Primary source · Latin
Against the Letters of Petilian · On Baptism
Augustine of Hippo · AD 400–405
What this text is
The anti-Donatist dossier: the validity of sacraments does not hang on the minister's purity — and the charges against Marcellinus and the Roman clergy of the persecution weighed and dismissed.
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Public-domain translations
J. R. King (NPNF, 1887)
They bring up against us Marcellinus and the presbyters… but the sacraments of Christ are not polluted by the men through whom they pass: His baptism is holy whoever gives it, because it is His.
Manuscript witnesses
Medieval tradition of the anti-Donatist corpus
9th c. onwardContra litteras Petiliani, the central exchange of the schism's paper war.
Provenance
Hippo, c. AD 400–403 — against the Donatist bishop of Cirta
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Contra litteras Petiliani (CSEL 52)M. Petschenig, 1909The critical edition.
- The Donatist ChurchW. H. C. Frend, 1952The controversy's standard history.