What I Wrote Against Vigilantius

You allude to Vigilantius. What dream you have dreamed about him I do not know. Where have I said that he was defiled by communion with heretics at Alexandria? Name the book, produce the letter; you will find no such statement at all. Yet with your usual carelessness in what you say, or rather your shameless lying, which makes you imagine that everyone will believe whatever you say, you add: “When you quoted a text of Scripture against him so insultingly that I dare not repeat it with my own mouth.” You do not dare to repeat it because you can make the charge seem worse by keeping silent. And since your accusation has no facts to stand on, you put on a show of modesty, so that the reader may imagine you are acting out of consideration for me, though your lies show that you have no consideration for your own soul. [a]

What is this text of Scripture too shameful to come out of that most shameless mouth of yours? What shameful thing, indeed, can you name in the sacred books? If you are ashamed to say it, at least you can write it down, and then I will be convicted of indecency by my own words. I might be silent on every other point and still prove from this single passage how brazen your impudence is. You know how little I fear your charges. If you produce the evidence you threaten me with, all the blame now resting on you will rest on me. I gave you my reply when I dealt with Vigilantius. For he brought against me the same charges that you bring, first in the guise of friendly praise and afterward in that of hostile accusation. I know who stirred up his ravings against me. I know your plots and your vices. I am not unaware of his simplicity, which everyone talks about. Through his folly your hatred of me found an outlet for its fury. And if I wrote a letter to put it down, so that you would not be thought the only one who owns a literary cudgel, that does not justify you in inventing shameful expressions that you can find nowhere in my writings. You must accept and admit that the same document which answered his madness also stirred up your slanders.