Letters (Epistulae)

Sometimes, however, as we have heard, some of them, wishing to win over the Goths—when they see that they have some power—say that they believe what they the Goths believe. But they are overcome by the authority of their own elders, because it is not asserted that Donatus himself believed in this way, of whose party they boast they are.

2 Do not let these things disturb you, most beloved son. For heresies and scandals were predicted to come, so that we might be disciplined among our enemies, and thus both our faith and our love might be more proven: faith, so that we may not be deceived by them; love, so that we may also provide for their correction as much as we can, not only by urging them so that they may not harm the weak and that they may be freed from their wicked error, but also by praying for them, so that the Lord may open their minds and they may understand the Scriptures, because in the holy books, where the Lord Christ is manifested, there also His Church is declared. But these men, in an amazing blindness, while they do not know Christ Himself except through the Scriptures, yet do not recognize His Church through the authority of the divine writings, but fashion it out of the vanity of human slanders.

3 They acknowledge Christ with us in the passage where it is read:

They pierced my hands and my feet; they have numbered all my bones. They have looked and stared at me; they divided my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast lots,

and they do not wish to recognize the Church in the passage that follows shortly after:

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and they shall worship in His presence.

Biblical references: 1 Cor 11:19; Ps 21:17-19; Ps 21:28-29.