Consentius, a layman from the Balearic Isles, relates that some people in Spain justify the leniency towards the Priscillianists by recalling the fact that Augustine and African bishops accepted ex-Donatists in their dignities. A letter of Consentius to Augustine, bishop of Hippo, AD 420 (Letter 11* in Augustine`s correspondence).
Intended for scholary use. For credentials see Bibliography
Letter 11*
25. Manifesto autem comperi esse nonnullos qui Priscillianistas obscenissimos atque sacrilegos beatitudinis uestrae tueantur exemplo; sicunt enim: Africani episcopi Donatistas quoquomodo ad se conuersos nequaquam gradu sacerdotii pepulerunt et hoc doctor illustris ac nobilis Augustinus immo ipsa Spiritus Sancti gratia quae per os eius loquitur credidit sanctificandum, cum apud nos tanta crudelitas sit, ut deprehensos in huius dogmatis crimine sacerdotes a sacerdotio detrudamus aut tam inconditam seueritatem iudicii statuamus, nemini eorum apud quos haec sacrilegia fuerint deprehensa nisi per poenitentiam fores ecclesiae reserandas.
(ed. Divjak 1981)
Letter 11*
25. But I have clearly found that there are some who protect the most obscene and sacrilegious Priscillianists by the example of Your Beatitude. For they say, "The African bishops did not remove the Donatists who returned to them from the rank of the priesthood, and indeed the illustrious and famous teacher Augustine, or rather the grace of the Holy Spirit which speaks through his mouth, believed that; but among us there is such great relentlessness that we remove from the priesthood priests proven guilty of the crime of holding this teaching and impose upon them a uniform severity of judgment, the sanction ought to be that, for none of them among whom these sacrileges have been discovered, will the doors of the Church be opened except through their doing penance."
(trans. R.Teske)
Discussion:
The letter of Consentius was preseved in the corpus of Augustine's letters. Although only "sacerdotes" are mentioned in the text, we know that the problem of accepting formerly heretic and schismatic clergy was not limited to bishops.
The letters of Augustine of Hippo cover a wide range of topics: Holy Scripture, dogma and liturgy, philosophy, religious practice and everyday life. They range from full-scale theological treatises to small notes asking someone for a favour. The preserved corpus includes 308 letters, 252 written by Augustine, 49 that others sent to him and seven exchanged between third parties. 29 letters have been discovered only in the 20th century and edited in 1981 by Johannes Divjak; they are distinguished by the asterisk (*) after their number.
The preserved letters of Augustine extend over the period from his stay at Cassiciacum in 386 to his death in Hippo in 430.
Edition:
J. Divjak ed., Sancti Aureli Augustini Epistolae ex duobus codicibus nuper in lucem prolatae, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 88, Vienna 1981.
J. Divjak ed., Saint Augustin. Lettres 1*-29*, Bibliothèque Augustinienne 46B. Paris 1987.
Saint Augustine, Letters 211–270, 1*–29*, trans. R. Teske. New York 2005.
Categories:
Religious grouping (other than Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian) - Donatist
Religious grouping (other than Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian) - Priscillianist
Change of denomination
Described by a title - Sacerdos/ἱερεύς
Impediments or requisits for the office - Heresy/Schism
Please quote this record referring to
its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
S. Adamiak, Presbyters
in the Late Antique West, ER385, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=385
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