What think you of that woman, who, after she had been ill for twelve years of a hidden malady, belonging to women, and had spent all her substance upon doctors, on beholding so many wonderful works performed by the Son of God, went into the crowd, saw the physician, saw also the people? Her pain urged her on to ask for medicine, shame hindered her from disclosing, in the presence of men, the cause of her complaint. Her silent faith told her what to do.
'I will send forth my hand,' [she said] 'and I will touch the hem of His garment and I shall be healed.'
When no one observed her, in the midst of the crowd she put forth her hand. She touched and was healed. But she did not venture to tell aloud that for which she had not ventured to ask. However, that the fruit of her faith might not be hidden from those who were unaware of it, the Saviour asked:
'Who has touched Me?'
His disciples marvelled and said:
'The crowds press on Thee, yet Thou dost ask, "Who has touched Me?"'
and Christ asked:
'Who, I say, has touched Me? I have felt that virtue has gone forth from Me.'
So the woman acknowledged that she it was who had touched Him and been healed. In the other cases the mother had asked for her daughter, the centurion |240 had asked for his son. Here neither did the woman ask, nor did Christ promise, but faith obtained all that it anticipated. Without doubt 'it is of him that gives, not of him that receives.'
IX. That the example of Naaman the Syrian was brought by Parmenian without relevance.
In order to add to the bulk of your treatise, you have thought well, my brother Parmenian, to describe Naaman the Syrian at length as some kind of unripe mass of hardest wounds just coming to their birth. What has this to do with our present business? You might bring it forward relevantly, and might well have employed a long discourse about it, had you |241 come across some catechumen of rudest morals and hardest heart, who should refuse to receive the most gentle grace of the saving Water. With relevance in that case would your words have shown how man may be renewed ; with relevance might you then have pointed out that an inveterate hardness of nature may be changed and softened into the flesh of an infant. But, with regard to this business, which we are at present discussing together, to what purpose have you recalled such a history as this ? For we do hot read here that anyone had washed that leprous Syrian before the word or at the command of Elisha, in such a way that he might be duly washed again to his greater advantage. But even if it were so, still, it would not serve your purpose, as something which you might lawfully imitate. For we do not read that he had first washed in the waters of Syria, or that he had been washed by anyone, without gaining thereby any advantage. But if it had been so, this would not appertain to the praise of Elisha (who did not wash him, but gave him advice); rather would it redound to the glory of the Jordan that the first grace came to the Syrian ----in that river wherein afterwards, in the time of John, |242 through confession unto repentance, the sins of a multitude were to die.
X. The Parable of the Marriage Feast was wrongly brought forward by Parmenian.
Lastly what is to be said with regard to that part of your treatise concerning the heavenly nuptials, in which----taking away hope of future things----you have applied it all to the present time, saying that he, who escaped your doorkeepers and ministers, has been cut off from your fellowship, in such a way as to be cast outside, with contumely, far from the communion of the Faithful? If the parable mean this, nothing is left for faith to hope, nothing for the resurrection to restore, nothing further in heaven to be awaited, nothing for God, the King and Father of the Family, to recognise at His own Banquet, when He shall rejoice over the presence of many and grieve over the absence of some, and shall say that many have been called, but few chosen. |243 In that case there will be no occasion for Him to be wrath with the man who is without the Wedding Garment.
For the Son of God, Christ Himself, is the Bridegroom; He is also the Garment and the Tunic, that floats in the water, to clothe many, yet awaits others innumerable and is never used up.
And before anyone say that I have been rash in calling the Son of God the Garment, let him read the words of the Apostle who says:
'As many of you as have been baptised in the Name of Christ, have put on Christ.'
O tunic ever one and unchangeable, which fitly clothes all ages and forms, which is not too loose in infants, nor stretched in youth, nor changed in women!
Assuredly the day will come, when the heavenly nuptials begin to be celebrated. There without anxiety shall they sit down, who have preserved |244 the one Baptism. For with regard to any who has allowed himself to be rebaptised by you----resurrection is not denied him, for he has believed in the resurrection of the Flesh. He shall rise indeed, but naked. But because he has allowed you to spoil him of his wedding garment, he shall hear the Father of the Family speak thus:
'My friend,' that is to say----'I recognise thee----once thou didst renounce the devil, and wert converted to Me, and I gave thee a wedding garment. Why hast thou come thus, without that which I gave thee?'----that is to say, 'why hast thou not what I gave thee?'
For no one can be angry with one who has not something, which has not been given him.
'Thou didst receive a wedding garment, together with these others, and thou alone art without one. Why hast thou come naked and doleful ? Who has torn his spoils from thee? What thieves' doors hast thou entered ? What murderous robbers hast thou met on the way?'
However many they are who come thus, they shall have no place at that banquet. |245
XI. As the Donatists could not rebaptise children who were dead, why should they rebaptise the living?
And to make an end, however late, I think that even this is enough. Still, although we may be making a mistake in bringing forward so many proofs, let me give this one more. Let us suppose that, in your absence, a thousand have been baptised. Of these say that a hundred have chanced to die. For a little while keep your hands off this wickedness. Let your 'holiness' (as you call it) first raise again those who have been buried, let it cleanse the dead if it can, and let them be brought back to the living. If you are not able to raise the dead, to what purpose do you endeavour to lay hands upon the living, excepting to fulfil that which God spoke of you through the Prophet Ezekiel, saying:
'that they might kill souls, which ought not to die'?