5.
"In the Lord," therefore, "I trust." Let them fear who trust in man, and cannot deny that they are of man's party, by whose grey hairs they swear; and when in conversation it is demanded of them, of what communion they are, unless they say that they are of his party, they cannot be recognised....Or perhaps you will say that it is written, "Ye shall know them by their works"? 1 I see indeed marvellous works the daily violences of the Circumcelliones, 2 with the bishops and presbyters for their leaders, flying about in every direction, and calling their terrible clubs "Israels;" which men now living daily see and feel. But for the times of Macarius, 3 respecting which they raise an invidious cry, 4 most men have not seen them, and no one sees them now: and any Catholic who saw them could say, if he wished to be a servant of God, "In the Lord I trust."...
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Matt. vii. 16. ↩
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[i.e., "Circum cellas rusticorum ientes." Concerning these miscreants, see enough in Smith's popular Student's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 250.--C.] ↩
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Of the mission of Macarius and Paulus into Africa by Constans, about A.D. 348, and the complaint of persecution, see S. Optatus, lib. 3, and St. Augustin, Ep. 44, etc.--Ben. ↩
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De quibus invidiam faciunt. ↩
