{"collection":"Christian Texts","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_chr_ecf_101_1010341_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_chr_ecf_101_1010341_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_chr_ecf_101_1010341_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010341.htm","summary":"This is an early Christian ecclesiastical letter (epistolary genre) by Augustine of Hippo, written to a fellow bishop named Eusebius, likely dating to the late 4th or early 5th century. The letter's central incident is a shocking case of a young Catholic man who, after being rebuked by his bishop for savagely beating his mother, defected to the Donatist schismatic sect and was rebaptized \u2014 an act Augustine frames as a deliberate desecration of Catholic sacraments made in furious spite. Augustine uses this scandal to condemn the Donatists, arguing that their willingness to receive such a morally depraved convert reveals the spiritual bankruptcy of their movement. The letter then pivots to a dispute over official church records and a proposed scriptural debate between Augustine and the Donatist bishop Proculeianus, with Augustine pressing Eusebius to mediate and clarify whether a presbyter named Victor acted on episcopal orders. Notably, Augustine explicitly disavows coercing heretics back into the Church, insisting he wants only that truth be \"openly declared\" \u2014 a nuanced position given his later, more contested views on religious compulsion. The letter is a vivid primary source for the Donatist controversy, the pastoral crises of North African Christianity, and Augustine's early approach to schism and church discipline.","tags":["Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers","Patristics","St. Augustine"],"text":null,"title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: Letters of St. Au...","tradition":"Christian Texts","translated_text":null,"word_count":1463}