Letters (Epistulae)

...even anathematize him, now that he is dead. But nevertheless, we ought not to abandon the Church of Christ—which is formed not by litigious opinions but is proven by divine attestations—on account of any man whatsoever, because "it is good to trust in the Lord rather than 5 to trust in man."

Neither, if I may say so without injury to his innocence, did Christ lose His inheritance if Caecilian sinned. It is easy for a man to believe either true or false things about another man, but it is an act of wicked impudence to wish to condemn the communion of the whole world on account of the crimes of one man, which you cannot prove to the world.

5

Whether Caecilian was ordained by traditores those who surrendered sacred scriptures to persecutors, I do not know; I have not seen it, I have heard it from his enemies. It is not recited to me from the law of God, nor from the preaching of the prophets, nor from the holiness of the psalms, nor from the apostle of Christ, nor from the word of Christ. But the testimonies of all the scriptures, with a harmonious voice, proclaim the Church spread throughout the whole world, with which the party of Donatus does not communicate. "In your seed shall 17 all nations be blessed," the law of God said; "From the rising of the sun 19 even to its setting, a clean sacrifice is offered 20 to My name, because My name is glorified 21 among the nations," God said through the prophet; "He shall rule from 22 sea to sea, and from the river to the ends 23 of the earth," God said through the psalm; "Bearing fruit and 24 growing in the whole world," God said through the apostle; 25 "You shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea...

Scriptural references: Ps 117:8; Gen 22:18, 26:4; Mal 1:11; Ps 71:8; Col 1:6; Acts 1:8.