Chapter 20.—22. Wherefore all this about the generation of vipers, and the poison of asps under their lips, and all the other things
which they have said against those which have not known the way of peace, are really, if they would but speak the truth, more
strictly applicable to themselves, since for the sake of the peace of Donatus they received the baptism of these men, in respect
of which they used the expressions quoted above in
the wording of the decree of the Council; but the baptism of the Church of Christ dispersed throughout the world, from which
peace itself came into Africa, they repudiate, to the sacrilegious wounding of the peace of Christ. Which, therefore, are
rather the false prophets, who come in sheep’s clothing, while inwardly they are ravening wolves,19551955
—they who either fail to detect the wicked in the Catholic Church, and communicate with them in all innocence, or else for
the sake of the peace of unity are bearing with those whom they cannot separate from the threshing-floor of the Lord before
the Winnower shall come, or they who do in schism what they censure in the Catholic Church, and receive in their own separation,
when manifest 527to all and condemned by their own voice, what they profess that they
shun in the unity of the Church when it calls for toleration, and does not even certainly exist?