Letters (Epistulae)

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they had baptized while outside their own communion, they did not dare to rebaptize. This act of theirs began to carry great weight against them for the sake of the Catholic cause, so that their mouths were shut completely. When this matter was being spread abroad with urgency, as was proper, for the purpose of healing the minds of men from schism, and wherever 5

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whoever preached Catholic peace against their madness and refuted their insanity with clear truth. To such a degree was a harsh condition proposed, not only to laymen or any clerics whatsoever, but even to the Catholic bishops themselves; for either the truth had to be kept silent, or their 25 brutality had to be endured. But if the truth were kept silent, not only would no one have been freed by such silence, but many would have been lost through their seduction; yet if their fury were provoked to cruelty by the preaching of the truth, even though some were liberated and our own [followers] were strengthened again, fear might hinder the weak from following the truth.