1. While I was meditating and impatiently tossing in my mind what I ought to do concerning those pitiable brethren who, wounded, not of their own will, but by the onset of a raging devil, have lived until now, that is, through a long course of time, in the endurance of their punishment; lo, there appeared opposed to me another enemy, and the adversary of his own paternal affection—the heretic Novatian—who not only, as it is signified in the Gospel, passed by the prostrate wounded man, as did the priest or the Levite, but by an ingenious and novel cruelty rather would slay the wounded man, by taking away the hope of salvation, by denying the mercy of his Father, by rejecting the repentance of his brother. Marvellous, how bitter, how harsh, how perverse are many things! But one more easily perceives the straw in another’s eye than the beam in one’s own. Let not the abrupt madness of that perfidious heretic move or disturb us however, beloved brethren, who, although he is placed in such great guilt of dissension and schism, and is separated from the Church, with sacrilegious temerity does not shrink from hurling back his charges upon us: for although he is now by himself made unclean, defiled with the filth of sacrilege, he contends that we are so. And although it is written that the dogs should remain without, and the apostle has taught that these same dogs must be shunned, as we read, for he says, “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers,”1    Phil. iii. 2. he does not cease stirring up his frenzy with barkings, after the manner of wolves seeking the gloomy darkness, where with his brutal cruelty he may easily rend in his dark caves the sheep snatched away from the Shepherd. Certainly he declares that he and his friends whom he collects are gold. Nor do we doubt but that deserters of the Church who have become apostates could now easily be converted into gold, but it must be that gold in which the first sins of the people of Israel were designated. But the gold and silver vessels which were wrested from the Egyptians continue in the Lord’s power, that is, in Christ’s Church; in which house if thou hadst continued, Novatian, thou hadst perchance been also a precious vessel; but now thou neither perceivest nor complainest that thou art changed into chaff and straw.

1205D I. COGITANTI mihi et intolerabiliter animo aestuanti, quidnam agere deberem de miserandis fratribus qui 1206D vulnerati non propria voluntate, sed diaboli saevientis irruptione, adhuc usque, hoc est, per longam temporum 1207A seriem agentes, poenas darent; ecce ex adverso obortus est alius hostis, et ipsius paternae pietatis adversarius haereticus Novatianus: qui non tantum, ut in Evangelio significatum est (Luc. X), sicut sacerdos vel levites jacentem vulneratum praeteriret, sed ingeniosa ac nova crudelitate sauciatum potius occideret; adimendo spem salutis, denegando misericordiam patris, respuendo poenitentiam fratris. Mirum quot acerba, quot aspera, quot perversa sunt! Sed facilius quis (Matth. VII, 3; Luc. VI, 41) in alieno oculo festucam perspicit, quam in suo trabem. Nos autem, fratres dilectissimi, non moveat aut turbet haeretici istius perfidi abrupta dementia: qui cum in tam ingenti dissensionis et schismatis crimine constitutus, et ab Ecclesia separatus sit, sacrilega temeritate non 1207B dubitet in nos sua crimina retorquere. Cum sit enim a semetipso nunc factus immundus, sordibus sacrilegis inquinatus; hoc nunc nos esse contendit. Et cum scriptum sit (Apoc. XXII, 15) canes foris remansuros; et Apostolus hos eosdem canes docuerit esse vitandos, sicut legimus, ait enim: Videte canes, videte malos operarios (Philipp. III, 2.): Rabiem suam non cessat latratibus excitare, luporum more tenebrosam caliginem optare, qua facile possit ferina sua crudelitate, oves a pastore direptas, spelunca tenebrosa laniare. Aurum certe se suosque quos colligit, esse pronuntiat. Nec nos dubitamus desertores Ecclesiae apostatas factos, in aurum nunc facile potuisse converti; sed illud aurum in quo prima delicta populi Israel denotata sunt (Exod. XXXII, 2 seqq.). 1207C Caeterum vasa aurea et argentea, quae ab Aegyptiis excusa sunt, (Exod. XII, 35, 36) in dominica potestate, id est. Christi Ecclesia, perseverant: in qua domo si perseverasses, Novatiane, vas forsitan et pretiosum fuisses: sed nunc te in paleas et in stipulam conversum nec intelligis nec plangis.