On Baptism, against the Donatists 2.19–3.20

Which is more harmful, not to be baptized at all or to be rebaptized, is hard to judge. I see indeed which men detest and shudder at more; yet going back to that balance of the Lord, where the weight of things is weighed not by human feeling but by divine authority, I find the Lord’s judgment on both. For he said to Peter, “He who has been washed has no need to be washed again,” and to Nicodemus, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What God’s more hidden judgment holds is perhaps hard for men such as we are to know. Yet as far as the words themselves go, it is plain to anyone how far apart are “has no need to be washed” and “will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Finally, the church itself holds by tradition that a man without baptism cannot be admitted to the altar at all; but since a rebaptized man may be admitted after penance, what else does this show but that he does not lack baptism? If then Cyprian presumed that those whom he thought to be without baptism could still attain to pardon because of the bond of unity, the Lord is able, through that same bond of unity and peace, to be appeased even toward the rebaptized and, in return for peace itself, to grow gentle toward those by whom they were rebaptized, and to forgive all the offences they committed in error, when they offer the sacrifice of love, which covers a multitude of sins; so that he may attend not to how many were wounded by their departure, but to how many more were set free by their return. For in the same bond of peace in which Cyprian believed that those he thought had been admitted to the church without baptism could, by God’s mercy, not be separated from the gifts of the church, we believe that through the same mercy of God the rebaptized can obtain pardon.

For the Catholic Church in the times of blessed Cyprian, and before him in time past, held in the bosom of unity either the rebaptized or those who did not have baptism: either the one group or the other obtained salvation only by the merit of that unity. For if those who came from heretics did not have baptism, as Cyprian asserts, they were not rightly admitted; and yet he did not despair of pardon for them from the Lord’s mercy because of the unity of the church. So then, if they had baptism, they were not rightly rebaptized. What then helped them but the same love of unity, so that what was hidden from human weakness in handling the sacrament divine mercy would not count against those who loved peace? Why then, while you fear your own rebaptized, do you begrudge both them and yourselves the way to salvation? There was once a doubt about baptism: those who thought differently remained in unity. As time went on and the truth was perceived, that doubt was removed. The question which, while not yet settled, did not deter Cyprian so that he withdrew, now that it is settled invites you to return. Come to the Catholic Church in agreement, which Cyprian did not desert while it wavered. Or if Cyprian’s example now displeases you, who was in communion with those received with the baptism of heretics, saying openly, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently,” where are you going, wretched men, what are you doing? Flee from yourselves too, because you came out from where he remained. But if, because of the abundance of his love, his love of the brotherhood, and the bond of peace, neither his own sins nor those of others could harm him, return here, where what your people invented will harm both us and you far less.

I think it is now plain to all that the authority of blessed Cyprian, in favour of keeping the bond of peace and of the most wholesome love that in no way violates the unity of the church, is to be put forward on our behalf rather than on the Donatists’. For if they wish to use Cyprian’s example to rebaptize Catholics, because he judged that heretics should be baptized in the Catholic Church, we rather use his example in which he most plainly laid down that there must be no withdrawal by separation of communion from the Catholic communion, that is, from the Christians spread throughout the whole world, even when the wicked and sacrilegious are admitted; since he would not remove from the right of communion even those who, as it seemed to him, received the unbaptized sacrilegious into Catholic communion, saying: “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.”

I see, however, what may still be asked of me: namely, that I answer those plausible reasons by which Agrippinus before, or Cyprian himself, or those who agreed with them in Africa, or perhaps some from lands overseas and far away (not by any council, plenary or even regional, but by correspondence), were moved to think that this should be done, which neither the ancient custom of the church held, and which afterward the Catholic world excluded with the most robust firmness of agreement; so that what had begun to creep into some minds through disputations of this kind, the stronger truth and universal medicine coming from the salvation of unity might heal. Let them see, then, how securely I approach this discourse. If I cannot succeed in showing how the things they affirm from Cyprian’s council or his letters, that Christ’s baptism cannot be given by heretics, are refuted, I shall remain secure in that church in whose communion Cyprian himself remained with those who did not agree with him.

But if they say that the Catholic Church existed then because there were in it a few, or, if they think so, even many, who disapproved of baptism given among heretics and baptized those who came from there, what then? Before Agrippinus, from whom this began as a new reasoning fighting against custom, was there no church? What, again, after Agrippinus, when Cyprian would not have needed to set about another council had there not been a return to the ancient custom, was there no church, because the custom held everywhere was that Christ’s baptism was held to be nothing but Christ’s baptism, even if it was proved to have been given among heretics or schismatics? But if even then there was a church, and the inheritance of Christ had not perished by interruption, but remained, gaining increase through all nations, the safest course is to remain in the same custom, which then carried good and bad in one embrace. But if there was no church then, because sacrilegious heretics were received without baptism and this was held by universal custom, where did Donatus appear from, from what land did he spring, from what sea did he emerge, from what sky did he fall? So we, as I began to say, are secure in the communion of that church through whose universality is now done what was likewise done through its universality both before Agrippinus and between Agrippinus and Cyprian; and whose universality neither Agrippinus nor Cyprian nor those who agreed with them deserted, though they thought otherwise than the rest, but they remained in the same communion of unity with those very men from whom they differed. But let these men consider where they stand, who can neither say from what source they were propagated, if already then heretics and schismatics received without baptism had destroyed the church by the contagion of communion, nor agree with Cyprian himself. For he professed that he remained in communion with those who received heretics and schismatics, and so with the received themselves; but these men, because of the name of traitors, whom they defamed in Africa and did not convict in the overseas trial, separated themselves from the communion of the whole world, though even if the crimes they charged were true, the crimes of heresies and schisms are far greater. Hence those who came from them without baptism, as he himself held, and were received into Catholic communion not through baptism, could not stain Cyprian. Nor, in the very point in which they say they imitate Cyprian, do they find anything to answer about their acceptance of the baptism of the Maximianists, together with those from that number whom, though condemned by their plenary council and even prosecuted by the judgment of earthly authorities, they recalled into their communion in the same episcopate in which they had condemned them. So if in Cyprian’s time communion with the wicked destroyed the church, these men have no origin for their communion; but if it did not destroy it, they have no defence for their severance, following neither Cyprian’s example, since they have broken the bond of unity, nor his council itself, since they have accepted the baptism of the Maximianists.

Now then, remaining in Cyprian’s example, let us also consider Cyprian’s council. What does Cyprian say? “You have heard, dearest colleagues,” he says, “what Jubaianus our fellow bishop wrote to me, consulting our modest self about the unlawful and profane baptism of heretics, and what I wrote back to him, judging, as we have judged once and again and often, that heretics who come to the church must be baptized and sanctified with the church’s baptism. Likewise another letter of Jubaianus has been read to you, in which, replying to our letter with sincere and religious devotion, he not only agreed but even gave thanks that he had been instructed.” From these words of blessed Cyprian we learn that he was consulted by Jubaianus, what he answered him, and that Jubaianus gave thanks for having been instructed. Ought we now to be thought obstinate if we wish to consider that very letter by which Jubaianus was persuaded of this? For until we too are persuaded, if it can be persuaded by true reasons, Cyprian himself makes us secure about the right of Catholic communion.

For he goes on to say: “It remains that each of us should bring forward what we think on this very matter, judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” So, with the right of communion preserved, he allows me not only to seek the truth still but even to think differently. “For none of us,” he says, “sets himself up as a bishop of bishops or compels his colleagues to the necessity of obeying by tyrannical terror.” What could be gentler, what humbler? Certainly no authority deters us from seeking what is true. “Since every bishop,” he says, “by the freedom of his liberty and power, has his own judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another”: in those questions, I take it, which have not yet been examined with the clearest insight. For he knew how great a depth of the sacrament the whole church was then turning over in varied disputation, and he left free the judgment of inquiry, so that the truth might be laid open by examination. For he was not lying, nor did he plan to catch his simpler colleagues in their words, so that when they had revealed that they thought differently he would then, contrary to his promise, judge that they should be excommunicated. Far be such wicked treachery from so holy a soul. Those who think this of such a man, as if in praise of him, only declare that they themselves are such. I would in no way at all believe that Cyprian, a Catholic bishop, a Catholic martyr, who the greater he was, the more he humbled himself in all things, so as to find grace before God, said with his mouth something other than he carried in his heart, especially in a holy council of colleagues, and especially since he adds and says: “But let us all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone and only has the power both of setting us over the government of his church and of judging our conduct.” Would he, then, while waiting to hear the truth from his colleagues under the remembrance of so great a judgment, give them first an example of lying? God forbid such madness in any Christian, how much more in Cyprian! We have, then, the free judgment of inquiry granted us by the most gentle and most truthful words of Cyprian himself.

Now indeed his colleagues begin to give their own opinions; but they had heard the letter sent to Jubaianus, for it was read, as is recorded at the beginning. Let it be read to us too, then, so that we also may search out from it, as far as the Lord helps, what ought to be thought. Perhaps someone says: “What then? Are you only now learning what Cyprian wrote to Jubaianus?” I have read it already, I confess, and I would certainly have gone over to the same opinion, if I had not been recalled to more careful consideration by the great authority of others, equal in the grace of learning or perhaps even more learned, whom the church spread through the whole world could bear among so many Latin, Greek, and barbarian peoples, and the Hebrew people itself, the church that had also borne him; men who could in no way seem to me to have refused to hold that opinion without reason, not because it was impossible that in a most obscure question one or a few should think more truly than many, but because judgment ought not easily to be given for one or a few against countless men of the same religion and unity, endowed with great ability and rich learning, unless the matter has been thoroughly treated and examined as far as one is able. So, as I inquire more anxiously, how much even Cyprian’s own letters have suggested to me in favour of this opinion which the Catholic Church now holds, that Christ’s baptism is to be recognized and approved not by the merit of those through whom it is given, but by the merit of him of whom it was said, “This is he who baptizes,” the matter itself will show as our discourse proceeds. Let us suppose, then, that the letter he sent to Jubaianus has been read to us, as it was read in the council. Let anyone who is going to read what I shall say read it first, so that he may not think I have perhaps left out something necessary. For it is far too long, and not relevant to explaining the matter undertaken, for us to recall all the words of this letter now.

But if anyone asks what I hold in the meantime while I treat this, I answer first that Cyprian’s letters have suggested to me what I should hold until I see what sort of thing it is that began to be disputed later. For Cyprian himself says: “But someone says: ‘What then will become of those who in the past, coming from heresy to the church, were admitted without baptism?’” Whether these were really without baptism, or were admitted because those who admitted them understood that they had baptism, we shall soon consider. In any case the same Cyprian shows well enough what the custom of the church used to be, when he says that in the past those coming from heresy to the church were admitted without baptism.

Castus of Sicca also says in that very council: “He who, despising the truth, presumes to follow custom is either envious and malicious toward the brothers to whom the truth is revealed, or ungrateful toward God, by whose inspiration his church is instructed.” Whether the truth has been revealed we shall soon inquire; yet this man too has admitted that the custom of the church was otherwise.

Libosus of Vaga also says: “In the Gospel the Lord says: ‘I am the truth.’ He did not say: I am custom. And so, now that the truth has been made plain, let custom yield to truth.” Clearly, who doubts that custom ought to yield to truth made plain? But about truth made plain we shall see; for now this man too shows that the custom was otherwise.

Likewise Zosimus of Tharassa said: “Now that the truth has been revealed, let error yield to truth; for Peter too, who at first practiced circumcision, yielded to Paul when he preached the truth.” He did not wish to say “custom,” but “error”; yet when he says, “for Peter too, who at first practiced circumcision, yielded to Paul when he preached the truth,” he indicates well enough that something else used to be done about baptism too. At the same time he reminds us that it was not impossible for Cyprian to think something about baptism otherwise than the truth required, which was held by the church both before him and after him, if Peter too could think something otherwise than the truth had it, as we have learned through the teaching of the apostle Paul.

Likewise Felix of Buslacenae said: “In admitting heretics without the church’s baptism, let no one put custom before reason and truth, for reason and truth always shut out custom.” If reason, if truth, excellent. But we shall see about this soon; meanwhile it appears from this man’s words too that the custom was otherwise.

Likewise Honoratus of Thucca said: “Since Christ is the truth, we ought to follow truth rather than custom.” By all these opinions it is declared that we are not placed outside the communion of the church until the truth which they say is to be put before this custom shines out clearly. But if the truth shows that what that custom prescribed is to be kept, it will be plain both that it was not instituted in vain, and that, strengthened and observed even more watchfully after these disputes, the most wholesome observance of so great a sacrament could not be changed in the Catholic Church, but, confirmed with the even greater strength of councils, is kept most devoutly.

So Cyprian writes to Jubaianus about the baptism of heretics, who seem to him, placed outside and set beyond the church, to claim for themselves a thing that is neither within their right nor within their power. “We cannot count it either valid or lawful,” he says, “since it is established that among them it is unlawful.” Nor do we deny that one who is baptized among heretics or in some schism outside the communion of the church is not profited by it, in so far as he consents to the perversity of the heretics and schismatics; nor that those who baptize, though they give the true sacrament of baptism itself, do not act rightly in gathering outside the church and thinking against the church. But it is one thing not to have something, another to have it not by right or to usurp it unlawfully. So the sacraments of Christ and the church do not cease to be such because not only heretics but all the wicked and ungodly use them unlawfully. Yet the men are to be corrected or punished, but the sacraments are to be acknowledged and revered.

He says indeed that not one but two or more councils were held on this matter, but African ones. For in one he records that there were seventy-one bishops; to the authority of all of these we do not hesitate, with the peace of Cyprian himself, to prefer the authority of the universal church, spread through the whole world with far more bishops, of which universal church he rejoiced to be an inseparable member.

But water over which God’s name is invoked is not profane and adulterous, even if it is invoked by profane and adulterous men, because neither the creature itself nor the name itself is adulterous. And Christ’s baptism, consecrated by the words of the gospel, is holy even when given through adulterers and to adulterers, though they are unchaste and unclean, because its holiness cannot be polluted, and divine power attends its sacrament, either for the salvation of those who use it well or for the ruin of those who use it badly. Does the light of the sun, or even of a lamp, contract no filth when it is spread over muddy places, and can Christ’s baptism be defiled by anyone’s crimes? For if we turn our mind to the visible things themselves by which the sacraments are administered, who does not know that they are corruptible? But if we turn it to what is done through them, who does not see that it cannot be corrupted, though the men through whom it is done receive rewards or pay penalties according to their conduct?

Cyprian was rightly not moved by Jubaianus’s report that the Novatianists rebaptize those who come to them from the Catholic Church. For not everything that heretics have perversely imitated is therefore not to be done by Catholics, just because they do something similar; but there is one reason why heretics ought not to rebaptize, and another why the Catholic Church ought not. Heretics ought not to do it even if it were to be done in the Catholic Church, because they say that what they themselves received when they were there, and took away when they left, does not exist among Catholics. But the Catholic Church ought not to repeat baptism given among heretics for this reason: that it may not seem to judge that what is Christ’s is theirs, or that they do not have what, having received it within, they certainly could not lose by going outside. For Cyprian himself, with the others, decreed this too: that if any who had been baptized in the church returned to it from heresies, they should be received not by baptism but by penance. From this it is clear that they cannot lose on leaving what they do not receive again on returning. But baptism, which is Christ’s, ought not to be called theirs in the way that their heresy is theirs, their error is theirs, the sacrilege of their dissension is theirs. So when those evils of theirs are corrected on their return, in what is not theirs he whose it is must be acknowledged.

Blessed Cyprian shows that he had not decreed a new or sudden thing, since it had already begun to be done under Agrippinus. “It is now many years and a long time,” he says, “since very many bishops, coming together under Agrippinus, a man of good memory, decreed this.” So the new thing was done by Agrippinus himself. But how he can say, “and from then until today so many thousands of heretics in our provinces, converted to the church, have not spurned or hesitated, but rather have reasonably and gladly embraced it, so as to obtain the grace of the life-giving washing and saving baptism,” I do not see; unless perhaps he says “from then until today” because, since they were baptized in the church by Agrippinus’s council, no question of excommunication arose over them. Otherwise, if the custom of baptizing those who came from heretics continued from Agrippinus to Cyprian, why were councils held by Cyprian on this matter? Why does he tell the same Jubaianus that he is not doing a new or sudden thing, but one instituted by Agrippinus? For why would Jubaianus be disturbed by novelty, so that he had to be calmed by Agrippinus’s authority, if from Agrippinus to Cyprian the church held this? Why, finally, did so many of his colleagues say in council that reason and truth must be put before custom, and not rather say that those who wished to do otherwise were acting against both truth and custom?

As to the forgiveness of sins, whether it takes place through baptism among heretics, I have already written in another book what I thought; but I recall it briefly here too. If the forgiveness of debts takes place there through the holiness of baptism, the debts return through the obstinacy of heresy or schism; and so such men need to come to Catholic peace, so that they may cease to be heretics and schismatics and, through love working in the bond of unity, obtain the cleansing of the sins that had returned upon them. But if, though Christ’s baptism is the same among heretics or schismatics, it does not work the forgiveness of sins there, because of the same foulness of discord and the wickedness of dissension, then the same baptism begins to avail for the forgiveness of sins when they come to the peace of the church; not so that truly forgiven sins are retained, nor so that that baptism is rejected as foreign or different and another given, but so that the very same baptism which outside worked death because of discord may work salvation within because of peace. For it was the same fragrance of which the apostle says, “We are the good fragrance of Christ in every place,” and yet, he says, “among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to some a fragrance of life unto life, to others a fragrance of death unto death.” Although he said this about another matter, I have used it here so that it may be understood that some good thing can work not only life for those who use it well but also death for those who use it badly.

Nor does it matter, when the integrity and holiness of the sacrament is in question, what the one who receives the sacrament believes and with what faith he is imbued. It matters greatly for the way of salvation, but for the question of the sacrament it matters nothing. For it can happen that a man has an entire sacrament and a perverse faith, just as it can happen that he holds the words of the creed entire and yet does not believe rightly, whether about the Trinity itself or the resurrection or something else. For it is no small thing, even within the Catholic Church itself, to hold an entire faith, so that one believes nothing about God himself, let alone about some creature, otherwise than the truth has it. If then someone baptized in the Catholic Church itself afterward learns, by reading, hearing, and peaceable discussion, through the Lord’s own revelation, that he previously believed otherwise than he ought, must he be baptized again? And what carnal and natural man does not wander through the phantasms of his heart and set up for himself a god such as pleases his carnal sense, and so believe as far otherwise than God is as vanity differs from truth? For the apostle, full of the light of truth, spoke a most true sentence: “The natural man,” he says, “does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God.” And yet he said this of those whom he himself shows to have been already baptized. For he says to them, “Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” These men, then, had the sacrament of baptism, and yet, thinking carnally, what could they believe about God except according to the sense of their flesh, since the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God? To such he says: “I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal. As to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able. And even now you are not able; for you are still carnal.” Such men are also carried about by every wind of doctrine, of whom he says, “so that we may no longer be little ones, tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine.” If, then, these men advance to the spiritual maturity of the inner man and come to know with clear understanding how far otherwise they had believed about God, through the deception of their phantasms, than the truth required, must they be baptized again? So too it can happen that a Catholic catechumen falls upon a book of some heretic and, not knowing how to distinguish error from truth, believes something against the Catholic faith, an error which the words of the creed do not contradict; for under those same words countless errors of heretics have arisen. If this man, thinking the book is by some great and learned Catholic, is baptized in the Catholic Church believing such things, and afterward learns by further diligence how he ought to believe, and, embracing the Catholic faith, rejects that error from his heart, must he be baptized again if he confesses this? Or if, before he learns and confesses, he is found to think this and is taught what he must reject and what believe, and it becomes plain that he was baptized in that falsity of faith, must he be baptized again? Why not? Because the holiness of the sacrament, consecrated by the words of the gospel, remained entire upon him, just as he received it when it was handed over, although he himself, set in the vanity of a carnal mind, believed something other than he ought to have believed when he was baptized. So it is plain that the sacrament of baptism can remain entire in someone whose faith is not entire. And so what is said about the variety of different heretics does not bear on this question. For in each person what is to be corrected is what the one correcting him has seen to be wrong; what is sick is to be healed; what is not possessed is to be given, and above all the love of peace, without which the rest cannot profit. Yet when the rest are present they are not to be handed over as if they were lacking; rather, action must be taken through the bond of peace itself and the preeminence of love, so that they may be possessed fruitfully and not to one’s ruin.

Therefore, if Marcion consecrated baptism with the words of the gospel, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” the sacrament was entire, although his faith, since under the same words he held something other than Catholic truth teaches, was not entire, but defiled with fabulous falsehoods. For under the same words, that is, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” not only Marcion or Valentinus or Arius or Eunomius, but the carnal little ones of the church themselves, to whom the apostle said, “I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal,” if they could each be carefully questioned, would perhaps be found to have as many different opinions as there are men. For the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God. Yet do they therefore not receive an entire sacrament? Or, if they advance and correct the vanity of their carnal opinions, must what they had received therefore be repeated? Each receives according to his faith, but as much as he grasps under the guidance of that mercy of God on which the same apostle relies when he says, “If in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” Yet the snares of heretics and schismatics are exceedingly harmful to the carnal for this reason: that their very advance is blocked, a judgment of vanity being confirmed against Catholic truth and a spirit of dissension confirmed against Catholic peace. But the sacraments, if they are the same, are entire everywhere, even if they are wrongly understood and handled in discord, just as the scripture of the gospel itself, if it is the same, is entire everywhere, even if it is claimed in support of a countless variety of false opinions. As for what Jeremiah says: “Why do those who grieve me prevail? My wound is hard; from where shall I be healed? While it was being done, it became to me like lying water that has no faithfulness”: if in the figurative and allegorical language of prophecy water were nowhere used except to signify baptism, we would struggle to find what these words of Jeremiah mean. But now, since in the Apocalypse waters are most plainly explained as standing for peoples, I do not know why I should not understand the lying and faithless water as a lying and faithless people.