Revisions by St. Augustine & Boniface Ramsey

Author:St. Augustine & Boniface Ramsey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, Classics, Patristics, Christianity
ISBN: 9781565483606
Publisher: New City Press NY
Published: 2010-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

25 (52). Three Books In Answer To

The Writings Of Petilian

(Contra Litteras Petiliani Libri Tres)[508]

Before I finished the books on the Trinity and the books on the literal meaning of Genesis there was an urgent need, which I could not defer, to respond to the writings of Petilian, a Donatist, that he wrote against the Catholic Church.[509] And in answer to this matter I wrote three volumes. In the first of them I responded as rapidly and as truthfully as I could to the first section of a letter of his that he wrote to his own people, because not all of it had come into our hands but only the first section of it, which is brief. It is also a letter addressed to our people, but it is listed among my books because the other two that are involved in the same matter are books. Afterwards, in fact, we found the whole [letter of Petilian], and I responded to it as carefully as I had to the Manichean Faustus by placing what he wrote first, in segments, under his name and giving my response to each segment under mine. But what I had written first reached Petilian, before we found the whole [letter], and in his anger he attempted to respond, saying whatever he pleased against me; as far as the issue itself was concerned, however, he was utterly deficient. While this could be very easily observed when the writings of each of us were compared, nonetheless, on account of those who were slower, I took care to demonstrate it by responding, and that is how a third book was added to this same work of ours.

This work begins in the first book in this way: “You know that we have often wanted.”

In the second in this way: “In the first sections of Petilian’s letter.”

And in the third in this way: “I have read your letter, Petilian.”

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