Letter 134: Augustine urges Apringius to punish violent Donatists without using the death penalty.

To the distinguished lord, deservedly exalted and most excellent son Apringius: Augustine. I do not doubt that in this power which God has given you, a human being over other human beings, you think about the divine judgment, where judges too will stand to give account of their judgment. I know that you have been instructed in the Christian faith. That gives me greater confidence before Your Excellency, not only to ask but also to admonish, because of that Lord in whose household you are enrolled with us by heavenly right, in whom we share the hope of eternal life, and whom we invoke for you in the most holy mysteries. Therefore, distinguished lord, deservedly exalted and most excellent son, first I ask that I not seem to you to burst importunately into your public duties with the anxiety that I especially ought to bear for the church entrusted to me, whose interests I serve, and over which I desire not so much to preside as to be useful. Then I beg you not to disdain receiving what I advise and ask, and not to delay agreeing to it. Certain Circumcellions and Donatist clerics were brought by the care of those who serve public discipline, after a formal report had been sent, before the courts and the laws. When they were examined by your brother, my son Marcellinus, the most illustrious and distinguished tribune and notary, they were constrained not by the torture of hooks and flames but by rods, and confessed the horrible crimes they had committed against my brothers and fellow presbyters: that they had ambushed and murdered one of them, and dragged another from his house, gouged out his eye, cut off his finger, and left him maimed. When I learned that they had confessed these things, and therefore had no doubt that they would come under the law of your axe, I hastened these letters to Your Nobility. By them I pray, and through the mercy of Christ I beg, that we may rejoice in your greater and surer happiness in such a way that equal things are not paid back to them. The laws, by punishing, cannot cut off a finger and tear out an eye with blows of stone as they were able to do by their cruelty. So I am confident that those who confessed doing this will not receive that same return. But I fear that either they, or those whose homicide has been revealed, may be punished by the sentence of your power. This is what I fear; this is what I ask not to be done, as a Christian asking a judge and as a bishop admonishing a Christian. We read that the apostle said of you that you do not bear the sword without cause, and that you are ministers of God, avengers against those who do evil. But the province has one cause, the church another. The administration of the province must be carried on with terror; the gentleness of the church must be commended with mercy. If I were speaking before a judge who was not a Christian, I would act differently. Yet even then I would not abandon the church's cause, and as far as he deigned to allow, I would press him not to stain with the blood of their enemies the sufferings of God's catholic servants, sufferings that ought to serve as examples of patience. If he refused to agree, I would suspect that he was resisting with a hostile spirit. But now, when the matter is before you, my reasoning and consultation are different. We see you as the holder of a very high authority, but we also recognize you as a son of Christian devotion. Let your high rank be subject; let your faith be subject. I am treating with you a common cause, but in it you can do what I cannot. Take counsel with us, and stretch out your help. Care was taken that enemies of the church, who usually stir inexperienced minds by empty words of seduction, boasting as though about the persecution they claim to suffer, should confess the horrible crimes they committed against catholic clergy and be entangled by their own words. The proceedings must be read for the healing of souls whom they have poisoned by deadly persuasion. But would it please you that, if the end of the proceedings contains their bloody execution, we should be afraid to reach that ending when reading them, and should set there also the matter of conscience, lest those who suffered seem to have repaid evil for evil? If, then, nothing else could be established to restrain the malice of ruined people, perhaps extreme necessity would press for such men to be killed. Yet as far as we are concerned, if nothing gentler could be done to them, we would rather have them released free than have the sufferings of our brothers avenged by their blood. But now, when something can be done by which the church's mildness is commended and the boldness of the cruel is restrained, why not turn toward the more provident and gentler sentence, which judges may use even in cases that are not the church's? Fear with us, then, the judgment of God the Father, and commend the gentleness of the mother. When you do this, the church does it, because you do it for her, and as her son. Compete in goodness with the evil. They, by savage crime, tore limbs from a living body; you, by a work of mercy, make their whole limbs serve some useful labor instead of the wicked works they were practicing. They did not spare God's servants who preached correction to them; you spare men caught, brought in, and convicted. They shed Christian blood with impious steel; you restrain even the legal sword from their blood for Christ's sake. They, by killing a minister of the church, took from him the space of living; you, by letting enemies of the church live, release to them the space for repentance. Such is what you ought to be, a Christian judge in the church's cause, with us asking, admonishing, and interceding. When people see their convicted enemies treated more gently, they usually appeal against the milder sentence. But we love our enemies in such a way that, unless we presume on your Christian obedience, we will appeal against your severe sentence. May almighty God preserve Your Excellency more increased and more happy, distinguished lord, deservedly exalted and most excellent son.

EPISTOLA 134 Scripta circa exeunte a. 411. Augustinus Apringium proconsulem obsecrat ut Circumcelliones atrocia in Catholicos confessos mitius puniat quam mereant (nn. 1-2) memor Ecclesiasticae christianaeque mansuetudinis qua reos scelerum a se patratorum poeniteat (nn. 34). DOMINO INSIGNI ET MERITO SUBLIMI, AC PRAESTANTISSIMO FILIO APRINGIO, AUGUSTINUS. Christiani magistratus benigne iudicare debent. 1. Non dubito in hac potestate quam tibi Deus homini in homines dedit, cogitare te divinum iudicium, ubi et iudices stabunt rationem de suo iudicio reddituri. Christiana quippe fide te imbutum scio; unde mihi ad Excellentiam tuam maior fiducia tribuitur, non solum petendi, verum etiam monendi propter illum Dominum, in cuius familia nobiscum coelesti iure censeris, in quo spem vitae aeternae pariter habemus, et quem pro vobis in sacrosanctis mysteriis invocamus. Proinde, domine insignis et merito sublimis, ac praestantissime fili, primum quaeso ut non tibi videar importunus irruere actibus tuis, ea sollicitudine quam me praecipue gerere oportet pro Ecclesia mihi credita, cuius utilitatibus servio, cui non tam praeesse quam prodesse desidero: deinde obsecro ut quod moneo vel rogo, non dedigneris accipere, non cuncteris acquiescere. Capitali poena ne scelerati quidem plectendi. 2. Circumcelliones quosdam et clericos donatistas, cura eorum qui disciplinae publicae inserviunt, praemissa Notoria, ad iudicia legesque perduxit. Hi cum audirentur a viro clarissimo et spectabili tribuno et notario fratre tuo, filio meo Marcellino, non tormentis ungularum atque flammarum, sed virgarum coerciti, horrenda facinora in fratres et compresbyteros meos a se perpetrata confessi sunt; quod scilicet unum eorum exceptum insidiis trucidaverunt, alterum e domo raptum, oculo effosso digitoque amputato truncaverunt. Haec cum comperissem illos fuisse confessos, ideoque minime dubitarem sub iura tuae securis esse venturos, has ad tuam Nobilitatem litteras acceleravi, quibus deprecor, et per misericordiam Christi obsecro, sic de tua maiore atque certiore felicitate gaudeamus, ut eis paria non retribuantur; quamquam lapidis ictibus digitum praecidere oculumque convellere leges puniendo non possint, quod isti saeviendo potuerunt. Unde securus sum de iis qui hoc se fecisse confessi sunt, quod hanc vicissitudinem non reportabunt; sed ne vel ipsi, vel illi quorum homicidium patefactum est, per tuae potestatis sententiam multentur, hoc timeo, hoc ne fiat et christianus iudicem rogo, et christianum episcopus moneo. Ecclesiam eiusque membra decet esse clementes. 3. De vobis quidem dixisse Apostolum legimus quod non sine causa gladium geratis, et ministri Dei sitis, vindices in eos qui male agunt 1; sed alia causa est provinciae, alia est Ecclesiae: illius terribiliter gerenda est administratio; huius clementer commendanda est mansuetudo. Si apud iudicem non christianum mihi sermo esset, aliter agerem: nec tamen etiam sic Ecclesiae causam desererem, et quantum admittere dignaretur, instarem ne passiones servorum Dei catholicorum, quae prodesse debent ad exempla patientiae, inimicorum suorum sanguine foedarentur; et si nollet acquiescere, inimico animo eum resistere suspicarer. Nunc vero quando apud te res agitur, alia mihi ratio est, alia consultatio. Rectorem te quidem praecelsae potestatis videmus, sed etiam filium christianae pietatis agnoscimus. Subdatur sublimitas tua, subdatur fides tua; causam tecum tracto communem, sed tu in ea potes quod ego non possum: confer nobiscum consilium, et porrige auxilium. Rei puniendi ut delictorum eos poeniteat. 4. Diligenter actum est ut inimici Ecclesiae, qui solent vaniloquio seductionis sollicitare animos imperitos tamquam de persecutione gloriantes quam se perpeti iactant, horrenda facinora sua in catholicos clericos perpetrata faterentur et suis verbis implicarentur. Legenda sunt Gesta ad sanandas animas, quas pestifera suasione venenaverunt: numquid placet tibi ut ad finem Gestorum, si cruentum istorum supplicium continebit, legendo pervenire timeamus, ubi ponimus et ipsam conscientiam, ne malum pro malo, qui passi sunt, reddidisse videantur? Si ergo nihil aliud constitueretur frenandae malitiae perditorum, extrema fortasse necessitas ut tales occiderentur urgeret; quamquam quod ad nos attinet, si nihil mitius eis fieri posset, mallemus eos liberos relaxari, quam passiones fratrum nostrorum fuso eorum sanguine vindicari: nunc vero cum aliquid fieri possit, quo et mitis commendetur Ecclesia, et immitium cohibeatur audacia; cur non flectas in partem providentiorem, lenioremque sententiam, quod licet iudicibus facere etiam non in causis Ecclesiae? Time ergo nobiscum iudicium Dei Patris, et commenda mansuetudinem matris: cum enim tu facis, Ecclesia facit, propter quam facis, et cuius filius facis. Contende bonitate cum malis: illi scelere immani membra de corpore vivo avulserunt; tu opere misericordi effice ut illa quae nefandis operibus exercebant, alicui utili operi integra eorum membra deserviant. Illi non pepercerunt correctionem sibi praedicantibus Dei servis; tu parce comprehensis, parce ductis, parce convictis. Illi impio ferro fuderunt sanguinem Christianum: tu ab eorum sanguine etiam iuridicum gladium cohibe propter Christum. Illi ministro Ecclesiae occiso extorserunt spatium vivendi: tu inimicis Ecclesiae viventibus relaxa spatium poenitendi. Talem te oportet esse in causa Ecclesiae iudicem christianum, petentibus, monentibus, intercedentibus nobis. Solent homines quando cum inimicis eorum convictis lenius agitur, a mitiore sententia provocare: sed inimicos nostros ita diligimus, ut nisi de tua christiana obedientia praesumamus, a tua severa sententia provocemus. Deus omnipotens Excellentiam tuam auctiorem felicioremque conservet, domine insignis et merito sublimis, ac praestantissime fili.