§ 23. Why, therefore, should not the Church compel her lost sons to return if the lost sons compelled others to perish? Although even men whom they have not compelled but only led astray, their loving mother embraces with more affection if they are recalled to her bosom through the enforcement of terrible but salutary laws, and are the objects of far more deep congratulation than those whom she has never lost. Is it not a part of the care of the shepherd, when any sheep have left the flock, even though not violently forced away, but led astray by soft words and by coaxings, and they have begun to be possessed by strangers, to bring them back to the [pg 452] fold of his master when he has found them, by the terrors or even the pains of the whip, if they wish to resist; especially since, if they multiply abundantly among the fugitive slaves and robbers, he has the more right in that the mark of the master is recognized on them, which is not outraged in those whom we receive but do not baptize?[174] So indeed is the error of the sheep to be corrected that the sign of the Redeemer shall not be marred. For if any one is marked with the royal stamp by a deserter, who has himself been marked with it, and they receive forgiveness, and the one returns to his service, and the other begins to be in the service in which he had not yet been, that mark is not effaced in either of them, but rather it is recognized in both, and approved with due honor because it is the king's. Since they cannot show that that is bad to which they are compelled,[175] they maintained that they ought not to be compelled to the good. But we have shown that Paul was compelled by Christ; therefore the Church in compelling the Donatists is following the example of her Lord, though in the first instance she waited in hopes of not having to compel any, that the prediction might be fulfilled concerning the faith of kings and peoples.
§ 24. For in this sense also we may interpret without absurdity the apostolic declaration when the blessed Apostle Paul says: “Being ready to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled” [II Cor. 10:6]. Whence also the Lord himself bids the guests to be brought first to His great supper, and afterward compelled; for when His servants answered Him, “Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room,” He said to them: “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in” [Luke 14:22, 23]. In those, therefore, who were first brought in [pg 453] with gentleness the former obedience is fulfilled, but in those who were compelled the disobedience is avenged. For what else is the meaning of “Compel them to come in,” after it had previously been said, “Bring in,” and the answer was: “Lord, it is done as Thou commandest, and yet there is room”? Wherefore if by the power which the Church has received by divine appointment in its due season, through the religious character and faith of kings, those who are found in the highways and hedges—that is, in heresies and schisms—are compelled to come in, then let them not find fault because they are compelled, but consider to what they are so compelled. The supper of the Lord, the unity, is of the body of Christ, not only in the sacrament of the altar but also in the bond of peace.
(f) Augustine, Contra epistulam Parmeniani, II, 13 (29). (MSL, 43:71.)
Indelibility of baptism.
Parmenianus was the Donatist bishop who succeeded Donatus in the see of Carthage. The letter here answered was written to Tychonius, a leading Donatist. In it Parmenianus calls the Church defiled because it contained unworthy members. The answer of Augustine was written in 400, many years later.
If any one, either a deserter or one who has never served as a soldier, signs any private person with the military mark, would not he who has signed be punished as a deserter, when he has been arrested, and so much the more severely as it could be proved that he had never at all served as a soldier, and at the same time along with him would not the most impudent giver of the sign, be punished if he have surrendered him? Or perchance he takes no military service, but is afraid of the military mark [character] in his body, and he betakes himself to the clemency of the Emperor, and when he has poured forth prayers and obtained forgiveness, he then begins to undertake military service, when the man has been liberated and corrected is that mark [character] ever repeated, and not rather is he not recognized and approved? Would [pg 454] the Christian sacraments by chance be less enduring than this bodily mark, since we see that apostates do not lack baptism, and to them it is never given again when they return by means of penitence, and therefore it is judged not possible to lose it.
(g) Augustine, Contra epistulam Manichæi, ch. 4 (5). (MSL, 42:175.) Cf. Mirbt, n. 132.
Authority of the Catholic Church.
This work, written in 396 or 397, is important in this connection as showing the place the Catholic Church took in the mind of Augustine as an authority and the nature of that authority.
Not to speak of that wisdom which you [the Manichæans] do not believe to be in the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of people and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of Peter the Apostle, to whom the Lord after His resurrection gave it in charge to feed His sheep down to the present episcopate. And so lastly does the name itself of Catholic, which not without reason, amid so many heresies, that Church alone has so retained that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets no heretic will venture to point to his own basilica or house. Since then so many and so great are the very precious ties belonging to the Christian name which rightly keep a man who is a believer in the Catholic Church … no one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion.