A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

498 A Source Book for Ancient Church Historythis bodily mark, since we see that apostates do not lack baptism,and to them it is never given again when they return by means ofpenitence, and therefore it is judged not possible to lose it.(g) Augustine, Contra epistulam Manichæi, ch. 4 (5). (MSL,42:175.) Cf. Mirbt, n. 132.Authority of the Catholic Church.This work, written in 396 or 397, is important in this connectionas showing the place the Catholic Church took inthe mind of Augustine as an authority and the nature of thatauthority.Not to speak of that wisdom which you [the Manichæans] donot believe to be in the Catholic Church, there are many otherthings which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consentof people and nations keeps me in the Church; so does herauthority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlargedby love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me,beginning from the very seat of Peter the Apostle, to whom theLord after His resurrection gave it in charge to feed His sheepdown to the present episcopate. And so lastly does the name itselfof Catholic, which not without reason, amid so many heresies,that Church alone has so retained that, though all heretics wish tobe called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the CatholicChurch meets no heretic will venture to point to his own basilicaor house. Since then so many and so great are the very preciousties belonging to the Christian name which rightly keep a manwho is a believer in the Catholic Church … no one shall moveme from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and sostrong to the Christian religion.Let us see what Manichæus teaches us; and in particular letus examine that treatise which you call the Fundamental Epistle