-- 40. Petilianus said: "Nor is it, after all, so strange that you assume to yourself the name of bishop without authority. This is the true custom of the devil, to choose in preference a mode of deceiving by which he usurps to himself a word of holy me41. Augustin answered: See how you have quoted the testimony of holy Scripture, or how you have understood it, when it has no bearing at all upon the present point at issue. For all that you have brought forward was simply said to prove that there are false bishops, just as there are false angels and false apostles. Now we too know quite well that there are false angels and false apostles, and false bishops, and, as the true apostle says, false brethren also; [2026] but, seeing that charges such as yours may be brought by either side against the other, what is required is a certain degree of proof, and not mere empty words. But if you would see to which of us the charge of falseness more truly applies, recall to mind what we have said before, and you will see it there set forth, that we may not become tedious to our readers by repeating the same thing over and over again. And yet how is the Church dispersed throughout the world affected either by what you may have found to say about its chaff, which is mixed with it throughout the whole world; or by what you said of Manichæus and the other devilish sects? For if the wheat is not affected by anything which is said even about the chaff which is still mingled with it, how much less are the members of Christ dispersed throughout the whole world affected by monstrosities [2027] which have been so long and so openly separated from it? [2028] Footnotes: [2019] 2 Corinthians 11:14, 15. [2020] Genesis 6:3. [2021] Matthew 25:41. [2022] 1 Corinthians 6:3. [2023] "Perdiderunt," which the Benedictines think may be a confusion for "perierunt." [2024] Novissimus. [2025] 1 Corinthians 15:9. [2026] 2 Corinthians 11:26. [2027] Portenta. [2028] Down to this point Augustin had already answered Petilianus in the First Book, as he says himself below, III. 50, 61. |
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