that is to say, from the Roman Empire, where are the holy offices of the priesthood, and modesty and virginity, which exist not amongst foreign peoples, and which, if they did exist, could not be safe from outrage. With reason does Paul teach us that we must pray for kings and powers, even though the Emperor be living a pagan life. How much more, then, if he be a Christian----how much more if he fears God, and is pious, and full of mercy, as facts prove this one to have been?
For he had sent ornaments to the Houses of God, he had sent alms for the poor, nothing to Donatus ! Why, then, did Donatus act like a madman? Why was he full of anger? Why did he refuse the gifts which had been sent? For when the commissioners announced that they were going through the different |134 provinces, and that they would give alms to those who were Mailing to accept them, he declared that he had sent letters everywhere in advance to forbid that anything which had been brought should be distributed anywhere amongst the poor. Oh, this is the way to console the wretched, to provide for the needs of the poor, to come to the aid of sinners! God cries out:
'It is I who have made both the rich man and the poor man.'
Not that He was unable to give to the poor man also. But, if He had given to the poor as well as to the rich, the sinner would not be able to discover any means of helping himself. On this account has it been written that:
'Even as water puts out a fire, so do alms-deeds wipe out sin.'
It is certain that both are now with God----the one who wished to give, and the other who stood in the way of his giving. Well, if God were now to say to Donatus 'O Bishop, what do you wish to make out Constants to have been? If he was innocent, why would you not receive from an innocent giver? If he was a sinner, why did you not permit aims to be given by him, for whose sake I made the poor man?' When questioned after this fashion, what sort of face will he show? Why in his levity and madness did he work so hard to keep good things from so many poor people? |135
He believed that he held dominion over Carthage; and since there is no one superior to the Emperor excepting God alone (who made the Emperor), Donatus, in raising himself above the Emperor, had already, as it were, passed the boundaries apportioned to humanity, so that he almost regarded himself, not as man, but as God, when he refused to revere him, who, after God, was feared by mankind.
Finally, the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, rebukes the prince of Tyre, that is to say, the prince of Carthage, with these words:
'O Son of man, speak against the prince of Tyre, saith the Lord God, because thine heart has been puffed up, and thou hast said I am God.'
That Tyre is Carthage is shown, in the first place, by Isaiah, when, after describing the vision of Tyre, he goes on:
'Howl, O ye ships of Carthage.'
In the second place this is also proved by profane literature, and, if there be any other city called by this name, there is no other in which any of those things were done which are known to have been done at Carthage.
'Speak,' says the Lord, 'against the prince of Tyre.' He does not command the prophet to speak against any secular king, nor was he to speak to many, |136 but to one----that is to Donatus, Bishop of Carthage. For it was not fitting for Ezekiel, whose words I have just quoted, to compare to any man, excepting to a prince, that Bishop who claimed for himself (as we have said) princedom over Carthage, who puffed up his heart, and thought himself to be superior to men and wished to have even all his own colleagues beneath him----from whose offerings he would never deign to accept aught. Now, his conscience, and Christ his God bear witness to this----and the complaints of many. For in his very intercourse with others, he did them this wrong, that he acted in some secret way or other, alone by himself, and afterwards only in a perfunctory manner mingled with the rest. |137
In this fashion was his heart puffed up, so that in the end he seemed to himself no longer to be man, but God.
Moreover, in the mouths of the people he was seldom called a Bishop, but was spoken of as 'Donatus of Carthage.' And deservedly was he both addressed and chided as Prince of Tyre (that is of Carthage), because he was the first of the Bishops, as though he were something more than the rest. And whilst he wished to have nothing common to mankind, he lifted up his heart, not like the heart of a man, but like the heart of a god, since he desired to be something more than other men.
But God follows after Donatus with these words:
'Thou hast said, I am God.'
For though he did not make use of this expression, still he either himself accomplished, or suffered, that which would bring about its result. He puffed up his heart in such a way as to think that no other man ought to be compared with him, and, in the swelling of his own mind, he seemed to himself to be something higher than the others. Since whatever is above men, in a sort of way is God. |138
Besides, whereas Bishops ought to serve God, he demanded so much for himself from his Bishops, that they all had to venerate him with no less fear than they venerated God----because to himself he seemed to be God. And though men are wont to swear by God alone, he allowed men to swear by him, as if by God. If this were done by any man in mistake, it was his duty to forbid it. As, then, he did not forbid it, to himself he seemed to be God. Again, whilst all those who believed in Christ were, before the day of his insolence, called Christians, he ventured to divide the people with God, so that those who followed him were no longer called Christians, but Donatists, and when any people visited him from any province of Africa, he did not ask those questions (which the custom of men always calls for) about the weather, about peace and war, about the harvest, but to everyone who came into his presence, he spoke thus:
'How goes my party in your part of the world?'
As though he had now really divided the people with God, so that, without faltering, he dared to call it his 'party.' For, from his time to the present day, whenever any action is brought before the public courts on ecclesiastical affairs; all [of his sect] have, on being questioned (as we read in the records of the proceedings), spoken in such a way as to assert that they belong to the party of Donatus. Concerning Christ they kept silence. And what am I to say of their clergy, when I read the petition which (as I have stated in the first book ) was sent to Constantine, |139 subscribed by Bishops in this manner: 'Given by Capito and by Nasutius, Dignus, and the other Bishops of the party of Donatus'? They, we know, made their complaints against Bishops, who, whilst they did not belong to the party of Donatus, dwelt in the Catholic Church of Christ.
Since, then, Donatus did not live as a Bishop amongst his fellow-Bishops, and refused to be a man amongst men, it is certain that he puffed up his heart and seemed to himself to be God. And as for the Bishops by whom you were consecrated, their names, my brother Parmenian, are well known to you, and you know also where they lived, and which of them made a petition to return home----in your company. You know, too, who it was to whom they made this petition, and you know his character. Now, all this we have learned through their having brought before the judges in Africa this same old petition in which they had written: 'Given by the Bishops of the party of Donatus.'
What reply, I ask, will they make in the approaching Judgement of God, since they in this world acknowledged equivalently that they belonged, not to the Church of Christ, but freely confessed that they were |140 of the party of Donatus, though it is written in the Gospel that Christ has said:
'He that confesses Me before men, him will I confess before My Father'?
These men confessed, not Christ, but Donatus.