21 Traditores sanctorum librorum.
25 Non convicti sed conficti traditores.
27 Ps. lviii. 1. Aug.: Si vere justitiam diligitis, recte judicate filii hominum. Cp. Hieron.: Si vere utique justitiam loquimini, recta judicate filii hominum.
30 Agrippinus was probably the second (some place him still earlier) bishop before Cyprian. He convened the council of 70 (disputed date), who were the first to take action in favor of rebaptism. Cp. Cypr. Ep. lxxi. 4, bonae memoriae vir. Cp. lxxiii. 3.
34 The former Council of Carthage was held by Agrippinus early in the third century, the ordinary date given 215-7 A.D.; others 186-7.
35 Tanquam lectulo auctoritatis.
37 Transmarinum vel universale Concilium.
38 The plenary Council, on whose authority Augustine relies in many places in this work, was either that of Arles, in 314 A.D., or of Nicaea, in 325 A.D., both of them being before his birth, in 354 A.D. He quotes the decision of the same council, contra Parmenianum, ii. 13, 30; de Haeresibus 69: Ep. xliii. 7, 19. Contra Parmenianum, iii. 4, 21: "They condemned," he says, "some few in Africa, by whom they were in turn vanquished by the judgment of the whole world;" and he adds, that "the Catholics trusted ecclesiastical judges like these in preference to the defeated parties in the suit." Ib. 6, 30: He says that the Donatists, "having made a schism in the unity of the Church, were refuted, not by the authority of 310 African bishops, but by that of the whole world." And in the sixth chapter of the first book of the same treatise, he says that the Donatists, after the decision at Arles, came again to Constantine, and there were defeated "by a final decision," i.e. at Milan, as is seen from Ep. xliii. 7, 20, in the year 316 A.D. Substance of note in Benedictine ed. reproduced in Migne..
43 Not Ps. ciii. 8, but lxxxvi. 15.
47 He is alluding to that chief schism among the Donatists, which occurred when Maximianus was consecrated bishop of Carthage, in opposition to Primianus, probably immediately after the Synod of Cabarsussum, 393.
48 Optatus, a Donatist bishop of Thamogade in Numidia, was called Gildonianus from his adherence to Gildo, Count of Africa, and generalissimo of the province under the elder Theodosius. On his death, in 395 A.D., Gildo usurped supreme authority, and by his aid Optatus was enabled to oppress the Catholics in the province, till, in 398 A.D., Gildo was defeated by his brother Mascezel, and destroyed himself, and Optatus was put in prison, where he died soon afterwards. He is not to be confounded with Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, the strenuous opponent of the Donatists.
49 The Council of Bagai. See above, I. v. 7.
52 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 23 to Jubaianus.
53 John xiii. 10. "Qui lotus est, non habet necessitatem iterum lavandi." The Latin, with the A.V., loses the distinction between o9 leloume/noj, "he that has bathed," and ni/ptein, "to wash:" and further wrongfully introduces the idea of repetition.
8 Epist. lxxiii. 23, to Jubianus.
9 Seventh Conc. Carth. under Cyprian, the third which dealt with baptism, A.D. 256, sec. 28. These opinions are quoted again in Books VI. and VII