CLXXXV.

1 1 I praise, I congratulate, and I admire, most beloved son Bonifatius, that amidst the cares of wars and arms you vehemently desire to know the things which are of God. Truly, from this it appears that even your military virtue serves the faith you possess in Christ. Therefore, to briefly explain to your charity what the difference is between the error of the Arians and that of the Donatists: the Arians say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of different substances, whereas the Donatists do not say this, but confess one substance of the Trinity. And if some of them have said that the Son is less than the Father, they have not denied that he is of the same substance; yet many among them say they believe entirely about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit what the Catholic Church believes. Nor does the question with them turn upon this point, but they litigate unhappily only about communion, and they practice hostile rebellions against the unity of Christ through the perversity of their own error.

Critical apparatus: M = Munich codex 6266, 10th c.; A = Saint-Omer codex 76, 10th-11th c.; C = Monte Cassino codex 161, 11th c.; P = Paris new acquisition 1444, 11th c.; R = British Museum Reg. 5 D VI, 11th-12th c.; K = Cologne fragment 118, 10th-11th c. Reference to Augustine's "Retractationes" II 48: "At that same time I also wrote the book On the Correction of the Donatists for those who did not wish them to be corrected by imperial laws. This book begins: 'I praise, I congratulate, and I admire'."