Letter 1017: However attentive the servants of the Lord's vineyard may be in their constant work of planting, there are always...

Bishop Avitus to Stephanus, bishop of Lyon. However attentive the servants of the Lord's husbandry may be, amid their unceasing zeal for planting there always arise also things which it is expedient to cut away. Therefore, through the ever-watchful efforts of your solicitude, a most timely yield of salvation to be gained accrues from these labors. But amid the darnel of the Arian sprout, spread abroad (which is worse) by widespread corruption, I cannot guess from where the face of the enemy's seed has shown itself - not a new face, indeed, but a rare one - and what wind has carried contagions from across the sea to a world that was bright and clean. Yet with you steering the ship, propped up by no consolation, that plague is little to be feared. A storm gains no advantage from numbers, nor does a slight breeze accomplish a shipwreck. Therefore, lest the name of the Donatists [a North African schismatic sect] be able to live long in a foreign place, bury it at once with a life-giving blessing. In the very rising of its own kindling, let the flames of that wandering little fire grow cold. And lest even the smoke of rumor of this matter sprinkle the nostril of innocent Gaul, apply the laying on of hands to the person about whom you write, with any future mention of that name itself forbidden, if she is converted from the heart. For it is established that she was in truth confirmed, in the profession of the aforesaid schism, with the ministry of baptism and also with chrism [consecrated oil used in confirmation]. This at least it is clear they observe in that region: in which may God first grant that whoever have been of this error may be corrected; and next, that those who have been unwilling to be saved, being as far from us in homeland as the sect is distant, may not be able to cross over to our side to be acknowledged.

Avitus episcopus Stephano episcopo Lugdunensi. Quamlibet attentis culturae dominicae famulis inter adsidua plantandi studia sem- per etiam, quae succidi expediat, oriuntur. Ergo pervigilibus sollicitudinis vestrae studiis opportunissimum his operibus adquirendae salutis faenus adcrescit. Sed inter lolium Arriani germinis numerosa, quod peius est, corruptione diffusum conicere ne- queo, unde sese facies seminis inimici non quidem nova, sed rara monstraverit, quis transmarina contagia orbi nitido ventus attulerit. Sed navem gubernantibus vobis nullo fulta solamine parum luis ista metuenda est. Non habet de multitudine tempe- stas profectum, nec tenuis perficit aura naufragium. Quoeirca Donatistarum nomen ne diu in loco vivere possit alieno, benedictione protinus sepelite vitali. In ipso fomenti sui ortu peregrinantis igniculi frigescant incendia. De quo ne vel famae fumus narem Galliae innocentis adspergat, manus impositionem personae, de qua seribi- tis, adhibete, interdicta nominis ipsius in posterum, si ex corde convertitur, mentione. Quam constat revera in supradicti scismatis professione cum ministerio baptismatis etiam chrismate consignatam. Hoc certe eos in regione illa observare manifestum est: in qua primum deus tribuat, ut quicumque huius erroris fuerint, corrigantur; deinde a nobis quam secta distante tam patria, ut ad partem nostram, qui salvandi noluerint, agnoscendi transire non possint.