Nicene/Post-Nicene, Series I, Volume 14

Augustine, A.D. 354 - 430

... The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate....
Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental, Chapter 4

3. ... Besides, we have also a beatitude for a confession in words: for we confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God; and Jesus declares with His own lips that this confession has a benediction, when He says to Peter, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."...
4. ... It is true, He said to Peter when he confessed Him to be the Son of God, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona."...
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book V, §§ 3, 4

2. ... In this respect the testimony of the Catholic Church is conspicuous, as supported by a succession of bishops from the original seats of the apostles up to the present time, and by the consent of so many nations. Accordingly, should there be a question about the text of some passage, as there are a few passages with various readings well known to students of the sacred Scriptures, we should first consult the manuscripts of the country where the religion was first taught; and if these still varied, we should take the text of the greater number, or of the more ancient. And if any uncertainty remained, we should consult the original text. This is the method employed by those who, in any question about the Scriptures, do not lose sight of the regard due to their authority ... .
5. ... In order to leave room for such profitable discussions of difficult questions, there is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind....
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XI, §§ 2, 5

9. ... But now, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and wishing to establish a righteousness of their own, proud of the works of the law, instead of being humbled on account of their sins, they have not been content; and in subjection to sin reigning in their mortal body, so as to make them obey it in the lusts thereof, they have stumbled on the stone of stumbling, and have been inflamed with hatred against him whose works they grieved to see accepted by God....
22. ... for they must understand that the sun, as also a lion, a lamb, and a stone, are used as types of Christ because they have some resemblance, not because they are of the same substance.
24. ... But observe what follows: "Now then;" he says, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone."... You occupy an unhappy middle position in a building of which Christ is not the chief corner-stone. For you do not belong to the wall of those who, like the apostles, being of the circumcision, believed in Christ; nor to the wall of those who, being of the uncircumcision, like all the Gentiles, are joined in the unity of faith, as in the fellowship of the corner-stone....
26. ... Who is the stone placed under Jacob's head, but Christ the head of man? And in its anointing the very name of Christ is expressed, for, as all know, Christ means anointed. Christ refers to this in the Gospel, and declares it to be a type of Himself, when He said of Nathanael that he was an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile, and when Nathanael, resting his head, as it were, on this Stone, or on Christ, confessed Him as the Son of God and the King of Israel anointing the Stone by his confession, in which he acknowledged Jesus to be Christ. On this occasion the Lord made appropriate mention of what Jacob saw in his dream "Verily I say unto you, Ye shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." This Jacob saw, who in the blessing was called Israel, when he had the stone for a pillow ... .
29. ... For they drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ." The explanation of one thing is a key to the rest. For if the rock is Christ from its stability, is not the manna Christ, the living bread which came down from heaven, which gives spiritual life to those who truly feed on it? The Israelites died because they received the figure only in its carnal sense. The apostle, by calling it spiritual food, shows its reference to Christ, as the spiritual drink is explained by the words, "That rock was Christ," which explain the whole....
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XII, §§ 9, 22, 24, 26, 29

... With a heart no longer stony, thou canst see in these stone tablets a suitableness to that hard-hearted people; and at the same time thou canst find even there the stone, thy Bridegroom, described by Peter as "a living stone, rejected by men, but chosen of God, and precious." To them He was "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence;" but to thee, "the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner."...
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XV, § 4

15. ... But there is the greatest possible distance between the Son of God, by whom all things were made, and a beast or a stone. And yet in the Gospel we read, "Behold the Lamb of God," and in the apostle, "That rock was Christ." This could not be said except on the supposition of some resemblance....
17. ... As, then, Moses, when he struck the rock with his rod, doubted the power of God, so the people who were under the law given by Moses, when they nailed Christ to the cross, did not believe Him to be the power of God. And as water flowed from the smitten rock for those that were athirst, so life comes to believers from the stroke of the Lord's passion. The testimony of the apostle is clear and decisive on this point, when he says, "This rock was Christ." In the command of God, that the death of the flesh of Moses should take place on the mountain, we see the divine appointment that the carnal doubt of the divinity of Christ should die on Christ's exaltation. As the rock is Christ, so is the mountain. The rock is the fortitude of His humiliation; the mountain the height of His exaltation. For as the apostle says, "This rock was Christ," so Christ Himself says, "A city set upon an hill cannot be hid," showing that He is the hill, and believers the city built upon the glory of His name. The carnal mind lives when, like the smitten rock, the humiliation of Christ on the cross is despised.... It was the carnal mind that made Peter dread the smiting of the rock, when, on the occasion of the Lord's foretelling His passion, he said, "Be it far from Thee, Lord; spare Thyself."...
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XVI, §§ 15, 17

... But in the case of those who had no such training, but were brought to Christ, the corner-stone, from the opposite wall of circumcision, there was no obligation to adopt Jewish customs....
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XIX, § 17

68. ... They may probably never have denied Christ even once; they may never have opposed His suffering for our salvation; they may never have forced the Gentiles to do as the Jews; and yet they shall not be honored equally with Peter, who, though he did all these things, will sit on one of the twelve thrones, and judge not only the twelve tribes, but the angels....
{Peter mentioned here as an equal with the twelve, and no other honor or primacy accorded to him.}
70. ... But that after this sin Peter should become a pastor of the Church was no more improper than that Moses, after smiting the Egyptian, should become the leader of the congregation....
89. ... and again, he explains the passage in the Psalms, where the Lord is called the cornerstone, as referring to His uniting in Himself the two walls of circumcision and uncircumcision ... .
90. ... The Lord, we know, builds the Church on a rock; and those who hear His word and do it, He compares to a wise man who builds his house upon a rock, and who does not yield or give way before temptation ... .
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XXII, §§ 68, 70, 89, 90

... For, allowing that the apostles did on that occasion require Christians to abstain from the blood of animals, and not to eat of things strangled, they seem to me to have consulted the time in choosing an easy observance that could not be burdensome to any one, and which the Gentiles might have in common with the Israelities, for the sake of the Corner-stone, who makes both one in Himself ... . But since the close of that period during which the two walls of the circumcision and the uncircumcision, although united in the Corner-stone, still retained some distinctive peculiarities ... .
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XXXII, § 13

... From all this it follows, that no one who has not yielded to the malicious and deceitful suggestions of lying devils, can be so blinded by passion as to deny the ability of the Church of the apostles - a community of brethren as numerous as they were faithful - to transmit their writings unaltered to posterity, as the original seats of the apostles have been occupied by a continuous succession of bishops to the present day ... .
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XXXIII, § 6

... For nothing is of any avail, save Thy surpassing mercy and power, and the truth of Thy baptism, and the keys of the kingdom of heaven in Thy holy Church; so that we must not despair ... .
Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichaeans, Chapter 48
{Here the keys (the power of binding and loosing) are regarded as being given to the entire Church, as in Matthew 18.18 - and not just to Peter and his descendants, as Rome claims.}

... in the Book of Psalms, "From the end of the earth I cried unto Thee, while my heart was in weariness: Thou didst exalt me on a rock." But the rock was Christ, in whom the apostle says that we are now raised up, and set together in heavenly places ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book I, Chapter 4, § 5

... "For neither did Peter, whom the Lord chose first, and on whom He built His Church, when Paul afterwards disputed with him about circumcision, claim or assume anything insolently and arrogantly to himself, so as to say that he held the primacy, and should rather be obeyed ... . Here is a passage in which Cyprian records what we also learn in holy Scripture, that the Apostle Peter, in whom the primacy of the apostles shines with such exceeding grace, was corrected by the later Apostle Paul ... . For who can be ignorant that the primacy of his apostleship is to be preferred to any episcopate whatever? But, granting the difference in the dignity of their sees, yet they have the same glory in their martyrdom.... Wherefore, if Peter, on doing this, is corrected by his later colleague Paul, and is yet preserved by the bond of peace and unity till he is promoted to martyrdom, how much more readily and constantly should we prefer, either to the authority of a single bishop, or to the Council of a single province, the rule that has been established by the statutes of the universal Church?...
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book II, Chapter 1, § 2
{The Retractations (I. xxi.) correct some points which had been held in this work. (1). According to the Ambrosian view, Augustin here identified Peter with the rock, on which the Church was to be built; but afterwards he regarded that rock as Christ, who was the subject of the Petrine confession; on Christ was the Church to be built, and to the Church as thus reared, were given the keys. See, for example, Vol VI, Sermon XXVI}

... For no one of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or, by tyrannical terror, forces his colleagues to a necessity of obeying, inasmuch as every bishop, in the free use of his liberty and power, has the right of forming his own judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he can himself judge another. But we must all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has the power both of setting us in the government of His Church, and of judging of our acts therein.'"
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book II, Chapter 2, § 3
{Augustine, quoting Cyprian at the Council of Carthage.}

... But who can fail to be aware that the sacred canon of Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, is confined within its own limits, and that it stands so absolutely in a superior position to all later letters of the bishops, that about it we can hold no manner of doubt or disputation whether what is confessedly contained in it is right and true; but that all the letters of bishops which have been written, or are being written, since the closing of the canon, are liable to be refuted if there be anything contained in them which strays from the truth, either by the discourse of some one who happens to be wiser in the matter than themselves, or by the weightier authority and more learned experience of other bishops, by the authority of Councils; and further, that the Councils themselves, which are held in the several districts and provinces, must yield, beyond all possibility of doubt, to the authority of plenary Councils which are formed for the whole Christian world; and that even of the plenary Councils, the earlier are often corrected by those which follow them, when, by some actual experiment, things are brought to light which were before concealed, and that is known which previously lay hid, and this without any whirlwind of sacrilegious pride, without any puffing of the neck through arrogance, without any strife of envious hatred, simply with holy humility, catholic peace, and Christian charity?
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book II, Chapter 3, § 4
{Augustine here states that the rule was, first, the superiority of the Scriptures to over-rule all later inventions. Second, all matters were to be decided by councils. This is evident testimony that 'traditions' were not held on par with the Scriptures, nor was the bishop of Rome considered supreme.}

5. Wherefore the holy Cyprian, whose dignity is only increased by his humility, who so loved the pattern set by Peter as to use the words, "Giving us thereby a pattern of concord and patience, that we should not pertinaciously love our own opinions, but should rather account as our own any true and rightful suggestions of our brethren and colleagues, for the common health and weal," ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book II, Chapter 4, § 5

... "For no one of us," he says, "setteth himself up as a bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror forces his colleagues to a necessity of obeying."...
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book III, Chapter 3, § 5
{Augustine, quoting Cyprian at the Council of Carthage.}

22. "For as regards the fact that to preserve the figure of unity the Lord gave the power to Peter that whatsoever he should loose on earth should be loosed," it is clear that that unity is also described as one dove without fault....
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book III, Chapter 17, § 22

... He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."... For the rock retains, the rock remits; the dove retains, the dove remits; unity retains, unity remits....
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book III, Chapter 18, § 23

... but the gift of the life of happiness is found alone within the Church, which has been founded on a rock, which has received the keys of binding and loosing....
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book IV, Chapter 1, § 1
{Again here, the keys, the power of binding and loosing, are acknowledged to have been given to the Church, as in Matthew 18.18, and not to Peter alone.}

42. Fortunatus of Thuccabori said: "Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the Son of God the Father and Creator, built His Church upon a rock, not upon heresy ... .
43. ... Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the Son of God the Father and Creator, built His Church upon a rock, not upon iniquity, and gave the power of baptizing to bishops, not to the unrighteous. Wherefore those who do not belong to the rock on which they build, who hear the word of God and do it, but, living contrary to Christ in hearing the word and not doing it, and hereby building on the sand ... .
44. ... as he himself makes mention of the rock on which the Church is built, are not they in the Church who are on the rock, and they who are not on the rock, not in the Church either. Now, therefore, let us see whether they build their house upon a rock who hear the words of Christ and do them not. The Lord Himself declares the contrary, saying, "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock;" and a little later, "Every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand." If, therefore, the Church is on a rock, those who are on the sand, because they are outside the rock, are necessarily outside the Church. Let us recollect, therefore, how many Cyprian mentions as placed within who build upon the sand, that is, who hear the words of Christ and do them not. And therefore, because they are on the sand, they are proved to be outside the rock ... .
45. ... he who heard the said words and did them built upon a rock, and he who heard them and did them not built upon the sand?... and therefore they seemed indeed to be within, but really were without, because they were not on that rock by which the Church is signified.
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VI, Chapter 24, §§ 42, 43, 44, 45

... I therefore give my judgment that the unrighteous, those objects for our tears, and masses of corruption, if they have been already baptized, should not be baptized again when they begin to come to the Church, that is, to that rock outside which are all who hear the words of Christ and do them not; but being already washed with the sacred and divine laver, and now further enlightened with the light of truth, should be received into the Church ... . And by the Church I mean that rock, that dove, that garden enclosed and fountain sealed ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VI, Chapter 29, § 56

... Whom the Church baptizes, those that rock baptizes outside which are all they who hear the words of Christ and do them not....
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VI, Chapter 30, § 58

... If they are Christians, why are they not on that rock on which the Church is built? for they hear the words of Christ and do them not....
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VI, Chapter 31, § 60

... that it might be said that all unrighteous persons who come to that rock, in which is understood the Church, should be baptized, so that the unrighteous mind, which was building outside the rock upon the sand by hearing the words of Christ and not doing them, might be reformed when cleansed by the sanctification of the laver ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VI, Chapter 33, § 64

... as neither is it in the saints alone who are built upon the rock, and of whom that one dove is composed.
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VI, Chapter 34, § 66

... all are aliens from the Church who are not on the rock, nor belong to the members of the dove ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VI, Chapter 40, § 78

... For those envious ones also who are of the party of the devil, though placed within the Church, as Cyprian tells us, and who were well known to the Apostle Paul, had baptism, but did not belong to the members of that dove which is safely sheltered on the rock.
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VI, Chapter 41, § 80

... For if those who are baptized without the Church are not washed, but defiled, assuredly those who are baptized outside the rock on which the Church is built are not washed, but defiled. But all are without the said rock who hear the words of Christ and do them not....
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 6, § 11

... Either the rock is the Church, or the sand is the Church....
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 8, § 15

... How then comes it that it may be where the rock is not, but only sand; seeing that the Church is on the rock, and not on sand?
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 31, § 61

... when they shall begin to pass from unrighteousness to righteousness, that is, from the sand to the rock.... neither is there the same hope in the unrighteous, so long as they are on the sand, as there is in those who are upon the rock ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 37, § 73

... But they are outside the rock, to which the Lord gave the keys, and on which He said that He would build His Church.
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 43, § 85

... when they are transferred to the rock, and joined to the society of the Dove, let them receive the remission of their sins, which they could not have outside the rock and outside the Dove ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 44, § 87

... they come to the Church, who pass to Christ from the party of the devil, and build upon the rock, and are incorporated with the Dove, and are placed in security in the garden enclosed and fountain sealed ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 49, § 97

... I think that I am not rash in saying that there are some in the house of God after such a fashion as not to be themselves the very house of God, which is said to be built upon a rock ... which house also received the keys, and the power of binding and loosing ... .
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 51, § 99
{Again, here, the keys, the power of binding and loosing, are said to be given to the Church, as in Matthew 18.18, rather than to only Peter, as Rome would claim.}

... But in that they were otherwise minded we feel no fear, seeing that we too share in their veneration for Peter; yet in that they did not depart from unity we rejoice, seeing that we, like them, are founded on the rock.
On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book VII, Chapter 54, § 103

... For that Church is founded on a rock, as the Lord says, "Upon this rock I will build my Church." But they build on the sand, as the same Lord says, "Every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand." But that you may not suppose that the Church which is upon a rock is in one part only of the earth, and does not extend even to its furthest boundaries, hear her voice groaning from the psalm, amid the evils of her pilgrimage. For she says, "From the end of the earth have I cried unto Thee; when my heart was distressed Thou didst lift me up upon the rock; Thou hast led me, Thou, my hope, hast become a tower of courage from the face of the enemy."... See how she is exalted on a rock. All, therefore, are not to be deemed to be in her which build upon the sand, that is, which hear the words of Christ and do them not ... .
In Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist, Bishop of Cirta, Book II, Chapter 109, § 247

... the keys that were given to the Church, of which we have the testimony of Scripture: "Whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."...
A Treatise Concerning the Correction of the Donatists, Chapter 10, § 45

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