one, that the authority of the blessed Cyprian for the maintenance
of the bond of peace, and the avoiding of any violation of that most
wholesome charity which preserves unity in the Church, may be urged on
our side rather than on the side of the Donatists. For if they have
chosen to act upon his example in rebaptizing Catholics, because he
thought that heretics ought to be baptized on joining the Catholic
Church, shall not we rather follow his example, whereby he laid down
a manifest rule that one ought in no wise, by the establishment of a
separate communion, to secede from the Catholic communion, that is,
from the body of Christians dispersed throughout the world, even on the
admission of evil and sacrilegious men, since he was unwilling even to
remove from the right of communion those whom he considered to have
received sacrilegious men without baptism into the Catholic communion,
saying, "Judging no one, nor depriving any of the right of communion if
he differ from us?"[114]
* * * * *
CHAP. II.--2. Nevertheless, I see what may still be required of me,
viz. that I should answer those plausible arguments, by which, in even
earlier times, Agrippinus, or Cyprian himself, or those in Africa
who agreed with them, or any others in far distant lands beyond the
sea, were moved, not indeed by the authority of any general or even
provincial Council, but by a mere epistolary correspondence, to
think that they ought to adopt a custom which had no sanction from
the ancient custom of the Church, and which was expressly forbidden
by the most unanimous resolution of the Catholic world, in order that
an error which had begun to creep into the minds of some men, through
discussions of this kind, might be cured by the more powerful truth
and universal healing power of unity coming on the side of safety. And
so they may see with what security I approach this discourse. If I am
unable to gain my point, and show how those arguments may be refuted
which they bring forward from the Council and the epistles of Cyprian,
to the effect that Christ's baptism may not be given by the hands of
heretics, I shall still remain safely in the Church, in whose communion
Cyprian himself remained with those who differed from him.
3. But if they say that the Catholic Church existed then, because
there were a few, or, if they prefer it, even a considerable number,
who denied the validity of any baptism conferred in an heretical body,
and baptized all who came from thence, what then? Did the Church not
exist at all before Agrippinus, with whom that new kind of system
began, at variance with all previous custom? Or how, again, after
the time of Agrippinus, when, unless there had been a return to the
primitive custom, there would have been no need for Cyprian to set on
foot another Council? Was there no Church then, because such a custom
as this prevailed everywhere, that the baptism of Christ should be
considered nothing but the baptism of Christ, even though it were
proved to have been conferred in a body of heretics or schismatics?
But if the Church existed even then, and had not perished through
a breach of its continuity, but was, on the contrary, holding its
ground, and receiving increase in every nation, surely it is the
safest plan to abide by this same custom, which then embraced good
and bad alike in unity. But if there was then no Church in existence,
because sacrilegious heretics were received without baptism, and this
prevailed by universal custom, whence has Donatus made his appearance?
from what land did he spring? or from what sea did he emerge? or
from what sky did he fall? And so we, as I had begun to say, are
safe in the communion of that Church, throughout the whole extent of
which the custom now prevails, which prevailed in like manner through
its whole extent before the time of Agrippinus, and in the interval
between Agrippinus and Cyprian, and whose unity neither Agrippinus
nor Cyprian ever deserted, nor those who agreed with them, although
they entertained different views from the rest of their brethren,--all
of them remaining in the same communion of unity with the very men
from whom they differed in opinion. But let the Donatists themselves
consider what their true position is, if they neither can say whence
they derived their origin, if the Church had already been destroyed by
the plague-spot of communion with heretics and schismatics received
into her bosom without baptism; nor again agree with Cyprian himself,
for he declared that he remained in communion with those who received
heretics and schismatics, and so also with those who were received as
well: while they have separated themselves from the communion of the
whole world, on account of the charge of having delivered up the sacred
books, which they brought against the men whom they maligned in Africa,
but failed to convict when brought to trial beyond the sea; although,
even had the crimes which they alleged been true, they were much less
heinous than the sins of heresy and schism; and yet these could not
defile Cyprian in the persons of those who came from them without
baptism, as he conceived, and were admitted without baptism into the
Catholic communion. Nor, in the very point in which they say that they
imitate Cyprian, can they find any answer to make about acknowledging
the baptism of the followers of Maximianus, together with those whom,
though they belonged to the party that they had first condemned in
their own general Council, and then gone on to prosecute even at the
tribunal of the secular power, they yet received back into their
communion, in the episcopate of the very same bishop under whom they
had been condemned. Wherefore, if the communion of wicked men destroyed
the Church in the time of Cyprian, they have no source from which they
can derive their own communion; and if the Church was not destroyed,
they have no excuse for their separation from it. Moreover, they
are neither following the example of Cyprian, since they have burst
the bond of unity, nor abiding by their own Council, since they have
recognised the baptism of the followers of Maximianus.
* * * * *
CHAP. III--4. Let us therefore, seeing that we adhere to the example of
Cyprian, go on now to consider Cyprian's Council. What says Cyprian?
"Ye have heard," he says, "most beloved colleagues, what Jubaianus
our fellow-bishop has written to me, consulting my moderate ability
concerning the unlawful and profane baptism of heretics, and what
answer I gave him,--giving a judgment which we have once and again and
often given, that heretics coming to the Church ought to be baptized
and sanctified with the baptism of the Church. Another letter of
Jubaianus has likewise been read to you, in which, agreeably to his
sincere and religious devotion, in answer to our epistle, he not only
expressed his assent, but returned thanks also, acknowledging that
he had received instruction."[115] In these words of the blessed
Cyprian, we find that he had been consulted by Jubaianus, and what
answer he had given to his questions, and how Jubaianus acknowledged
with gratitude that he had received instruction. Ought we then to be
thought unreasonably persistent, if we desire to consider this same
epistle by which Jubaianus was convinced? For till such time as we are
also convinced (if there are any arguments of truth whereby this can
be done), Cyprian himself has established our security by the right of
Catholic communion.
5. For he goes on to say: "It remains that we severally declare our
opinion on this same subject, judging no one, nor depriving any one
of the right of communion if he differ from us."[115] He allows me,
therefore, without losing the right of communion, not only to continue
inquiring into the truth, but even to hold opinions differing from his
own. "For no one of us," he says, "setteth himself up as a bishop of
bishops, or by tyrannical terror forceth his colleagues to a necessity
of obeying." What could be more kind? what more humble? Surely there
is here no authority restraining us from inquiry into what is truth.
"Inasmuch as every bishop," he says, "in the free use of his liberty
and power, has the right of forming his own judgment, and can no
more be judged by another than he can himself judge another,"--that
is, I suppose, in those questions which have not yet been brought to
perfect clearness of solution; for he knew what a deep question about
the sacrament was then occupying the whole Church with every kind of
disputation, and gave free liberty of inquiry to every man, that the
truth might be made known by investigation. For he was surely not
uttering what was false, and trying to catch his simpler colleagues in
their speech, so that, when they should have betrayed that they held
opinions at variance with his, he might then propose, in violation of
his promise, that they should be excommunicated. Far be it from a soul
so holy to entertain such accursed treachery; indeed, they who hold
such a view about such a man, thinking that it conduces to his praise,
do but show that it would be in accordance with their own nature. I
for my part will in no wise believe that Cyprian, a Catholic bishop, a
Catholic martyr, whose greatness only made him proportionately humble
in all things, so as to find favour before the Lord,[116] should ever,
especially in the sacred Council of his colleagues, have uttered with
his mouth what was not echoed in his heart, especially as he further
adds, "But we must all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
alone has the power both of setting us in the government of His Church,
and of judging of our acts therein."[117] When, then, he called to
their remembrance so solemn a judgment, hoping to hear the truth from
his colleagues, would he first set them the example of lying? May God
avert such madness from every Christian man, and how much more from
Cyprian! We have therefore the free liberty of inquiry granted to us by
the most moderate and most truthful speech of Cyprian.
* * * * *
CHAP. IV.--6. Next his colleagues proceed to deliver their several
opinions. But first they listened to the letter written to Jubaianus;
for it was read, as was mentioned in the preamble. Let it therefore
be read among ourselves also, that we too, with the help of God,
may discover from it what we ought to think. "What!" I think I hear
some one saying, "do you proceed to tell us what Cyprian wrote to
Jubaianus?" I have read the letter, I confess, and should certainly
have been a convert to his views, had I not been induced to consider
the matter more carefully by the vast weight of authority, originating
in those whom the Church, distributed throughout the world amid so
many nations, of Latins, Greeks, barbarians, not to mention the Jewish
race itself, has been able to produce,--that same Church which gave
birth to Cyprian himself,--men whom I could in no wise bring myself
to think had been unwilling without reason to hold this view,--not
because it was impossible that in so difficult a question the opinion
of one or of a few might not have been more near the truth than that
of more, but because one must not lightly, without full consideration
and investigation of the matter to the best of his abilities, decide in
favour of a single individual, or even of a few, against the decision
of so very many men of the same religion and communion, all endowed
with great talent and abundant learning. And so how much was suggested
to me on more diligent inquiry, even by the letter of Cyprian himself,
in favour of the view which is now held by the Catholic Church, that
the baptism of Christ is to be recognised and approved, not by the
standard of their merits by whom it is administered, but by His alone
of whom it is said, "The same is He which baptizeth,"[118] will be
shown naturally in the course of our argument. Let us therefore suppose
that the letter which was written by Cyprian to Jubaianus has been read
among us, as it was read in the Council.[119] And I would have every
one read it who means to read what I am going to say, lest he might
possibly think that I have suppressed some things of consequence. For
it would take too much time, and be irrelevant to the elucidation of
the matter in hand, were we at this moment to quote all the words of
this epistle.
* * * * *
CHAP. V.--7. But if any one should ask what I hold in the meantime,
while discussing this question, I answer that, in the first place, the
letter of Cyprian suggested to me what I should hold till I should see
clearly the nature of the question which next begins to be discussed.
For Cyprian himself says: "But some will say, 'What then will become
of those who in times past, coming to the Church from heresy, were
admitted without baptism?'"[120] Whether they were really without
baptism, or whether they were admitted because those who admitted them
conceived that they had partaken of baptism, is a matter for our future
consideration. At any rate, Cyprian himself shows plainly enough what
was the ordinary custom of the Church, when he says that in past time
those who came to the Church from heresy were admitted without baptism.
8. For in the Council itself Castus of Sicca says: "He who, despising
truth, presumes to follow custom, is either envious or evil-disposed
towards the brethren to whom the truth is revealed, or is ungrateful
towards God, by whose inspiration His Church is instructed."[121]
Whether the truth had been revealed, we shall investigate hereafter; at
any rate, he acknowledges that the custom of the Church was different.
* * * * *
CHAP. VI.--9. Libosus also of Vaga says: "The Lord says in the gospel,
'I am the Truth.'[122] He does not say, 'I am custom.' Therefore,
when the truth is made manifest, custom must give way to truth."[123]
Clearly no one could doubt that custom must give way to truth where it
is made manifest. But we shall see presently about the manifestation
of the truth. Meanwhile he also makes it clear that custom was on the
other side.
* * * * *
CHAP. VII.--10. Zosimus also of Tharassa said: "When a revelation of
the truth has been made, error must give way to truth; for even Peter,
who at the first circumcised, afterwards gave way to Paul when he
declared the truth."[124] He indeed chose to say error, not custom; but
in saying "for even Peter, who at the first circumcised, afterwards
gave way to Paul when he declared the truth," he shows plainly enough
that there was a custom also on the subject of baptism at variance
with his views. At the same time, also, he warns us that it was not
impossible that Cyprian might have held an opinion about baptism at
variance with that required by the truth, as held by the Church both
before and after him, if even Peter could hold a view at variance with
the truth as taught us by the Apostle Paul.[125]
* * * * *
CHAP. VIII.--11. Likewise Felix of Buslacene said: "In admitting
heretics without the baptism of the Church, let no one prefer custom
to reason and truth; because reason and truth always prevail to the
exclusion of custom."[126] Nothing could be better, if it be reason,
and if it be truth; but this we shall see presently. Meanwhile, it is
clear from the words of this man also that the custom was the other way.
* * * * *
CHAP. IX.--12. Likewise Honoratus of Tucca said: "Since Christ is
the Truth, we ought to follow truth rather than custom."[127] By all
these declarations it is proved that we are not excluded from the
communion of the Church, till it shall have been clearly shown what
is the nature of the truth, which they say must be preferred to our
custom. But if the truth has made it clear that the very regulation
ought to be maintained which the said custom had prescribed, then it
is evident, both that this custom was not established or confirmed in
vain, and also that, in consequence of the discussions in question,
the most wholesome observance of so great a sacrament, which could
never, indeed, have been changed in the Catholic Church, was even
more watchfully guarded with the most scrupulous caution, when it had
received the further corroboration of Councils.
* * * * *
CHAP. X.--13. Therefore Cyprian writes to Jubaianus as follows,
"concerning the baptism of heretics, who, being placed without, and set
down out of the Church," seem to him to "claim to themselves a matter
over which they have neither right nor power. Which we," he says,
"cannot account valid or lawful, since it is clear that among them it
is unlawful."[128] Neither, indeed, do we deny that a man who is baptized
among heretics, or in any schism outside the Church, derives no profit
from it so far as he is partner in the perverseness of the heretics
and schismatics; nor do we hold that those who baptize, although they
confer the real true sacrament of baptism, are yet acting rightly,
in gathering adherents outside the Church, and entertaining opinions
contrary to the Church. But it is one thing to be without a sacrament,
another thing to be in possession of it wrongly, and to usurp it
unlawfully. Therefore they do not cease to be sacraments of Christ
and the Church, merely because they are unlawfully used, not only
by heretics, but by all kinds of wicked and impious persons. These,
indeed, ought to be corrected and punished, but the sacraments should
be acknowledged and revered.
14. Cyprian, indeed, says that on this subject not one, but two or
more Councils were held; always, however, in Africa. For indeed in one
he mentions that seventy-one bishops had been assembled,[128]--to all
whose authority we do not hesitate, with all due deference to Cyprian,
to prefer the authority, supported by many more bishops, of the whole
Church spread throughout the whole world, of which Cyprian himself
rejoiced that he was an inseparable member.
15. Nor is the water "profane and adulterous"[128] over which the name
of God is invoked, even though it be invoked by profane and adulterous
persons; because neither the creature itself of water, nor the name
invoked, is adulterous. But the baptism of Christ, consecrated by
the words of the gospel, is necessarily holy, however polluted and
unclean its ministers may be; because its inherent sanctity cannot be
polluted, and the divine excellence abides in its sacrament, whether
to the salvation of those who use it aright, or to the destruction
of those who use it wrong. Would you indeed maintain that, while the
light of the sun or of a candle, diffused through unclean places,
contracts no foulness in itself therefrom, yet the baptism of Christ
can be defiled by the sins of any man, whatsoever he may be? For if we
turn our thoughts to the visible materials themselves, which are to
us the medium of the sacraments, every one must know that they admit
of corruption. But if we think on that which they convey to us, who
can fail to see that it is incorruptible, however much the men through
whose ministry it is conveyed are either being rewarded or punished for
the character of their lives?
* * * * *
CHAP. XI.--16. But Cyprian was right in not being moved by what
Jubaianus wrote, that "the followers of Novatian rebaptize those who
come to them from the Catholic Church."[129] For, in the first place,
it does not follow that whatever heretics have done in a perverse
spirit of mimicry, Catholics are therefore to abstain from doing,
because the heretics do the same. And again, the reasons are different
for which heretics and the Catholic Church ought respectively to
abstain from rebaptizing. For it would not be right for heretics to
do so, even if it were fitting in the Catholic Church; because their
argument is, that among the Catholics is wanting that which they
themselves received whilst still within the pale, and took away with
them when they departed. Whereas the reason why the Catholic Church
should not administer again the baptism which was given among heretics,
is that it may not seem to decide that a power which is Christ's
alone belongs to its members, or to pronounce that to be wanting in
the heretics which they have received within her pale, and certainly
could not lose by straying outside. For thus much Cyprian himself,
with all the rest, established, that if any should return from heresy
to the Church, they should be received back, not by baptism, but by
the discipline of penitence; whence it is clear that they cannot be
held to lose by their secession what is not restored to them when they
return. Nor ought it for a moment to be said that, as their heresy is
their own, as their error is their own, as the sacrilege of disunion is
their own, so also the baptism is their own, which is really Christ's.
Accordingly, while the evils which are their own are corrected when
they return, so in that which is not theirs His presence should be
recognised, from whom it is.
* * * * *
CHAP. XII.--17. But the blessed Cyprian shows that it was no new or
sudden thing that he decided, because the practice had already begun
under Agrippinus. "Many years," he says, "and much time has passed away
since, under Agrippinus of honoured memory, a large assembly of bishops
determined this point." Accordingly, under Agrippinus, at any rate, the
thing was new. But I cannot understand what Cyprian means by saying,
"And thenceforward to the present day, so many thousand heretics in our
provinces, having been converted to our Church, showed no hesitation
or dislike, but rather with full consent of reason and will, have
embraced the opportunity of the grace of the laver of life and the
baptism unto salvation,"[130] unless indeed he says, "thenceforward to
the present day," because from the time when they were baptized in the
Church, in accordance with the Council of Agrippinus, no question of
excommunication had arisen in the case of any of the rebaptized. Yet
if the custom of baptizing those who came over from heretics remained
in force from the time of Agrippinus to that of Cyprian, why should
new Councils have been held by Cyprian on this point? Why does he say
to this same Jubaianus that he is not doing anything new or sudden,
but only what had been established by Agrippinus? For why should
Jubaianus be disturbed by the question of novelty, so as to require to
be satisfied by the authority of Agrippinus, if this was the continuous
practice of the Church from Agrippinus till Cyprian? Why, lastly, did
so many of his colleagues urge that reason and truth must be preferred
to custom, instead of saying that those who wished to act otherwise
were acting contrary to truth and custom alike?
* * * * *
CHAP. XIII.--18. But as regards the remission of sins, whether it is
granted through baptism at the hands of the heretics, I have already
expressed my opinion on this point in a former book,[131] but I will
shortly recapitulate it here. If remission of sins is there conferred
by the sacredness of baptism, the sins return again through obstinate
perseverance in heresy or schism; and therefore such men must needs
return to the peace of the Catholic Church, that they may cease to
be heretics and schismatics, and deserve that those sins which had
returned on them should be cleansed away by love working in the bond
of unity. But if, although among heretics and schismatics it be still
the same baptism of Christ, it yet cannot work remission of sins owing
to this same foulness of discord and wickedness of dissent, then the
same baptism begins to be of avail for the remission of sins when they
come to the peace of the Church,--[not][132] that what has been
already truly remitted should not be retained; nor that heretical
baptism should be repudiated as belonging to a different religion, or
as being different from our own, so that a second baptism should be
administered; but that the very same baptism, which was working death
by reason of discord outside the Church, may work salvation by reason
of the peace within. It was, in fact, the same savour of which the
apostle says, "We are a sweet savour of Christ in every place;" and
yet, says he, "both in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
To the one we are the savour of life unto life; and to the other the
savour of death unto death."[133] And although he used these words with
reference to another subject, I have applied them to this, that men may
understand that what is good may not only work life to those who use it
aright, but also death to those who use it wrong.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIV.--19. Nor is it material, when we are considering the
question of the genuineness and holiness of the sacrament, "what
the recipient of the sacrament believes, and with what, faith he is
imbued." It is of the very highest consequence as regards the entrance
into salvation, but is wholly immaterial as regards the question of
the sacrament. For it is quite possible that a man may be possessed of
the genuine sacrament and a corrupted faith, as it is possible that he
may hold the words of the creed in their integrity, and yet entertain
an erroneous belief about the Trinity, or the resurrection, or any
other point. For it is no slight matter, even within the Catholic
Church, to hold faith entirely consistent with the truth about even
God Himself, to say nothing of any of His creatures. Is it then to be
maintained, that if any one who has been baptized within the Catholic
Church itself should afterwards, in the course of reading, or by
listening to instruction, or by quiet argument, find out, through God's
own revelation, that he had before believed otherwise than he ought,
it is requisite that he should therefore be baptized afresh? But what
carnal and natural man is there who does not stray through the vain
conceits[134] of his own heart, and picture God's nature to himself to
be such as he has imagined out of his carnal sense, and differ from the
true conception of God as far as vanity from truth? Most truly, indeed,
speaks the apostle, filled with the light of truth: "The natural man,"
says he, "receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God."[135] And
yet herein he was speaking of men whom he himself shows to have been
baptized. For he says to them, "Was Paul crucified for you? or were
ye baptized in the name of Paul?"[136] These men had therefore the
sacrament of baptism; and yet, inasmuch as their wisdom was of the
flesh, what could they believe about God otherwise than according to
the perception of their flesh, according to which "the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God?" To such he says: "I
could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even
as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat:
for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
For ye are yet carnal."[137] For such are carried about with every
wind of doctrine, of which kind he says, "That we be no more children,
tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine."[138]
Is it then true that, if these men shall have advanced even to the
spiritual age of the inner man, and in the integrity of understanding
shall have learned how far different from the requirements of the
truth has been the belief which they have been led by the fallacious
character of their conceits to entertain of God, they are therefore to
be baptized again? For, on this principle, it would be possible for a
Catholic catechumen to light upon the writings of some heretic, and,
not having the knowledge requisite for discerning truth from error,
he might entertain some belief contrary to the Catholic faith, yet
not condemned by the words of the creed, just as, under colour of the
same words, innumerable heretical errors have sprung up. Supposing,
then, that the catechumen was under the impression that he was studying
the work of some great and learned Catholic, and was baptized with
that belief in the Catholic Church, and by subsequent research should
discover what he ought to believe, so that, embracing the Catholic
faith, he should reject his former error, ought he, on confessing
this, to be baptized again? Or supposing that, before learning and
confessing this for himself, he should be found to entertain such an
opinion, and should be taught what he ought to reject and what he
should believe, and it were to become clear that he had held this
false belief when he was baptized, ought he therefore to be baptized
again? Why should we maintain the contrary? Because the sanctity of
the sacrament, consecrated in the words of the gospel, remains upon
him in its integrity, just as he received it from the hands of the
minister, although he, being firmly rooted in the vanity of his carnal
mind, entertained a belief other than was right at the time when he
was baptized. Wherefore it is manifest that it is possible that, with
defective faith, the sacrament of baptism may yet remain without defect
in any man; and therefore all that is said about the diversity of the
several heretics is beside the question. For in each person that is to
be corrected which is found to be amiss by the man who undertakes his
correction. That is to be made whole which is unsound; that is to be
given which is wanting, and, above all, the peace of Christian charity,
without which the rest is profitless. Yet, as the rest is there, we
must not administer it as though it were wanting, only take care that
its possession be to the profit, not the hurt of him who has it,
through the very bond of peace and excellence of charity.
* * * * *
CHAP. XV.--20. Accordingly, if Marcion consecrated the sacrament of
baptism with the words of the gospel, "In the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,"[139] the sacrament was complete,
although his faith expressed under the same words, seeing that he
held opinions not taught by the Catholic truth, was not complete, but
stained with the falsity of fables.[140] For under these same words,
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,"
not Marcion only, or Valentinus, or Arius, or Eunomius, but the carnal
babes of the Church themselves (to whom the apostle said, "I could not
speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal"), if they could
be individually asked for an accurate exposition of their opinions,
would probably show a diversity of opinions as numerous as the persons
who held them, "for the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God." Can it, however, be said on this account that they do
not receive the complete sacrament? or that, if they shall advance,
and correct the vanity of their carnal opinions, they must seek again
what they had received? Each man receives after the fashion of his own
faith; yet how much does he obtain under the guidance of that mercy
of God, in the confident assurance of which the same apostle says,
"If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this
to you?"[141] Yet the snares of heretics and schismatics prove for
this reason only too pernicious to the carnally-minded, because their
very progress is intercepted when their vain opinions are confirmed
in opposition to the Catholic truth, and the perversity of their
dissension is strengthened against the Catholic peace. Yet if the
sacraments are the same, they are everywhere complete, even when they
are wrongly understood, and perverted to be instruments of discord,
just as the very writings of the gospel, if they are only the same,
are everywhere complete, even though quoted with a boundless variety
of false opinions. For as to what Jeremiah says--"Why do those who
grieve me prevail against me? My wound is stubborn, whence shall I
be healed? In its origin it became unto me as lying water, having no
certainty,"[142]--if the term "water" were never used figuratively and
in the allegorical language of prophecy except to signify baptism, we
should have trouble in discovering what these words of Jeremiah meant;
but as it is, when "waters" are expressly used in the Apocalypse[143]
to signify "peoples," I do not see why, by "lying water having no
certainty," I should not understand, "a lying people, whom I cannot
trust."
* * * * *
CHAP. XVI.--21. But when it is said that "the Holy Spirit is given
only in the Catholic Church," I suppose that our ancestors meant that
we should understand thereby what the apostle says, "Because the love
of God is spread abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given
unto us."[144] For this is that very love which is wanting in all who
are cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church; and for lack
of this, "though they speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
though they understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though they
have the gift of prophecy, and all faith, so that they could remove
mountains, and though they bestow all their goods to feed the poor,
and though they give their bodies to be burned, it profiteth them
nothing."[145] But those are wanting in God's love who do not care for
the unity of the Church; and consequently we are right in understanding
that the Holy Spirit may be said not to be received except in the
Catholic Church. For the Holy Spirit is not only given by the laying
on of hands amid the testimony of temporal sensible miracles, as He
was given in former days to be the credentials of a rudimentary faith,
and for the extension of the first beginnings of the Church. For who
expects in these days that those on whom hands are laid that they may
receive the Holy Spirit should forthwith begin to speak with tongues?
but it is understood that invisibly and imperceptibly, on account of
the bond of peace, divine love is breathed into their hearts, so that
they may be able to say, "Because the love of God is spread abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." But there are
many operations of the Holy Spirit, which the same apostle commemorates
in a certain passage at such length as he thinks sufficient, and then
concludes: "But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit,
dividing to every man severally as He will."[146] Since, then, the
sacrament is one thing, which even Simon Magus could have;[147] and the
operation of the Spirit is another thing, which is even often found in
wicked men, as Saul had the gift of prophecy;[148] and that operation
of the same Spirit is a third thing, which only the good can have, as
"the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a
good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:"[149] whatever, therefore, may
be received by heretics and schismatics, the charity which covereth the
multitude of sins is the especial gift of Catholic unity and peace; nor
is it found in all that are within that bond, since not all that are
within it are of it, as we shall see in the proper place. At any rate,
outside the bond that love cannot exist, without which all the other
requisites, even if they can be recognised and approved, cannot profit
or release from sin. But the laying on of hands in reconciliation to
the Church is not, like baptism, incapable of repetition; for what is
it more than a prayer offered over a man?[150]
* * * * *
CHAP. XVII.--22. "For as regards the fact that to preserve the figure
of unity the Lord gave the power to Peter that whatsoever he should
loose on earth should be loosed,"[151] it is clear that that unity is
also described as one dove without fault.[152] Can it be said, then,
that to this same dove belong all those greedy ones, whose existence in
the same Catholic Church Cyprian himself so grievously bewailed? For
birds of prey, I believe, cannot be called doves, but rather hawks. How
then did they baptize those who used to plunder estates by treacherous
deceit, and increase their profits by compound usury,[153] if baptism
is only given by that indivisible and chaste and perfect dove, that
unity which can only be understood as existing among the good? Is it
possible that, by the prayers of the saints who are spiritual within
the Church, as though by the frequent lamentations of the dove, a great
sacrament is dispensed, with a secret administration of the mercy of
God, so that their sins also are loosed who are baptized, not by the
dove but by the hawk, if they come to that sacrament in the peace of
Catholic unity? But if this be so, why should it not also be the case
that, as each man comes from heresy or schism to the Catholic peace,
his sins should be loosed through their prayers? But the integrity of
the sacrament is everywhere recognised, though it will not avail for
the irrevocable remission of sins outside the unity of the Church. Nor
will the prayers of the saints, or, in other words, the groanings of
that one dove, be able to help one who is set in heresy or schism; just
as they are not able to help one who is placed within the Church, if by
a wicked life he himself retain the debts of his sins against himself,
and that though he be baptized, not by this hawk, but by the pious
ministry of the dove herself.
* * * * *
CHAP. XVIII.--23. "As my Father hath sent me," says our Lord, "even so
send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith
unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they
are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are
retained."[154] Therefore, if they represented the Church, and this was
said to them as to the Church herself, it follows that the peace of
the Church looses sins, and estrangement from the Church retains them,
not according to the will of men, but according to the will of God and
the prayers of the saints who are spiritual, who "judge all things,
but themselves are judged of no man."[155] For the rock retains, the
rock remits; the dove retains, the dove remits; unity retains, unity
remits. But the peace of this unity exists only in the good, in those
who are either already spiritual, or are advancing by the obedience
of concord to spiritual things; it exists not in the bad, whether
they make disturbances abroad, or are endured within the Church with
lamentations, baptizing and being baptized. But just as those who
are tolerated with groanings within the Church, although they do not
belong to the same unity of the dove, and to that "glorious Church,
not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing,"[156] yet if they are
corrected, and confess that they approached to baptism most unworthily,
are not baptized again, but begin to belong to the dove, through whose
groans those sins are remitted which were retained in them who were
estranged from her peace; so those also who are more openly without the
Church, if they have received the same sacraments, are not freed from
their sins on coming, after correction, to the unity of the Church,
by a repetition of baptism, but by the same law of charity and bond
of unity. For if "those only may baptize who are set over the Church,
and established by the law of the gospel and ordination as appointed
by the Lord," were they in any wise of this kind who seized on estates
by treacherous frauds, and increased their gains by compound interest?
I trow not, since those are established by ordination as appointed of
the Lord, of whom the apostle, in giving them a standard, says, "Not
greedy, not given to filthy lucre."[157] Yet men of this kind used to
baptize in the time of Cyprian himself; and he confesses with many
lamentations that they were his fellow-bishops, and endures them with
the great reward of tolerance. Yet did they not confer remission of
sins, which is granted through the prayers of the saints, that is, the
groans of the dove, whoever it be that baptizes, if those to whom it
is given belong to her peace. For the Lord would not say to robbers
and usurers, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they shall be remitted to
him; and whose soever sins ye retain, they shall be retained." "Outside
the Church, indeed, nothing can be either bound or loosed, since there
there is no one who can either bind or loose;" but he is loosed who has
made peace with the dove, and he is bound who is not at peace with the
dove, whether he is openly without, or appears to be within.
24. But we know that Dathan, Korah, and Abiram,[158] who tried to usurp
to themselves the right of sacrificing, contrary to the unity of the
people of God, and also the sons of Aaron who offered strange fire
upon the altar,[159] did not escape punishment. Nor do we say that
such offences remain unpunished, unless those guilty of them correct
themselves, if the patience of God leading them to repentance[160] give
them time for correction.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIX.--25. They indeed who say that baptism is not to be repeated,
because only hands were laid on those whom Philip the deacon had
baptized,[161] are saying what is quite beside the point; and far be it
from us, in seeking the truth, to use such arguments as this. Wherefore
we are all the further from "yielding to heretics,"[162] if we deny
that what they possess of Christ's Church is their own property, and
do not refuse to acknowledge the standard of our General because of
the crimes of deserters; nay, all the more because "the Lord our God
is a jealous God,"[163] let us refuse, whenever we see anything of His
with an alien, to allow him to consider it his own. For of a truth the
jealous God Himself rebukes the woman who commits fornication against
Him, as the type of an erring people, and says that she gave to her
lovers what belonged to Him, and again received from them what was not
theirs but His. In the hands of the adulterous woman and the adulterous
lovers, God in His wrath, as a jealous God, recognises His gifts; and
do we say that baptism, consecrated in the words of the gospel, belongs
to heretics? and are we willing, from consideration of their deeds,
to attribute to them even what belongs to God, as though they had the
power to pollute it, or as though they could make what is God's to be
their own, because they themselves have refused to belong to God?
26. Who is that adulterous woman whom the prophet Hosea points out,
who said, "I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my
water, my wool and my flax, and everything that befits me?"[164] Let
us grant that we may understand this also of the people of the Jews
that went astray; yet whom else are the false Christians (such as are
all heretics and schismatics) wont to imitate, except false Israelites?
For there were also true Israelites, as the Lord Himself bears witness
to Nathanael, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile."[165]
But who are true Christians, save those of whom the same Lord said,
"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth
me?"[166] But what is it to keep His commandments, except to abide in
love? Whence also He says, "A new commandment I give unto you, that
ye love one another;" and again, "By this shall all men know that ye
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."[167] But who can
doubt that this was spoken not only to those who heard His words with
their fleshly ears when He was present with them, but also to those who
learn His words through the gospel, when He is sitting on His throne
in heaven? For He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil.[168] But
the fulfilling of the law is love.[169] And in this Cyprian abounded
greatly, insomuch that though he held a different view concerning
baptism, he yet did not forsake the unity of the Church, and was in the
Lord's vine a branch firmly rooted, bearing fruit, which the heavenly
Husbandman purged with the knife of suffering, that it should bear
more fruit.[170] But the enemies of this brotherly love, whether they
are openly without, or appear to be within, are false Christians, and
antichrists. For when they have found an opportunity, they go out, as
it is written: "A man wishing to separate himself from his friends,
seeketh opportunities."[171] But even if occasions are wanting, while
they seem to be within, they are severed from that invisible bond of
love. Whence St. John says, "They went out from us, but they were not
of us; for had they been of us, they would no doubt have continued
with us."[172] He does not say that they ceased to be of us by going
out, but that they went out because they were not of us. The Apostle
Paul also speaks of certain men who had erred concerning the truth,
and were overthrowing the faith of some; whose word was eating as a
canker. Yet in saying that they should be avoided, he nevertheless
intimates that they were all in one great house, but as vessels to
dishonour,--I suppose because they had not as yet gone out. Or if
they had already gone out, how can he say that they were in the same
great house with the honourable vessels, unless it was in virtue of
the sacraments themselves, which even in the severed meetings of
heretics are not changed, that he speaks of all as belonging to the
same great house, though in different degrees of esteem, some to honour
and some to dishonour? For thus he speaks in his Epistle to Timothy:
"But shun profane and vain babblings; for they will increase unto
more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker; of whom
is Hymenæus and Philetus; who concerning the truth have erred, saying
that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth firm, having this seal, The
Lord knoweth them that are His. And, Let every one that nameth the name
of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only
vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some
to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from
these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the
master's use, and prepared unto every good work."[173] But what is it
to purge oneself from such as these, except what he said just before,
"Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity?"
And lest any one should think that, as being in one great house with
them, he might perish with such as these, he has most carefully
forewarned them, "The Lord knoweth them that are His,"--those, namely,
who, by departing from iniquity, purge themselves from the vessels made
to dishonour, lest they should perish with them whom they are compelled
to tolerate in the great house.
27. They, therefore, who are wicked, evil-doers, carnal, fleshly,
devilish, think that they receive at the hands of their seducers what
are the gifts of God alone, whether sacraments, or any spiritual
workings about present salvation. But these men have not love towards
God, but are busied about those by whose pride they are led astray,
and are compared to the adulterous woman, whom the prophet introduces
as saying, "I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my
water, my wool and my flax, and my oil, and everything that befits me."
For thus arise heresies and schisms, when the fleshly people which
is not founded on the love of God says, "I will go after my lovers,"
with whom, either by corruption of her faith, or by the puffing up of
her pride, she shamefully commits adultery. But for the sake of those
who, having undergone the difficulties, and straits, and barriers of
the empty reasoning of those by whom they are led astray, afterwards
feel the prickings of fear, and return to the way of peace, to seeking
God in all sincerity,--for their sake He goes on to say, "Therefore,
behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she
shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but
she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but she shall
not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first
husband; for then was it better with me than now." Then, that they
may not attribute to their seducers what they have that is sound, and
derived from the doctrine of truth, by which they lead them astray
to the falseness of their own dogmas and dissensions; that they may
not think that what is sound in them belongs to them, he immediately
added, "And she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil,
and multiplied her money; but she made vessels of gold and silver for
Baal."[174] For she had said above, "I will go after my lovers, that
give me my bread," etc., not at all understanding that all this, which
was held soundly and lawfully by her seducers, was of God, and not of
men. Nor would even they themselves claim these things for themselves,
and as it were assert a right in them, had not they in turn been led
astray by a people which had gone astray, when faith is reposed in
them, and such honours are paid to them, that they should be enabled
thereby to say such things, and claim such things for themselves, that
their error should be called truth, and their iniquity be thought
righteousness, in virtue of the sacraments and Scriptures, which they
hold, not for salvation, but only in appearance. Accordingly, the same
adulterous woman is addressed by the mouth of Ezekiel: "Thou hast also
taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given
thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom
with them; and tookest my[175] broidered garments, and coveredst them:
and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. My meat also
which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed
thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and this
thou hast done."[176] For she turns all the sacraments, and the words
of the sacred books, to the images of her own idols, with which her
carnal mind delights to wallow. Nor yet, because those images are
false, and the doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy,[177]
are those sacraments and divine utterances therefore so to lose their
due honour, as to be thought to belong to such as these; seeing that
the Lord says, "Of my gold, and my silver, and my broidered garments,
and mine oil, and mine incense, and my meat," and so forth. Ought we,
because those erring ones think that these things belong to their
seducers, therefore not to recognise whose they really are, when He
Himself says, "And she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine,
and oil, and multiplied her money?" For He did not say that she did
not have these things because she was an adulteress; but she is said
to have had them, and that not as belonging to herself or her lovers,
but to God, whose alone they are. Although, therefore, she had her
fornication, yet those things wherewith she adorned it, whether as
seduced or in her turn seducing, belonged not to her, but to God. If
these things were spoken in a figure of the Jewish nation, when the
scribes and Pharisees were rejecting the commandment of God in order to
set up their own traditions, so that they were in a manner committing
whoredom with a people which was abandoning their God; and yet for all
that, whoredom at that time among the people, such as the Lord brought
to light by convicting it, did not cause that the mysteries should
belong to them, which were not theirs but God's, who, in speaking to
the adulteress, says that all these things were His; whence the Lord
Himself also sent those whom He cleansed from leprosy to the same
mysteries, that they should offer sacrifice for themselves before the
priests, because that sacrifice had not become efficacious for them,
which He Himself afterwards wished to be commemorated in the Church
for all of them, because He Himself proclaimed the tidings to them
all;--if this be so, how much the more ought we, when we find the
sacraments of the New Testament among certain heretics or schismatics,
not to attribute them to these men, nor to condemn them, as though we
could not recognise them? We ought to recognise the gifts of the true
husband, though in the possession of an adulteress, and to amend, by
the word of truth, that whoredom which is the true possession of the
unchaste woman, instead of finding fault with the gifts, which belong
entirely to the pitying Lord.
28. From these considerations, and such as these, our forefathers, not
only before the time of Cyprian and Agrippinus, but even afterwards,
maintained a most wholesome custom, that whenever they found anything
divine and lawful remaining in its integrity even in the midst of any
heresy or schism, they approved rather than repudiated it; but whatever
they found that was alien, and peculiar to that false doctrine or
division, this they convicted in the light of the truth, and healed.
The points, however, which remain to be considered in the letter
written by Jubaianus, must, I think, when looking at the size of this
book, be taken in hand and treated with a fresh beginning.
FOOTNOTES:
[114] See above, II. ii. 3.
[115] See above, II. ii. 3.
[116] Ecclus. iii. 18.
[117] See above, II. ii. 3.
[118] John i. 33.
[119] The Council of Carthage.
[120] _Epist._ lxxiii. sec. 20, to Jubaianus.
[121] Conc. Carth. sec. 28.
[122] John xiv. 6.
[123] Conc. Carth. sec. 30.
[124] _Ib._ sec. 56.
[125] Gal. ii. 11-14.
[126] Conc. Carth. sec. 63.
[127] _Ib._ sec. 77.
[128] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 1.
[129] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 2.
[130] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 3.
[131] Above, Book I. c. xi. foll.
[132] Non ut jam vere dimissa non retineantur. One of the negatives
here appears to be superfluous, and the former is omitted in Amerbach's
edition, and in many of the MSS., which continue the sentence, "non
ut ille baptismus," instead of "neque ut ille," etc. If the latter
negative were omitted, the sense would be improved, and "neque" would
appropriately remain.
[133] 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.
[134] Phantasmata.
[135] 1 Cor. ii. 14.
[136] 1 Cor. i. 13.
[137] 1 Cor. iii. 1-3.
[138] Eph. iv. 14.
[139] Matt. xxviii. 19.
[140] Cp. _Concilium Arelatense_, can. 8. "De Afris, quod propria lege
utuntur ut rebaptizent; placuit ut si ad ecclesiam aliquis de hæresi
venerit, interrogent eum symbolum; et si perviderint eum in Patre, et
Filio, et Spiritu sancto esse baptizatum, manus ei tantum imponatur, ut
accipiat Spiritum sanctum. Quod si interrogatus non responderit hanc
Trinitatem, baptizetur."
[141] Phil. iii. 15.
[142] Jer. xv. 18, quoted from the LXX.
[143] Rev. xvii. 15.
[144] Rom. v. 5.
[145] 1 Cor. xiii. 1-3.
[146] 1 Cor. xii. 11.
[147] Acts viii. 13.
[148] 1 Sam. x. 6, 10.
[149] 1 Tim. i. 5.
[150] He refers to laying on of hands such as he mentions below, Book
v. c. xxiii.: "If hands were not laid on one who returned from heresy,
he would be judged to be free from all fault."
[151] Matt. xvi. 19.
[152] Song of Sol. vi. 9.
[153] Cypr. _de Lapsis_, c. 4.
[154] John xx. 21-23.
[155] 1 Cor. ii. 15.
[156] Eph. v. 27. Cp. _Retract._ ii. 18, quoted above on I. xvii.
[157] Tit. i. 7.
[158] Num. xvi.
[159] Lev. x. 1, 2.
[160] Rom. ii. 4.
[161] Acts viii. 5-17.
[162] Because Cyprian, in his letter to Jubaianus (_Ep._ lxxiii. sec.
8), had urged as following from this, that "there is no reason, dearest
brother, why we should think it right to yield to heretics that baptism
which was granted to the one and only Church."
[163] Deut. iv. 24.
[164] Hos. ii. 5, from the LXX.
[165] John i. 47.
[166] John xiv. 21.
[167] John xiii. 34, 35.
[168] Matt. v. 17.
[169] Rom. xiii. 10.
[170] John xv. 1-5.
[171] Prov. xviii. 1, from the LXX.
[172] 1 John ii. 19.
[173] 2 Tim. ii. 16-21.
[174] Hos. ii. 5-8, from the LXX.
[175] In the LXX., as well as in the English version, this is in the
second person: [Greek: ton imatismon ton poikilon sou].
[176] Ezek. xvi. 17-19.
[177] 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2.
BOOK FOURTH.
IN WHICH HE TREATS OF WHAT FOLLOWS IN THE SAME EPISTLE OF CYPRIAN TO
JUBAIANUS.
CHAP. I.--1. The comparison of the Church with Paradise[178] shows us
that men may indeed receive her baptism outside her pale, but that
no one outside can either receive or retain the salvation of eternal
happiness. For, as the words of Scripture testify, the streams from
the fountain of Paradise flowed copiously even beyond its bounds.
Record indeed is made of their names; and through what countries they
flow, and that they are situated beyond the limits of Paradise, is
known to all;[179] and yet in Mesopotamia, and in Egypt, to which
countries those rivers extended, there is not found that blessedness
of life which is recorded in Paradise. Accordingly, though the waters
of Paradise are found beyond its boundaries, yet its happiness is in
Paradise alone. So, therefore, the baptism of the Church may exist
outside, but the gift of the life of happiness is found alone within
the Church, which has been founded on a rock, which has received the
keys of binding and loosing.[180] "She it is alone who holds as her
privilege the whole power of her Bridegroom and Lord;" by virtue of
which power as bride, she can bring forth sons even of handmaids. And
these, if they be not high-minded, shall be called into the lot of the
inheritance; but if they be high-minded, they shall remain outside.
* * * * *
CHAP. II.--2. All the more, then, because we are fighting for the
honour and unity of the Church, let us beware of giving to heretics
the credit of whatever we acknowledge among them as belonging to the
Church; but let us teach them by argument, that what they possess that
is derived from unity is of no efficacy to their salvation, unless they
shall return to that same unity. For "the water of the Church is full
of faith, and salvation, and holiness" to those who use it rightly. No
one, however, can use it well outside the Church. But to those who use
it perversely, whether within or without the Church, it is employed to
work punishment, and does not conduce to their reward. And so baptism
"cannot be corrupted and polluted," though it be handled by the corrupt
or by adulterers, just as also "the Church herself is uncorrupt, and
pure, and chaste." And so no share in it belongs to the avaricious, or
thieves, or usurers,--many of whom, by the testimony of Cyprian himself
in many places of his letters, exist not only without, but actually
within the Church,--and yet they both are baptized and do baptize, with
no change in their hearts.
3. For this, too, he says, in one of his epistles[181] to the clergy on
the subject of prayer to God, in which, after the fashion of the holy
Daniel, he represents the sins of his people as falling upon himself.
For among many other evils of which he makes mention, he speaks of
them also as "renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds;" as
the apostle says of certain men, "They profess that they know God, but
in works they deny Him."[182] These, therefore, the blessed Cyprian
shows to be contained within the Church herself, who are baptized
without their hearts being changed for the better, seeing that they
renounce the world in words and not in deeds, as the Apostle Peter
says, "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth now save us, (not
the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good
conscience),"[183] which certainly they had not of whom it is said that
they "renounced the world in words only, and not in deeds;" and yet he
does his utmost, by chiding and convincing them, to make them at length
walk in the way of Christ, and be His friends rather than friends of
the world.
* * * * *
CHAP. III.--3. And if they would have obeyed him, and begun to live
rightly, not as false but as true Christians, would he have ordered
them to be baptized anew? Surely not; but their true conversion would
have gained this for them, that the sacrament which availed for their
destruction while they were yet unchanged, should begin when they
changed to avail for their salvation.
4. For neither are they "devoted to the Church"[184] who seem to
be within, and live contrary to Christ, that is, act against His
commandments; nor can they be considered in any way to belong to that
Church, which He so purifies by the washing of water, "that He may
present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle,
or any such thing."[185] But if they are not in that Church to whose
members they do not belong, they are not in the Church of which it is
said, "My dove is but one; she is the only one of her mother;"[186]
for she herself is without spot or wrinkle. Or else let him who can
assert that those are members of this dove who renounce the world in
words but not in deeds. Meantime there is one thing which we see,
from which I think it was said, "He that regardeth the day, regardeth
it unto the Lord;"[187] for God judgeth every day. For, according
to His foreknowledge, who knows whom He has foreordained before the
foundation of the world to be made like to the image of His Son, many
who are even openly outside, and are called heretics, are better
than many good Catholics. For we see what they are to-day, what they
shall be to-morrow we know not. And with God, with whom the future is
already present, they already are what they shall hereafter be. But
we, according to what each man is at present, inquire whether they are
to be to-day reckoned among the members of the Church which is called
the one dove, and the Bride of Christ without spot or wrinkle,[188] of
whom Cyprian says in the letter which I have quoted above, that "they
did not keep in the way of the Lord, nor observe the commandments given
unto them for their salvation; that they did not fulfil the will of
their Lord, being eager about their property and gains, following the
dictates of pride, giving way to envy and dissension, careless about
single-mindedness and faith, renouncing the world in words only and not
in deeds, pleasing each himself, and displeasing all men."[189] But if
the dove does not acknowledge them among her members, and if the Lord
shall say to them, supposing that they continue in the same perversity,
"I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity;"[190] then
they seem indeed to be in the Church, but are not; "nay, they even act
against the Church. How then can they baptize with the baptism of the
Church,"[191] which is of avail neither to themselves, nor to those
who receive it from them, unless they are changed in heart with a true
conversion, so that the sacrament itself, which did not avail them when
they received it whilst they were renouncing the world in words and not
in deeds, may begin to profit them when they shall begin to renounce it
in deeds also? And so too in the case of those whose separation from
the Church is open; for neither these nor those are as yet among the
members of the dove, but some of them perhaps will be at some future
time.
* * * * *
CHAP. IV.--5. We do not, therefore, "acknowledge the baptism of
heretics,"[192] when we refuse to rebaptize after them; but because
we acknowledge the ordinance to be of Christ, even among evil men,
whether openly separated from us, or secretly severed whilst within our
body, we receive it with due respect, having corrected those who were
wrong in the points wherein they went astray. For as I seem to be hard
pressed when it is said to me, "Does then a heretic confer remission of
sins?" so I in turn press hard when I say, Does then he who violates
the commands of Heaven, the avaricious man, the robber, the usurer, the
envious man, does he who renounces the world in words and not in deeds,
confer such remission? If you mean by the force of God's sacrament,
then both the one and the other; if by his own merit, neither of them.
For that sacrament, even in the hands of wicked men, is known to be
of Christ; but neither the one nor the other of these men is found in
the body of the one uncorrupt, holy, chaste dove, which has neither
spot nor wrinkle. And just as baptism is of no profit to the man who
renounces the world in words and not in deeds, so it is of no profit
to him who is baptized in heresy or schism; but each of them, when he
amends his ways, begins to receive profit from that which before was
not profitable, but was yet already in him.
6. "He therefore that is baptized in heresy does not become the temple
of God;"[193] but does it therefore follow that he is not to be
considered as baptized? For neither does the avaricious man, baptized
within the Church, become the temple of God, unless he depart from his
avarice; for they who become the temple of God certainly inherit the
kingdom of God. But the apostle says, among many other things, "Neither
the covetous, nor thieves, shall inherit the kingdom of God."[194] For
in another place the same apostle compares covetousness to the worship
of idols: "Nor covetous man," he says, "who is an idolater;"[195] which
meaning the same Cyprian has so far extended in a letter to Antonianus,
that he did not hesitate to compare the sin of covetousness with that
of men who in time of persecution had declared in writing that they
would offer incense.[196] The man, then, who is baptized in heresy in
the name of the Holy Trinity yet does not become the temple of God
unless he abandons his heresy, just as the covetous man who has been
baptized in the same name does not become the temple of God unless he
abandons his covetousness, which is idolatry. For this, too, the same
apostle says: "What agreement hath the temple of God with idols?"[197]
Let it not, then, be asked of us "of what God he is made the
temple?"[193] when we say that he is not made the temple of God at all.
Yet he is not therefore unbaptized, nor does his foul error cause that
what he has received, consecrated in the words of the gospel, should
not be the holy sacrament; just as the other man's covetousness (which
is idolatry) and great uncleanness cannot prevent what he receives from
being holy baptism, even though he be baptized with the same words of
the gospel by another man covetous like himself.
* * * * *
CHAP. V.--7. "Further," Cyprian goes on to say, "in vain do some, who
are overcome by reason, oppose to us custom, as though custom were
superior to truth, or that were not to be followed in spiritual things
which has been revealed by the Holy Spirit, as the better way."[198]
This is clearly true, since reason and truth are to be preferred to
custom. But when truth supports custom, nothing should be more strongly
maintained. Then he proceeds as follows: "For one may pardon a man
who merely errs, as the Apostle Paul says of himself, 'Who was before
a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious; but I obtained mercy,
because I did it ignorantly;'[199] but he who, after inspiration and
revelation given, perseveres advisedly and knowingly in his former
error, sins without hope of pardon on the ground of ignorance. For he
rests on a kind of presumption and obstinacy, when he is overcome by
reason." This is most true, that his sin is much more grievous who has
sinned wittingly than his who has sinned through ignorance. And so
in the case of the holy Cyprian, who was not only learned, but also
patient of instruction, which he so fully himself understood to be a
part of the praise of the bishop whom the apostle describes,[200] that
he said, "This also should be approved in a bishop, that he not only
teach with knowledge, but also learn with patience."[201] I do not
doubt that if he had had the opportunity of discussing this question,
which has been so long and so much disputed in the Church, with the
pious and learned men to whom we owe it that subsequently that ancient
custom was confirmed by the authority of a general Council, he would
have shown, without hesitation, not only how learned he was in those
things which he had grasped with all the security of truth, but also
how ready he was to receive instruction in what he had failed to
perceive. And yet, since it is so clear that it is much more grievous
to sin wittingly than in ignorance, I should be glad if any one would
tell me which is the worse,--the man who falls into heresy, not
knowing how great a sin it is, or the man who refuses to abandon his
covetousness, knowing its enormity. I might even put the question
thus: If one man unwittingly fall into heresy, and another knowingly
refuse to depart from idolatry, since the apostle himself says, "The
covetous man, which is an idolater;" and Cyprian too understood the
same passage in just the same way, when he says, in his letter to
Antonianus, "Nor let the new heretics flatter themselves in this,
that they say they do not communicate with idolaters, whereas there
are amongst them both adulterers and covetous persons, who are held
guilty of the sin of idolatry; 'for know this, and understand, that no
whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater,
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God;'[202] and
again, 'Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth;
fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence,
and covetousness, which is idolatry.'"[203] I ask, therefore, which
sins more deeply,--he who ignorantly has fallen into heresy, or he
who wittingly has refused to abandon covetousness, that is idolatry?
According to that rule by which the sins of those who sin wittingly
are placed before those of the ignorant, the man who is covetous with
knowledge takes the first place in sin. But as it is possible that
the greatness of the actual sin should produce the same effect in the
case of heresy that the witting commission of the sin produces in
that of covetousness, let us suppose the ignorant heretic to be on a
par in guilt with the consciously covetous man, although the evidence
which Cyprian himself has advanced from the apostle does not seem to
prove this. For what is it that we abominate in heretics except their
blasphemies? But when he wished to show that ignorance of the sin may
conduce to ease in obtaining pardon, he advanced a proof from the
case of the apostle, when he says, "Who before was a blasphemer, and
a persecutor, and injurious; but I obtained mercy, because I did it
ignorantly."[204] But if possible, as I said before, let the sins of
the two men--the blasphemy of the unconscious, and the idolatry of the
conscious sinner--be esteemed of equal weight; and let them be judged
by the same sentence,--he who, in seeking for Christ, falls into a
truth-like setting forth of what is false, and he who wittingly resists
Christ speaking through His apostle, "seeing that no whoremonger,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man, which is an idolater, hath any
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God,"[205]--and then I
would ask why baptism and the words of the gospel are held as naught in
the former case, and accounted valid in the latter, when each is alike
found to be estranged from the members of the dove. Is it because the
former is an open combatant outside, that he should not be admitted,
the latter a cunning assenter within the fold, that he may not be
expelled?
* * * * *
CHAP. VI.--8. But as regards his saying, "Nor let any one affirm that
what they have received from the apostles, that they follow; for
the apostles handed down only one Church and one baptism, and that
appointed only in the same Church;"[206] this does not so much move
me to venture to condemn the baptism of Christ when found amongst
heretics (just as it is necessary to recognise the gospel itself when
I find it with them, though I abominate their error), as it warns
me that there were some even in the times of the holy Cyprian who
traced to the authority of the apostles that custom against which the
African Councils were held, and in respect of which he himself said
a little above, "In vain do those who are beaten by reason oppose to
us the authority of custom." Nor do I find the reason why the same
Cyprian found this very custom, which after his time was confirmed
by nothing less than a general Council of the whole world, already
so strong before his time, that when with all his learning he sought
an authority worth following for changing it, he found nothing but a
Council of Agrippinus held in Africa a very few years before his own
time. And seeing that this was not enough for him, as against the
custom of the whole world, he laid hold on these reasons which we
just now, considering them with great care, and being confirmed by
the antiquity of the custom itself, and by the subsequent authority
of a general Council, found to be truth-like rather than true; which,
however, seemed to him true, as he toiled in a question of the greatest
obscurity, and was in doubt about the remission of sins,--whether it
could fail to be given in the baptism of Christ, and whether it could
be given among heretics. In which matter, if an imperfect revelation
of the truth was given to Cyprian, that the greatness of his love in
not deserting the unity of the Church might be made manifest, there is
yet not any reason why any one should venture to claim superiority over
the strong defences and excellence of his virtues, and the abundance of
graces which were found in him, merely because, with the instruction
derived from the strength of a general Council, he sees something which
Cyprian did not see, because the Church had not yet held a general
Council on the matter. Just as no one is so insane as to set himself up
as surpassing the merits of the Apostle Peter, because, taught by the
epistles of the Apostle Paul, and confirmed by the custom of the Church
herself, he does not compel the Gentiles to Judaize, as Peter once had
done.[207]
9. We do not then "find that any one, after being baptized among
heretics, was afterwards admitted by the apostles with the same
baptism, and communicated;"[208] but neither do we find this, that
any one coming from the society of heretics, who had been baptized
among them, was baptized anew by the apostles. But this custom, which
even then those who looked back to past ages could not find to have
been invented by men of a later time, is rightly believed to have
been handed down from the apostles. And there are many other things
of the same kind, which it would be tedious to recount. Wherefore, if
they had something to say for themselves to whom Cyprian, wishing to
persuade them of the truth of his own view, says, "Let no one say,
What we have received from the apostles, that we follow," with how
much more force we now say, What the custom of the Church has always
held, what this argument has failed to prove false, and what a general
Council has confirmed, this we follow! To this we may add that it may
also be said, after a careful inquiry into the reasoning on both sides
of the discussion, and into the evidence of Scripture, What truth has
declared, that we follow.
* * * * *
CHAP. VII.--10. For in fact, as to what some opposed to the reasoning
of Cyprian, that the apostle says, "Notwithstanding every way, whether
in pretence or in truth, let Christ be preached,"[209] Cyprian rightly
exposed their error, showing that it has nothing to do with the case
of heretics, since the apostle was speaking of those who were acting
within the Church, with malicious envy seeking their own profit. They
announced Christ, indeed, according to the truth whereby we believe in
Christ, but not in the spirit in which He was announced by the good
evangelists to the sons of the dove. "For Paul," he says, "in his
epistle was not speaking of heretics, or of their baptism, so that it
could be shown that he had laid down anything concerning this matter.
He was speaking of brethren, whether as walking disorderly and contrary
to the discipline of the Church, or as keeping the discipline of the
Church in the fear of God. And he declared that some of them spoke the
word of God stedfastly and fearlessly, but that some were acting in
envy and strife; that some had kept themselves encompassed with kindly
Christian love, but that others entertained malice and strife: but yet
that he patiently endured all things, with the view that, whether in
truth or in pretence, the name of Christ, which Paul preached, might
come to the knowledge of the greatest number, and that the sowing of
the word, which was as yet a new and unaccustomed work, might spread
more widely by the preaching of those that spoke. Furthermore, it is
one thing for those who are within the Church to speak in the name of
Christ, another thing for those who are without, acting against the
Church, to baptize in the name of Christ."[210] These words of Cyprian
seem to warn us that we must distinguish between those who are bad
outside, and those who are bad within the Church. And those whom he
says that the apostle represents as preaching the gospel impurely and
of envy, he says truly were within. This much, however, I think I
may say without rashness, if no one outside can have anything which is
of Christ, neither can any one within have anything which is of the
devil. For if that closed garden can contain the thorns of the devil,
why cannot the fountain of Christ equally flow beyond the garden's
bounds? But if it cannot contain them, whence, even in the time of the
Apostle Paul himself, did there arise amongst those who were within so
great an evil of envy and malicious strife? For these are the words of
Cyprian. Can it be that envy and malicious strife are a small evil?
How then were those in unity who were not at peace? For it is not my
voice, nor that of any man, but of the Lord Himself; nor did the sound
go forth from men, but from angels, at the birth of Christ, "Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will."[211] And
this certainly would not have been proclaimed by the voice of angels
when Christ was born upon the earth, unless God wished this to be
understood, that those are in the unity of the body of Christ who are
united in the peace of Christ, and those are in the peace of Christ who
are of good will. Furthermore, as good will is shown in kindliness, so
is bad will shown in malice.
* * * * *
CHAP. VIII.--11. In short, we may see how great an evil in itself
is envy, which cannot be other than malicious. Let us not look for
other testimony. Cyprian himself is sufficient for us, through whose
mouth the Lord poured forth so many thunders in most perfect truth,
and uttered so many useful precepts about envy and malignity. Let us
therefore read the letter of Cyprian about envy and malignity, and
see how great an evil it is to envy those better than ourselves,--an
evil whose origin he shows in memorable words to have sprung from
the devil himself. "To feel jealousy," he says, "of what you regard
as good, and to envy those who are better than yourselves, to some,
dearest brethren, seems a light and minute offence."[212] And again
a little later, when he was inquiring into the source and origin of
the evil, he says, "From this the devil, in the very beginning of the
world, perished first himself, and led others to destruction."[213]
And further on in the same chapter: "What an evil, dearest brethren,
is that by which an angel fell! by which that exalted and illustrious
loftiness was able to be deceived and overthrown! by which he was
deceived who was the deceiver! From that time envy stalks upon the
earth, when man, about to perish through malignity, submits himself to
the teacher of perdition,--when he who envies imitates the devil, as it
is written, 'Through envy of the devil came death into the world, and
they that do hold of his side do find it.'"[214] How true, how forcible
are these words of Cyprian, in an epistle known throughout the world,
we cannot fail to recognise. It was truly fitting for Cyprian to argue
and warn most forcibly about envy and malignity, from which most deadly
evil he proved his own heart to be so far removed by the abundance
of his Christian love; by carefully guarding which he remained in
the unity of communion with his colleagues, who without ill-feeling
entertained different views about baptism, whilst he himself differed
in opinion from them, not through any contention of ill will, but
through human infirmity, erring in a point which God, in His own good
time, would reveal to him by reason of his perseverance in love. For
he says openly, "Judging no one, nor depriving any of the right of
communion if he differ from us. For no one of us setteth himself up as
a bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror forceth his colleagues to
a necessity of obeying."[215] And in the end of the epistle before us
he says, "These things I have written to you briefly, dearest brother,
according to my poor ability, prescribing to or prejudging no one, so
as to prevent each bishop from doing what he thinks right in the free
exercise of his own judgment. We, so far as in us lies, do not strive
on behalf of heretics with our colleagues and fellow-bishops, with
whom we hold the harmony that God enjoins, and the peace of our Lord,
especially as the apostle says, 'If any man seem to be contentious,
we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.'[216] Christian
love in our souls, the honour of our colleges, the bond of faith, the
harmony of the priesthood, all these are maintained by us with patience
and gentleness. For this cause we have also, so far as our poor ability
admitted, by the permission and inspiration of the Lord, written now a
treatise on the benefit of patience,[217] which we have sent to you in
consideration of our mutual affection."[218]
* * * * *
CHAP. IX.--12. By this patience of Christian love he not only endured
the difference of opinion manifested in all kindliness by his good
colleagues on an obscure point, as he also himself received toleration,
till, in process of time, when it so pleased God, what had always
been a most wholesome custom was further confirmed by a declaration
of the truth in a general Council, but he even put up with those who
were manifestly bad, as was very well known to himself, who did not
entertain a different view in consequence of the obscurity of the
question, but acted contrary to their preaching in the evil practices
of an abandoned life, as the apostle says of them, "Thou that preachest
a man should not steal, dost thou steal?"[219] For Cyprian says in
his letter of such bishops of his own time, his own colleagues, and
remaining in communion with him, "While they had brethren starving
in the Church, they tried to amass large sums of money, they took
possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, they multiplied their
gains by accumulated usuries."[220] For here there is no obscure
question. Scripture declares openly, "Neither thieves nor covetous
shall inherit the kingdom of God;"[221] and "He that putteth out his
money to usury,"[222] and "No whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor
covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom
of Christ and of God."[223] He therefore certainly would not, without
knowledge, have brought accusations of such covetousness, that men
not only greedily treasured up their own goods, but also fraudulently
appropriated the goods of others, or of idolatry existing in such
enormity as he understands and proves it to exist; nor assuredly would
he bear false witness against his fellow-bishops. And yet with the
bowels of fatherly and motherly love he endured them, lest that, by
rooting out the tares before their time, the wheat should also have
been rooted up,[224] imitating assuredly the Apostle Paul, who, with
the same love towards the Church, endured those who were ill-disposed
and envious towards him.[225]
13. But yet because "by the envy of the devil death entered into the
world, and they that do hold of his side do find it,"[226] not because
they are created by God, but because they go astray of themselves,
as Cyprian also says himself, seeing that the devil, before he was a
devil, was an angel, and good, how can it be that they who are of the
devil's side are in the unity of Christ? Beyond all doubt, as the Lord
Himself says, "an enemy hath done this," who "sowed tares among the
wheat."[227] As therefore what is of the devil within the fold must be
convicted, so what is of Christ without must be recognised. Has the
devil what is his within the unity of the Church, and shall Christ not
have what is His without? This, perhaps, might be said of individual
men, that as the devil has none that are his among the holy angels,
so God has none that are His outside the communion of the Church. But
though it may be allowed to the devil to mingle tares, that is, wicked
men, with this Church which still wears the mortal nature of flesh,
so long as it is wandering far from God, he being allowed this just
because of the pilgrimage of the Church herself, that men may desire
more ardently the rest of that country which the angels enjoy, yet
this cannot be said of the sacraments. For, as the tares within the
Church can have and handle them, though not for salvation, but for the
destruction to which they are destined in the fire, so also can the
tares without, which received them from seceders from within; for they
did not lose them by seceding. This, indeed, is made plain from the
fact that baptism is not conferred again on their return, when any of
the very men who seceded happen to come back again. And let not any one
say, Why, what fruit hath the tares? For if this be so, their condition
is the same, so far as this goes, both inside and without. For it
surely cannot be that grains of corn are found in the tares inside,
and not in those without. But when the question is of the sacrament,
we do not consider whether the tares bear any fruit, but whether they
have any share of heaven; for the tares, both within and without, share
the rain with the wheat itself, which rain is in itself heavenly and
sweet, even though under its influence the tares grow up in barrenness.
And so the sacrament, according to the gospel of Christ, is divine and
pleasant; nor is it to be esteemed as naught because of the barrenness
of those on whom its dew falls even without.
* * * * *
CHAP. X.--14. But some one may say that the tares within may more
easily be converted into wheat. I grant that it is so; but what has
this to do with the question of repeating baptism? You surely do not
maintain that if a man converted from heresy, through the occasion and
opportunity given by his conversion, should bear fruit before another
who, being within the Church, is more slow to be washed from his
iniquity, and so corrected and changed, the former therefore needs not
to be baptized again, but the churchman to be baptized again, who was
outstripped by him who came from the heretics, because of the greater
slowness of his amendment. It has nothing, therefore, to do with the
question now at issue who is later or slower in being converted from
his especial waywardness to the straight path of faith, or hope, or
charity. For although the bad within the fold are more easily made
good, yet it will sometimes happen that certain of the number of those
outside will outstrip in their conversion certain of those within;
and while these remain in barrenness, the former, being restored to
unity and communion, will bear fruit with patience, thirty-fold, or
sixty-fold, or a hundred-fold.[228] Or if those only are to be called
tares who remain in perverse error to the end, there are many ears of
corn outside, and many tares within.
15. But it will be urged that the bad outside are worse than those
within. It is indeed a weighty question, whether Nicolaus, being
already severed from the Church,[229] or Simon, who was still within
it,[230] was the worse,--the one being a heretic, the other a sorcerer.
But if the mere fact of division, as being the clearest token of
violated charity, is held to be the worse evil, I grant that it is
so. Yet many, though they have lost all feelings of charity, yet do
not secede from considerations of worldly profit; and as they seek
their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's,[231] what they
are unwilling to secede from is not the unity of Christ, but their own
temporal advantage. Whence it is said in praise of charity, that she
"seeketh not her own."[232]
16. Now, therefore, the question is, how could men of the party of
the devil belong to the Church, which has no spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing,[233] of which also it is said, "My dove is one?"[234] But
if they cannot, it is clear that she groans among those who are not
of her, some treacherously laying wait within, some barking at her
gate without. Such men, however, even within, both receive baptism,
and possess it, and transmit it holy in itself; nor is it in any way
defiled by their wickedness, in which they persevere even to the end.
Wherefore the same blessed Cyprian teaches us that baptism is to
be considered as consecrated in itself by the words of the gospel,
as the Church has received, without joining to it or mingling with
it any consideration of waywardness and wickedness on the part of
either minister or recipients; since he himself points out to us
both truths,--both that there have been some within the Church who
did not cherish kindly Christian love, but practised envy and unkind
dissension, of whom the Apostle Paul spoke; and also that the envious
belong to the devil's party, as he testifies in the most open way
in the epistle which he wrote about envy and malignity. Wherefore,
since it is clearly possible that in those who belong to the devil's
party, Christ's sacrament may yet be holy,--not, indeed, to their
salvation, but to their condemnation,--and that not only if they are
led astray after they have been baptized, but even if they were such
in heart when they received the sacrament, renouncing the world (as
the same Cyprian shows) in words only and not in deeds;[235] and since
even if afterwards they be brought into the right way, the sacrament
is not to be again administered which they received when they were
astray; so far as I can see, the case is clear and evident, that in
the question of baptism we have to consider, not who gives, but what
he gives; not who receives, but what he receives; not who has, but
what he has. For if men of the party of the devil, and therefore in
no way belonging to the one dove, can yet receive, and have, and give
baptism in all its holiness, in no way defiled by their waywardness, as
we are taught by the letters of Cyprian himself, how are we ascribing
to heretics what does not belong to them? how are we saying that what
is really Christ's is theirs, and not rather recognising in them the
signs of our Sovereign, and correcting the deeds of deserters from
Him? Wherefore it is one thing, as the holy Cyprian says, "for those
within, in the Church, to speak in the name of Christ, another thing
for those without, who are acting against the Church, to baptize in
His name."[236] But both many who are within act against the Church by
evil living, and by enticing weak souls to copy their lives; and some
who are without speak in Christ's name, and are not forbidden to work
the works of Christ, but only to be without, since for the healing of
their souls we grasp at them, or reason with them, or exhort them. For
he, too, was without who did not follow Christ with His disciples, and
yet in Christ's name was casting out devils, which the Lord enjoined
that he should not be prevented from doing;[237] although, certainly,
in the point where he was imperfect he was to be made whole, in
accordance with the words of the Lord, in which He says, "He that is
not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth
abroad."[238] Therefore both some things are done outside in the name
of Christ not against the Church, and some things are done inside on
the devil's part which are against the Church.
* * * * *
CHAP. XI.--17. What shall we say of what is also wonderful, that he who
carefully observes may find that it is possible that certain persons,
without violating Christian charity, may yet teach what is useless, as
Peter wished to compel the Gentiles to observe Jewish customs,[239]
as Cyprian himself would force heretics to be baptized anew? whence
the apostle says to such good members, who are rooted in charity, and
yet walk not rightly in some points, "If in anything ye be otherwise
minded, the Lord shall reveal even this unto you;"[240] and that
some again, though devoid of charity, may teach something wholesome?
of whom the Lord says, "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do;
but do not ye after their works: for they say and do not."[241] Whence
the apostle also says of those envious and malicious ones who yet
preach salvation through Christ, "Whether in pretence, or in truth,
let Christ be preached."[242] Wherefore, both within and without, the
waywardness of man is to be corrected, but the divine sacraments and
utterances are not to be attributed to men. He is not, therefore, a
"patron of heretics" who refuses to attribute to them what he knows not
to belong to them, even though it be found among them. We do not grant
baptism to be theirs; but we recognise His baptism of whom it is said,
"The same is He which baptizeth,"[243] wheresoever we find it. But if
"the treacherous and blasphemous man" continue in his treachery and
blasphemy, he receives no "remission of sins either without" or within
the Church; or if, by the power of the sacrament, he receives it for
the moment, the same force operates both without and within, as the
power of the name of Christ used to work the expulsion of devils even
without the Church.
* * * * *
CHAP. XII.--18. But he urges that "we find that the apostles, in all
their epistles, execrated and abhorred the sacrilegious wickedness of
heretics, so as to say that 'their word does spread as a canker.'"[244]
What then? Does not Paul also show that those who said, "Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die," were corrupters of good manners
by their evil communications, adding immediately afterwards, "Evil
communications corrupt good manners;" and yet he intimated that these
were within the Church when he says, "How say some among you that
there is no resurrection of the dead?"[245] But when does he fail to
express his abhorrence of the covetous? Or could anything be said in
stronger terms, than that covetousness should be called idolatry,
as the same apostle declared?[246] Nor did Cyprian understand his
language otherwise, inserting it when need required in his letters;
though he confesses that in his time there were in the Church not
covetous men of an ordinary type, but robbers and usurers, and these
found not among the masses, but among the bishops. And yet I should be
willing to understand that those of whom the apostle says, "Their word
does spread as a canker," were without the Church, but Cyprian himself
will not allow me. For, when showing, in his letter to Antonianus, that
no man ought to sever himself from the unity of the Church before the
time of the final separation of the just and unjust, merely because
of the admixture of evil men in the Church, when he makes it manifest
how holy he was, and deserving of the illustrious martyrdom which he
won, he says, "What swelling of arrogance it is, what forgetfulness
of humility and gentleness, that any one should dare or believe that
he can do what the Lord did not grant even to the apostles,--to think
that he can distinguish the tares from the wheat, or, as if it were
granted to him to carry the fan and purge the floor, to endeavour to
separate the chaff from the grain! And whereas the apostle says, 'But
in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver,
but also of wood and of earth,'[247] that he should seem to choose
those of gold and of silver, and to despise and cast away and condemn
those of wood and of earth, when really the vessels of wood are only
to be burned in the day of the Lord by the burning of the divine
conflagration, and those of earth are to be broken by Him to whom the
'rod of iron'[248] has been given."[249] By this argument, therefore,
against those who, under the pretext of avoiding the society of wicked
men, had severed themselves from the unity of the Church, Cyprian shows
that by the great house of which the apostle spoke, in which there
were not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and
of earth, he understood nothing else but the Church, in which there
should be good and bad, till at the last day it should be cleansed
as a threshing-floor by the winnowing-fan. And if this be so, in the
Church herself, that is, in the great house itself, there were vessels
to dishonour, whose word did spread like a canker. For the apostle,
speaking of them, taught as follows: "And their word," he says, "will
eat as doth a canker; of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus; who concerning
the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already;
and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the foundation of God
standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His.
And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver,
but also of wood and of earth."[250] If, therefore, they whose word
did eat as doth a canker were as it were vessels to dishonour in the
great house, and by that "great house" Cyprian understands the unity
of the Church itself, surely it cannot be that their canker polluted
the baptism of Christ. Accordingly, neither without, any more than
within, can any one who is of the devil's party, either in himself or
in any other person, stain the sacrament which is of Christ. It is not,
therefore, the case that "the word which eats as a canker to the ears
of those who hear it gives remission of sins;"[251] but when baptism
is given in the words of the gospel, however great be the perverseness
of understanding on the part either of him through whom, or of him to
whom it is given, the sacrament itself is holy in itself on account of
Him whose sacrament it is. And if any one, receiving it at the hands of
a misguided man, yet does not receive the perversity of the minister,
but only the holiness of the mystery, being closely bound to the unity
of the Church in good faith and hope and charity, he receives remission
of his sins,--not by the words which do eat as doth a canker, but by
the sacraments of the gospel flowing from a heavenly source. But if the
recipient himself be misguided, on the one hand, what is given is of
no avail for the salvation of the misguided man; and yet, on the other
hand, that which is received remains holy in the recipient, and is not
renewed to him if he be brought to the right way.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIII.--19. There is therefore "no fellowship between
righteousness and unrighteousness,"[252] not only without, but also
within the Church; for "the Lord knoweth them that are His," and "Let
every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." There
is also "no communion between light and darkness,"[253] not only
without, but also within the Church; for "he that hateth his brother
is still in darkness."[254] And they at any rate hated Paul, who,
preaching Christ of envy and malicious strife, supposed that they added
affliction to his bonds;[255] and yet the same Cyprian understands
these still to have been within the Church. Since, therefore, "neither
darkness can enlighten, nor unrighteousness justify,"[256] as Cyprian
again says, I ask, how could those men baptize within the very Church
herself? I ask, how could those vessels which the large house contains
not to honour, but to dishonour, administer what is holy for the
sanctifying of men within the great house itself, unless because that
holiness of the sacrament cannot be polluted even by the unclean,
either when it is given at their hands, or when it is received by those
who in heart and life are not changed for the better? of whom, as
situated within the Church, Cyprian himself says, "Renouncing the world
in word only, and not in deed."[257]
20. There are therefore also within the Church "enemies of God, whose
hearts the spirit of Antichrist has possessed;" and yet they "deal
with spiritual and divine things,"[6] which cannot profit for their
salvation so long as they remain such as they are; and yet neither
can they pollute them by their own uncleanness. With regard to what
he says, therefore, "that they have no part given them in the saving
grace of the Church, who, scattering and fighting against the Church of
Christ, are called adversaries by Christ Himself, and antichrists by
His apostles,"[258] this must be received under the consideration that
there are men of this kind both within and without. But the separation
of those that are within from the perfection and unity of the dove is
not only known in the case of some men to God, but even in the case of
some to their fellow-men; for, by regarding their openly abandoned
life and confirmed wickedness, and comparing it with the rules of God's
commandments, they understand to what a multitude of tares and chaff,
situated now some within and some without, but destined to be most
manifestly separated at the last day, the Lord will then say, "Depart
from me, ye that work iniquity,"[259] and "Depart into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."[260]
* * * * *
CHAP. XIV.--21. But we must not despair of the conversion of any man,
whether situated within or without, so long as "the goodness of God
leadeth him to repentance,"[261] and "visits their transgressions
with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes." For in this way "He
does not utterly take from them His loving-kindness,"[262] if they
will themselves sometime "love their own soul, pleasing God."[263]
But as the good man "that shall endure to the end, the same shall be
saved,"[264] so the bad man, whether within or without, who shall
persevere in his wickedness to the end, shall not be saved. Nor do we
say that "all, wheresoever and howsoever baptized, obtain the grace
of baptism,"[265] if by the grace of baptism is understood the actual
salvation which is conferred by the celebration of the sacrament; but
many fail to obtain this salvation even within the Church, although
it is clear that they possess the sacrament, which is holy in itself.
Well, therefore, does the Lord warn us in the gospel that we should not
company with ill-advisers,[266] who walk under the pretence of Christ's
name; but these are found both within and without, as, in fact, they do
not proceed without unless they have first been ill-disposed within.
And we know that the apostle said of the vessels placed in the great
house, "If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a
vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and
prepared unto every good work."[267] But in what manner each man ought
to purge himself from these he shows a little above, saying, "Let
every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity,"[268]
that he may not in the last day, with the chaff, whether with that
which has already been driven from the threshing-floor, or with that
which is to be separated at the last, hear the command, "Depart from
me, ye that work iniquity."[269] Whence it appears, indeed, as Cyprian
says, that "we are not at once to admit and adopt whatsoever is
professed in the name of Christ, but only what is done in the truth
of Christ."[270] But it is not an action done in the truth of Christ
that men should "seize on estates by fraudulent pretences, and increase
their gains by accumulated usury,"[271] or that they should "renounce
the world in word only;"[272] and yet, that all this is done within the
Church, Cyprian himself bears sufficient testimony.
* * * * *
CHAP. XV.--22. To go on to the point which he pursues at
great length, that "they who blaspheme the Father of Christ cannot
be baptized in Christ,"[273] since it is clear that they blaspheme
through error (for he who comes to the baptism of Christ will not
openly blaspheme the Father of Christ, but he is led to blaspheme by
holding a view contrary to the teaching of the truth about the Father
of Christ), we have already shown at sufficient length that baptism,
consecrated in the words of the gospel, is not affected by the error
of any man, whether ministrant or recipient, whether he hold views
contrary to the revelation of divine teaching on the subject of the
Father, or the Son, or the Holy Ghost. For many carnal and natural
men are baptized even within the Church, as the apostle expressly
says: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of
God;"[274] and after they had received baptism, he says that they "are
yet carnal."[275] But according to its carnal sense, a soul given
up to fleshly appetites cannot entertain but fleshly wisdom about
God. Wherefore many, progressing after baptism, and especially those
who have been baptized in infancy or early youth, in proportion as
their intellect becomes clearer and brighter, while "the inward man
is renewed day by day,"[276] throw away their former opinions which
they held about God while they were mocked with vain imaginings, with
scorn and horror and confession of their mistake. And yet they are
not therefore considered not to have received baptism, or to have
received baptism of a kind corresponding to their error; but in them
both the perfection of the sacrament is honoured and the delusion of
their mind is corrected, even though it had become inveterate through
long confirmation, or been, perhaps, maintained in many controversies.
Wherefore even the heretic, who is manifestly without, if he has there
received baptism as ordained in the gospel, has certainly not received
baptism of a kind corresponding to the error which blinds him. And
therefore, if returning into the way of wisdom, he perceives that he
ought to relinquish what he has held amiss, he must not at the same
time give up the good which he had received; nor because his error
is to be condemned, is the baptism of Christ in him to be therefore
extinguished. For it is already sufficiently clear, from the case of
those who happen to be baptized within the Church with false views
about God, that the truth of the sacrament is to be distinguished from
the error of him who believes amiss, although both may be found in
the same man. And therefore, when any one grounded in any error, even
outside the Church, has yet been baptized with the true sacrament, when
he is restored to the unity of the Church, a true baptism cannot take
the place of a true baptism, as a true faith takes the place of a false
one, because a thing cannot take the place of itself, since neither can
it give place. Heretics therefore join the Catholic Church to this end,
that what they have evil of themselves may be corrected, not that what
they have good of God should be repeated.
* * * * *
CHAP. XVI.--23. Some one says, Does it then make no difference, if two
men, rooted in like error and wickedness, be baptized without change of
life or heart, one without, the other within the Church? I acknowledge
that there is a difference. For he is worse who is baptized without,
in addition to his other sin,--not because of his baptism, however,
but because he is without; for the evil of division is in itself far
from insignificant or trivial. Yet the difference exists only if he who
is baptized within has desired to be within not for the sake of any
earthly or temporal advantage, but because he has preferred the unity
of the Church spread throughout the world to the divisions of schism;
otherwise he too must be considered among those who are without: Let
us therefore put the two cases in this way. Let us suppose that the
one, for the sake of argument, held the same opinions as Photinus[277]
about Christ, and was baptized in his heresy outside the communion of
the Catholic Church; and that another held the same opinion, but was
baptized in the Catholic Church, believing that his view was really
the Catholic faith. I consider him as not yet a heretic, unless, when
the doctrine of the Catholic faith is made clear to him, he chooses to
resist it, and prefers that which he already holds; and till this is
the case, it is clear that he who was baptized outside is the worse.
And so in the one case erroneous opinion alone, in the other the sin
of schism also, requires correction; but in neither of them is the
truth of the sacrament to be repeated. But if any one holds the same
view as the first, and knows that it is only in heresy severed from
the Church that such a view is taught or learned, but yet for the
sake of some temporal emolument has desired to be baptized in the
Catholic unity, or, having been already baptized in it, is unwilling
on account of the said emolument to secede from it, he is not only to
be considered as seceding, but his offence is aggravated, in so far as
to the error of heresy and the division of unity he adds the deceit of
hypocrisy. Wherefore the depravity of each man, in proportion as it is
more dangerous and wanting in straightforwardness, must be corrected
with the more earnestness and energy; and yet, if he has anything that
is good in him, especially if it be not of himself, but from God, we
ought not to think it of no value because of his depravity, or to be
blamed like it, or to be ascribed to it, rather than to His bountiful
goodness, who even to a soul that plays the harlot, and goes after her
lovers, yet gives His bread, and His wine, and His oil, and other food
or ornaments, which are neither from herself nor from her lovers, but
from Him who in compassion for her is even desirous to warn her to whom
she should return.[278]
* * * * *
CHAP. XVII.--24. "Can the power of baptism," says Cyprian, "be greater
or better than confession? than martyrdom? that a man should confess
Christ before men, and be baptized in his own blood? And yet," he goes
on to say, "neither does this baptism profit the heretic, even though
for confessing Christ he be put to death outside the Church."[279]
This is most true; for, by being put to death outside the Church, he
is proved not to have had charity, of which the apostle says, "Though
I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me
nothing."[280] But if martyrdom is of no avail for this reason, because
it has not charity, neither does it profit those who, as Paul says,
and Cyprian further sets forth, are living within the Church without
charity in envy and malice; and yet they can both receive and transmit
true baptism. "Salvation," he says, "is not without the Church."[281] Who
says that it is? And therefore, whatever men have that belongs to the
Church, it profits them nothing towards salvation outside the Church.
But it is one thing not to have, another to have so as to be of no
use. He who has not must be baptized that he may have; but he who has
to no avail must be corrected, that what he has may profit him. Nor is
the water in the baptism of heretics "adulterous,"[281] because neither
is the creature itself which God made evil, nor is fault to be found
with the words of the gospel in the mouths of any who are astray; but
the fault is theirs in whom there is an adulterous spirit, even though
it may receive the adornment of the sacrament from a lawful spouse.
Baptism therefore can "be common to us and the heretics,"[281] just
as the gospel can be common to us, whatever difference there may be
between our faith and their error,--whether they think otherwise
than the truth about the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit; or,
being cut away from unity, do not gather with Christ, but scatter
abroad,[282]--seeing that the sacrament of baptism can be common to us,
if we are the wheat of the Lord, with the covetous within the Church,
and with robbers, and drunkards, and other pestilent persons of the
same sort, of whom it is said, "They shall not inherit the kingdom
of God,"[283] and yet the vices by which they are separated from the
kingdom of God are not shared by us.
* * * * *
CHAP. XVIII.--25. Nor, indeed, is it of heresies alone that the
apostle says "that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God." But it may be worth while to look for a moment at the
things which he groups together. "The works of the flesh," he says,
"are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness,
revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have
also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God."[284] Let us suppose some one, therefore,
chaste, continent, free from covetousness, no idolater, hospitable,
charitable to the needy, no man's enemy, not contentious, patient,
quiet, jealous of none, envying none, sober, frugal, but a heretic;
it is of course clear to all that for this one fault only, that he is
a heretic, he will fail to inherit the kingdom of God. Let us suppose
another, a fornicator, unclean, lascivious, covetous, or even more
openly given to idolatry, a student of witchcraft, a lover of strife
and contention, envious, hot-tempered, seditious, jealous, drunken, and
a reveller, but a Catholic; can it be that for this sole merit, that
he is a Catholic, he will inherit the kingdom of God, though his deeds
are of the kind of which the apostle thus concludes: "Of the which I
tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which
do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" If we say this,
we lead ourselves astray. For the word of God does not lead us astray,
which is neither silent, nor lenient, nor deceptive through any
flattery. Indeed, it speaks to the same effect elsewhere: "For this ye
know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, which
is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of
God. Let no man deceive you with vain words."[285] We have no reason,
therefore, to complain of the word of God. It certainly says, and says
openly and freely, that those who live a wicked life have no part in
the kingdom of God.
* * * * *
CHAP. XIX.--26. Let us therefore not flatter the Catholic who is hemmed
in with all these vices, nor venture, merely because he is a Catholic
Christian, to promise him the impunity which holy Scripture does not
promise him; nor, if he has any one of the faults above mentioned,
ought we to promise him a partnership in that heavenly land. For,
in writing to the Corinthians, the apostle enumerates the several
sins, under each of which it is implicitly understood that it shall
not inherit the kingdom of God: "Be not deceived," he says: "neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers
of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."[286]
He does not say, those who possess all these vices together shall not
inherit the kingdom of God; but neither these nor those: so that, as
each is named, you may understand that no one of them shall inherit
the kingdom of God. As, therefore, heretics shall not possess the
kingdom of God, so the covetous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Nor can we indeed doubt that the punishments themselves, with which
they shall be tortured who do not inherit the kingdom of God, will vary
in proportion to the difference of their offences, and that some will
be more severe than others; so that in the eternal fire itself there
will be different tortures in the punishments, corresponding to the
different weights of guilt. For indeed it was not idly that the Lord
said, "It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of
judgment than for thee."[287] But yet, so far as failing to inherit the
kingdom of God is concerned, it is just as certain, if you choose any
one of the less heinous of these vices, as if you chose more than one,
or some one which you saw was more atrocious; and because those will
inherit the kingdom of God whom the Judge shall set on His right hand,
and for those who shall not be found worthy to be set at the right
hand nothing will remain but to be at the left, no other announcement
is left for them to hear like goats from the mouth of the Shepherd,
except, "Depart into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels;"[288] though in that fire, as I said before, it may be that
different punishments will be awarded corresponding to the difference
of the sins.
* * * * *
CHAP. XX.--27. But on the question whether we ought to prefer a
Catholic of the most abandoned character to a heretic in whose life,
except that he is a heretic, men can find nothing to blame, I do
not venture to give a hasty judgment. But if any one says, because
he is a heretic, he cannot be this only without other vices also
following,--for he is carnal and natural, and therefore must be also
envious, and hot-tempered, and jealous, and hostile to truth itself,
and utterly estranged from it,--let him fairly understand, that of
those other faults of which he is supposed to have chosen some one less
flagrant, a single one cannot exist by itself in any man, because he in
turn is carnal and natural; as, to take the case of drunkenness, which
people have now become accustomed to talk of not only without horror,
but with some degree of merriment, can it possibly exist alone in any
one in whom it is found? For what drunkard is not also contentious,
and hot-tempered, and jealous, and at variance with all soundness of
counsel, and at grievous enmity with those who rebuke him? Further,
it is not easy for him to avoid being a fornicator and adulterer,
though he may be no heretic; just as a heretic may be no drunkard,
nor adulterer, nor fornicator, nor lascivious, nor a lover of money,
or given to witchcraft, and cannot well be all these together. Nor
indeed is any one vice followed by all the rest. Supposing, therefore,
two men,--one a Catholic with all these vices, the other a heretic
free from all from which a heretic can be free,--although they do not
both contend against the faith, and yet each lives contrary to the
faith, and each is deceived by a vain hope, and each is far removed
from charity of spirit, and therefore each is severed from connection
with the body of the one dove; why do we recognise in one of them the
sacrament of Christ, and not in the other, as though it belonged to
this or that man, whilst really it is the same in both, and belongs
to God alone, and is good even in the worst of men? And if of the
men who have it, one is worse than another, it does not follow that
the sacrament which they have is worse in the one than in the other,
seeing that neither in the case of two bad Catholics, if one be worse
than the other, does he possess a worse baptism, nor, if one of them
be good and another bad, is baptism bad in the bad one and good in the
good one; but it is good in both. Just as the light of the sun, or even
of a lamp, is certainly not less brilliant when displayed to bad eyes
than when seen by better ones; but it is the same in the case of both,
although it either cheers or hurts them differently according to the
difference of their powers.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXI.--28. With regard to the objection brought against Cyprian,
that the catechumens who were seized in martyrdom, and slain for
Christ's name's sake, received a crown even without baptism, I do
not quite see what it has to do with the matter, unless, indeed,
they urged that heretics could much more be admitted with baptism
to Christ's kingdom, to which catechumens were admitted without it,
since He Himself has said, "Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."[289] Now, in this
matter I do not hesitate for a moment to place the Catholic catechumen,
who is burning with love for God, before the baptized heretic; nor
yet do we thereby do dishonour to the sacrament of baptism which the
latter has already received, the former not as yet; nor do we consider
that the sacrament of the catechumen[290] is to be preferred to the
sacrament of baptism, when we acknowledge that some catechumens
are better and more faithful than some baptized persons. For the
centurion Cornelius, before baptism, was better than Simon, who had
been baptized. For Cornelius, even before his baptism, was filled with
the Holy Spirit;[291] Simon, even after baptism, was puffed up with an
unclean spirit.[292] Cornelius, however, would have been convicted of
contempt for so holy a sacrament, if, even after he had received the
Holy Ghost, he had refused to be baptized. But when he was baptized, he
received in no wise a better sacrament than Simon; but the different
merits of the men were made manifest under the equal holiness of the
same sacrament,--so true is it that the good or ill deserving of the
recipient does not increase or diminish the holiness of baptism.
But as baptism is wanting to a good catechumen to his receiving the
kingdom of heaven, so true conversion is wanting to a bad man though
baptized. For He who said, "Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," said also Himself,
"Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of
heaven."[293] For that the righteousness of the catechumens might not
feel secure, it is written, "Except a man be born again of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." And again, that
the unrighteousness of the baptized might not feel secure because they
had received baptism, it is written, "Except your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no
case enter into the kingdom of heaven." The one were too little without
the other; the two make perfect the heir of that inheritance. As, then,
we ought not to depreciate a man's righteousness, which begins to exist
before he is joined to the Church, as the righteousness of Cornelius
began to exist before he was in the body of Christian men,--which
righteousness was not thought worthless, or the angel would not have
said to him, "Thy prayers and thine alms are come up as a memorial
before God;" nor did it yet suffice for his obtaining the kingdom of
heaven, or he would not have been told to send to Peter,[294]--so
neither ought we to depreciate the sacrament of baptism, even though
it has been received outside the Church. But since it is of no avail
for salvation unless he who has baptism indeed in full perfection be
incorporated into the Church, correcting also his own depravity, let us
therefore correct the error of the heretics, that we may recognise what
in them is not their own but Christ's.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXII.--29. That the place of baptism is sometimes supplied by
martyrdom is supported by an argument by no means trivial, which
the blessed Cyprian adduces[295] from the thief, to whom, though he
was not baptized, it was yet said, "To-day shalt thou be with me in
paradise."[296] On considering which again and again, I find that not
only martyrdom for the sake of Christ may supply what was wanting
of baptism, but also faith and conversion of heart, if recourse may
not be had to the celebration of the mystery of baptism for want
of time.[297] For neither was that thief crucified for the name of
Christ, but as the reward of his own deeds; nor did he suffer because
he believed, but he believed while suffering. It was shown, therefore,
in the case of that thief, how great is the power, even without the
visible sacrament of baptism, of what the apostle says, "With the
heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation."[298] But the want is supplied invisibly only
when the administration of baptism is prevented, not by contempt for
religion, but by the necessity of the moment. For much more in the
case of Cornelius and his friends, than in the case of that robber,
might it seem superfluous that they should also be baptized with water,
seeing that in them the gift of the Holy Spirit, which, according
to the testimony of holy Scripture, was received by other men only
after baptism, had made itself manifest by every unmistakeable sign
appropriate to those times when they spoke with tongues. Yet they were
baptized, and for this action we have the authority of an apostle
as the warrant. So far ought all of us to be from being induced by
any perfection in the inner man, if it so happen that before baptism
a person has advanced, through the workings of a pious heart, to
spiritual understanding, to despise a sacrament which is applied to the
body by the hands of the minister, but which is God's own means for
working spiritually a man's dedication to Himself. Nor do I conceive
that the function of baptizing was assigned to John, so that it should
be called John's baptism, for any other reason except that the Lord
Himself, who had appointed it, in not disdaining to receive the baptism
of His servant,[299] might consecrate the path of humility, and show
most plainly by such an action how high a value was to be placed on His
own baptism, with which He Himself was afterwards to baptize. For He
saw, like an excellent physician of eternal salvation, that overweening
pride would be found in some, who, having made such progress in the
understanding of the truth and in uprightness of character that they
would not hesitate to place themselves, both in life and knowledge,
above many that were baptized, would think it was unnecessary for them
to be baptized, since they felt that they had attained a frame of mind
to which many that were baptized were still only endeavouring to raise
themselves.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXIII.--30. But what is the precise value of the sanctification
of the sacrament (which that thief did not receive, not from any want
of will on his part, but because it was unavoidably omitted), and what
is the effect on a man of its material application, it is not easy
to say. Still, had it not been of the greatest value, the Lord would
not have received the baptism of a servant. But since we must look at
it in itself without entering upon the question of the salvation of
the recipient, which it is intended to work, it shows clearly enough
that both in the bad, and in those who renounce the world in word
and not in deed, it is itself complete, though they cannot receive
salvation unless they amend their lives. But as in the thief, to whom
the material administration of the sacrament was necessarily wanting,
the salvation was complete, because it was spiritually present through
his piety, so, when the sacrament itself is present, salvation is
complete, if what the thief possessed be unavoidably wanting. And
this is the firm tradition of the universal Church, in respect of the
baptism of infants, who certainly are as yet unable "with the heart
to believe unto righteousness, and with the mouth to make confession
unto salvation," as the thief could do; nay, who even, by crying and
moaning when the mystery is performed upon them, raise their voices in
opposition to the mysterious words, and yet no Christian will say that
they are baptized to no purpose.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXIV.--31. And if any one seek for divine authority in this
matter, though what is held by the whole Church, and that not as
instituted by Councils, but as a matter of invariable custom, is
rightly held to have been handed down by apostolical authority, still
we can form a true conjecture of the value of the sacrament of baptism
in the case of infants, from the parallel of circumcision, which was
received by God's earlier people, and before receiving which Abraham
was justified, as Cornelius also was enriched with the gift of the
Holy Spirit before he was baptized. Yet the apostle says of Abraham
himself, that "he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the
righteousness of faith," having already believed in his heart, so that
"it was counted unto him for righteousness."[300] Why, therefore, was
it commanded him that he should circumcise every male child in order on
the eighth day,[301] though it could not yet believe with the heart,
that it should be counted unto it for righteousness, unless because
the sacrament in itself was of great avail? And this was made manifest
by the message of an angel in the case of Moses' son; for when he
was carried by his mother, being yet uncircumcised, it was required,
by manifest present peril, that he should be circumcised,[302] and
when this was done, the danger of death was removed. As therefore in
Abraham the justification of faith came first, and circumcision was
added afterwards as the seal of faith; so in Cornelius the spiritual
sanctification came first in the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the
sacrament of regeneration was added afterwards in the laver of baptism.
And as in Isaac, who was circumcised on the eighth day after his
birth, the seal of this righteousness of faith was given first, and
afterwards, as he imitated the faith of his father, the righteousness
itself followed as he grew up, of which the seal had been given before
when he was an infant; so in infants, who are baptized, the sacrament
of regeneration is given first, and if they maintain a Christian piety,
conversion also in the heart will follow, of which the mysterious
sign had gone before in the outward body. And as in the thief the
gracious goodness of the Almighty supplied what had been wanting in
the sacrament of baptism, because it had been missing not from pride
or contempt, but from want of opportunity; so in infants who die
baptized, we must believe that the same grace of the Almighty supplies
the want, that, not from perversity of will, but from insufficiency of
age, they can neither believe with the heart unto righteousness, nor
make confession with the mouth unto salvation. Therefore, when others
take the vows for them, that the celebration of the sacrament may be
complete in their behalf, it is unquestionably of avail for their
dedication to God, because they cannot answer for themselves. But if
another were to answer for one who could answer for himself, it would
not be of the same avail. In accordance with which rule, we find in the
gospel what strikes every one as natural when he reads it, "He is of
age, he shall speak for himself."[303]
* * * * *
CHAP. XXV.--32. By all these considerations it is proved that the
sacrament of baptism is one thing, the conversion of the heart another;
but that man's salvation is made complete through the two together.
Nor are we to suppose that, if one of these be wanting, it necessarily
follows that the other is wanting also; because the sacrament may
exist in the infant without the conversion of the heart; and this was
found to be possible without the sacrament in the case of the thief,
God in either case filling up what was involuntarily wanting. But when
either of these requisites is wanting intentionally, then the man is
responsible for the omission. And baptism may exist when the conversion
of the heart is wanting; but, with respect to such conversion, it may
indeed be found when baptism has not been received, but never when it
has been despised. Nor can there be said in any way to be a turning of
the heart to God when the sacrament of God is treated with contempt.
Therefore we are right in censuring, anathematizing, abhorring, and
abominating the perversity of heart shown by heretics; yet it does
not follow that they have not the sacrament of the gospel, because
they have not what makes it of avail. Wherefore, when they come to
the true faith, and by penitence seek remission of their sins, we are
not flattering or deceiving them, when we instruct them by heavenly
discipline for the kingdom of heaven, correcting and reforming in them
their errors and perverseness, to the intent that we may by no means do
violence to what is sound in them, nor, because of man's fault, declare
that anything which he may have in him from God is either valueless or
faulty.
* * * * *
CHAP. XXVI.--33. A few things still remain to be noticed in the epistle
to Jubaianus; but since these will raise the question both of the past
custom of the Church and of the baptism of John, which is wont to
excite no small doubt in those who pay slight attention to a matter
which is sufficiently obvious, seeing that those who had received
the baptism of John were commanded by the apostle to be baptized
again,[304] they are not to be treated in a hasty manner, and had
better be reserved for another book, that the dimensions of this may
not be inconveniently large.
FOOTNOTES:
[178] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. ad Jubaian. sec. 10.
[179] Gen. ii. 8-14.
[180] Matt. xvi. 18, 19.
[181] Cypr. _Ep._ xi. sec. 1.
[182] Tit. i. 16.
[183] 1 Pet. iii. 21.
[184] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 9.
[185] Eph. v. 26, 27.
[186] Song of Sol. vi. 9.
[187] Rom. xiv. 6.
[188] _Retract._ ii. 18, quoted on I. xvii.
[189] Cypr. _Ep._ xi. sec. 1.
[190] Matt. vii. 23.
[191] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 9.
[192] _Ib._ lxxvii. sec. 10.
[193] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxvii. sec. 10.
[194] 1 Cor. vi. 10.
[195] Eph. v. 5.
[196] Cypr. _Ep._ lv. sec. 23.
[197] 2 Cor. vi. 16.
[198] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 11.
[199] 1 Tim. i. 13.
[200] 2 Tim. ii. 24.
[201] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiv. sec. 12.
[202] Eph. v. 5.
[203] Col. iii. 5. Cypr. _Ep._ lv. sec. 23.
[204] 1 Tim. i. 13.
[205] Eph. v. 5.
[206] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 11.
[207] Gal. ii. 14.
[208] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 11.
[209] Phil. i. 18. Cyprian, like the Vulgate, reads "annuntietur."
[210] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 12.
[211] Luke ii. 14. "Hominibus bonæ voluntatis;" and so the Vulgate,
following the reading [Greek: en anthrôpois eudokias].
[212] Cypr. _de Zel. et Liv._ c. 1.
[213] _Ib._ c. 3.
[214] Wisd. ii. 24, 25.
[215] Conc. Carth. _sub in._
[216] 1 Cor. xi. 16.
[217] This treatise is still extant. See Clark's Trans.
[218] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 22.
[219] Rom. ii. 21.
[220] Cypr. _de Lapsis._ c. iv.
[221] 1 Cor. vi. 10.
[222] Ps. xv. 5.