that is from heaven. Though thrown away, it was not allowed to feel its fall, but, by the protection of God, found its home unbroken amongst the rocks. |101
You never could have done such things as these, if you had borne in mind the Commands of Christ, who has said:
'Give not that which is holy to dogs, and cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turning rend you.'
Could the makers of Unity have done anything of a like nature, out of which you might labour to create a baseless prejudice against us Catholics?
Urban of Forma and Felix of Idicra, when they came back, found that nuns whom they had seduced from their state of chastity had become mothers. Such, my brother Parmenian, is the character of the Bishops, whose deeds you cover up; and, when you ought to be blushing for your own sins, you bring charges against innocent Catholics.
At this time the above-mentioned Bishop Felix, amongst his other crimes and horrible misdeeds, seized a young maiden to whom he himself had given the veil ----by whom he had a short time before been called by the name of Father----and did not hesitate in the least to be guilty of shameless incest. And, as if, through his sin, he had been made holy, he went with haste to Tysedis! There he ventured to rob of the episcopal name and office and honour Donatus, a Bishop seventy years of age, against whom no charge could be brought. The Catholic Bishop was approached by the schismatic, the innocent by the |102 guilty, the priest of God by one steeped in sacrilege, the chaste by the incestuous. The Bishop was attacked by one no longer a Bishop, who, relying upon the decrees and conspiracy of your party, and armed by your laws and your commands, cast those hands which a short time before had been made heavy by sins, upon the head of the innocent, and dared to let judgement fall from that tongue of his, which was not now worthy even to be allowed to do penance. See, my brother Parmenian, the sort of persons whom you defend; see the kind of men they are, on whose behalf you have, this long while, maintained that the Endowments of the Church are working.
XX. It is proved against the Donatists, who call themselves saints, that no man can be free from sin.
Will you then----you who wish men to think you holy and innocent----tell me this----whence comes this sanctity of yours, which you too freely claim for yourselves----a sanctity which the Apostle John does not dare to profess, when he writes:
'If we shall say that we are without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.'
He who spoke thus kept himself, with wisdom, prepared for the grace of God. For it belongs to a Christian man to will what is good, and to run the course which he has rightly willed. But it is not given to man to bring to perfection; so that after the stages, which a man can go, there remains something for God with which He may meet man's deficiency. For He alone is perfection; and perfect alone is Christ, the Son of |103 God. We, the others, are all half-perfect ; for it is ours to will, it is ours to run, but it is God's to make perfect. So the most blessed Apostle Paul has written:
'It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of him that reacheth to the grace of God.'
For perfect sanctity has not been given, but promised, by Christ our Saviour. Thus He says:
'You shall be holy, because I am holy.'
So that He alone is perfect and holy. He did not say 'You are holy' but He did say
'You shall be holy.'
With what reason then do you, in your pride, claim for yourselves perfect holiness, except it be to make it clear that you deceive yourselves, and that the truth is not in you?