Christian Texts

Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: Letters of St. Au...

Nicene and Post-Nicene FathersPatristicsSt. Augustine

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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 — 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" — 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.

Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: Letters of St. Au...

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