On Baptism, against the Donatists

In the books we wrote against the letter of Parmenian which he addressed to Tyconius, we promised that we would treat the question of baptism more carefully; and even if we had not promised it there, we remember and acknowledge that we owe it to the brothers who ask it of us. Therefore in this work, with the Lord’s help, we have undertaken not only to refute the objections the Donatists are accustomed to raise against us on this matter, but also to say what the Lord grants us to say about the authority of the most blessed martyr Cyprian, with which they try to prop up their perversity so that it does not fall before the onrush of truth. So all who judge without being blinded by party zeal may understand that, far from being helped by Cyprian’s authority, they are above all refuted and overthrown by it.

It has already been said in the books mentioned above that baptism can be given outside the Catholic communion in the same way that it can also be possessed outside it. None of them denies that even apostates have baptism, since when they return and are converted through repentance it is not given to them again, and so it is judged that it could not be lost. So too those who depart from the communion of the church through the sacrilege of schism certainly have the baptism they received before they departed. For if they themselves return, it is not given to them again; and this shows that what they had received while placed in unity they could not lose when separated. But if it can be possessed outside, why can it not also be given? If you say, “It is not rightly given outside,” we answer: just as it is not rightly possessed outside and yet is possessed, so it is not rightly given outside, and yet it is given. And just as through reconciliation to unity what was possessed outside unity without profit begins to be possessed with profit, so through the same reconciliation what was given outside it without profit begins to be profitable. Yet it is not lawful to say that what was given was not given, or to slander anyone as not having given this, when one admits that he gave what he had received. For the sacrament of baptism is what the one who is baptized has, and the sacrament of giving baptism is what the one who is ordained has. And just as a baptized person who withdraws from unity does not lose the sacrament of baptism, so too an ordained person who withdraws from unity does not lose the sacrament of giving baptism. For no injury is to be done to any sacrament: if it departs from evil men, both depart; if it remains in evil men, both remain. So just as the baptism is accepted which a man who had left unity could not lose, so the baptism must be accepted which was given by one who had not lost the sacrament of giving it when he left. For just as those who return, having been baptized before they withdrew, are not rebaptized, so those who return, having been ordained before they withdrew, are certainly not ordained again; either they minister what they ministered before, if the good of the church requires it, or if they do not minister, they still bear the sacrament of their ordination, and so hands are not laid on them among the laity. For Felicianus, when he left them with Maximian, lost neither the sacrament of baptism nor the sacrament of giving baptism; for they now have him with them, together with those very people whom he baptized while he was outside in Maximian’s schism. Therefore the others could receive from them, while they had not joined our fellowship, what these had not lost when they withdrew from our fellowship. These facts show both that they act impiously who try to rebaptize the unity of the world, and that we act rightly who do not dare to disapprove God’s sacraments even in schism itself. For in what they agree with us, in that they are also with us; but they have withdrawn from us in that in which they disagree with us. For this approach and departure is to be measured not by bodily but by spiritual movements. Just as the joining of bodies happens through continuity of places, so a kind of contact of minds is agreement of wills. If therefore someone who has withdrawn from unity wishes to do something other than what he received in unity, in that he withdraws and is separated; but in that he wishes to act just as is done in unity, where he received and learned it, in that he remains and is joined.

So these men are with us in some things, but in some things they have gone out from us. We therefore do not forbid them to do the things in which they are with us; but in the things in which they are not with us, we urge them to receive by coming, or to recover by returning, and we labour with love, by whatever means we can, that they may choose this once corrected and amended. So we do not say to them, “Do not give,” but, “Do not give in schism”; nor do we say to those whom they seem about to baptize, “Do not receive,” but, “Do not receive in schism.” For if extreme necessity should perhaps compel someone who could find no Catholic to receive it from, and he, keeping Catholic peace in his heart, received from someone placed outside Catholic unity what he would have received in Catholic unity itself, then if he departed this life at once we count him nothing but a Catholic. But if he was delivered from bodily death, when he restores himself in bodily presence also to the Catholic congregation from which he never departed in heart, we not only do not disapprove of what he did, but praise it with complete confidence and truth, because he believed God to be present in his heart where he kept unity, and would not depart from this life without the sacrament of holy baptism, which he knew to be God’s and not men’s wherever he found it. But if someone who could receive it in the Catholic Church itself chooses, through some perversity of mind, to be baptized in schism, even though he means to come over to the Catholic Church afterward, because he is sure that there the sacrament profits, which can indeed be received elsewhere but cannot profit, he is without doubt perverse and wicked, and the more harmfully so the more knowingly. For he does not doubt that it is rightly received there, just as he does not doubt that there even what he received elsewhere profits.

For there are two things we say: that there is baptism in the Catholic Church, and that it is rightly received there alone; the Donatists deny both. Again, we say two other things: that there is baptism among the Donatists, but that it is not rightly received there; of these two they strongly affirm one, namely that there is baptism there, but they refuse to admit that it is not rightly received there. Of these four statements three are ours alone, but one both sides make. For only we say that there is baptism in the Catholic Church, that it is rightly received there, and that it is not rightly received among the Donatists; but that there is baptism among the Donatists they assert and we grant. Whoever then wishes to be baptized, and is already sure that our church is to be chosen for Christian salvation and that Christ’s baptism profits in it alone, even if received elsewhere, but wishes to be baptized in the party of Donatus because not they alone nor we alone but both sides say that there is baptism there, let him attend to the other three. For if he has chosen to follow us in what they do not say, and yet puts what both sides say ahead of what we alone say, it is enough for us that he puts what they do not say and we alone say ahead of what they alone say. Now we say, and they do not, that there is baptism in the Catholic Church; we say, and they do not, that baptism is rightly received in the Catholic Church; we say, and they do not, that baptism is not rightly received in the party of Donatus. So just as he rather believes what we alone say ought to be believed, let him rather do what we alone say ought to be done. What both sides say ought to be believed, he may, if he thinks so, believe more firmly than what is said by us alone. For he will more firmly believe that Christ’s baptism is in the party of Donatus, which is said by both of us, than that baptism is in the Catholic Church, which is said only by Catholics. But again, he will more believe that Christ’s baptism is with us too, which we alone say, than that it is not with us, which they alone say. For he has already decided and is sure that, in the things on which we disagree, we are to be preferred to them. So he will more believe what we alone say, that it is rightly received with us, than that it is not rightly received with us, since only they say that. By the same rule he will more believe what we alone say, that it is not rightly received among them, than what they alone say, that it is rightly received among them. So it is vain for him to think himself safe in receiving there what both of us indeed say exists there, but not both of us say is to be received there. And in the point on which we do not both agree he himself has chosen to hold to us rather. Let him therefore receive safely here, where he is sure that it both exists and is rightly received, and not receive there what they say exists there indeed, but do not say is to be received there, whose judgment he has decided to choose. Even if he were in doubt whether what he holds certainly is rightly received in the Catholic Church is not rightly received there, he would sin gravely in matters that concern the salvation of the soul by that alone, that he preferred the uncertain to the certain. For he is sure that a man is rightly baptized in the Catholic Church by the very fact that, even when baptized elsewhere, he has decided to come over here. But let him at least regard it as uncertain that a man is rightly baptized among the Donatists, since this is said by those whose judgment he is sure must be preferred to the Donatists’; and preferring the certain to the uncertain, let him be baptized here, where he is sure it is rightly done, because even when he was thinking of doing it elsewhere he had decided that he must come over here.

Now if anyone does not understand how it can be that we say what we admit exists there is not rightly given there, let him consider that we do not say it exists rightly there either, which they too say of those who depart from their communion. Let them also consider the comparison of the military mark, since it can be both held and received by deserters outside the army, yet outside the army it ought neither to be held nor received, and when the man is brought back or brought into the army it is neither changed nor repeated. However, the case of those who fall in with these heretics unwittingly, thinking it is the church of Christ itself, is one thing; the case of those is another who know that there is no Catholic Church except the one that, as was promised, is spread through the whole world and stretches to the ends of the earth; which, growing among the tares and weary of offences, longing for the rest to come, says in the psalms: “From the ends of the earth I have cried to you, when my soul was weary: you have set me high on a rock.” And the rock was Christ, in whom the apostle says we are already raised and seated in heaven, not yet in fact but in hope. And so the psalm goes on to say: “You have led me, because you have become my hope, a tower of strength in the face of the enemy.” For by his promises, set like darts and javelins in a well-fortified tower, the enemy is not only guarded against but also overcome, who clothes his wolves in sheepskins so that they say, “Look, here is Christ, look, there,” and separate many from the whole of the city set on a mountain into the little pockets of their ambushes, and slaughter and devour them. And though they know this, they choose to receive Christ’s baptism outside the communion of the unity of Christ’s body, intending afterward to move into that same communion with what they received elsewhere. Knowingly, then, they will have Christ’s baptism against Christ’s church, if only on the very day they receive it. And if that is a crime, who would say, “Let me be allowed to commit a crime for one day”? For if he is going to pass over to the Catholic Church, I ask the reason. What else will he answer but that it is evil to be in the party of Donatus and not in Catholic unity? So for as many days as you do this evil, for so many days you will be doing evil; and it can be said that a greater evil is done over more days and a lesser over few, but it cannot be said that no evil is done. What need is there to commit so detestable an evil even for one day or one hour? Whoever wishes this to be granted him might as well ask the church, or God himself, to grant him to be an apostate even for one day. For there is no reason why he should fear to be an apostate for one day and not fear to be a schismatic or heretic for one day.

“I preferred,” he says, “to receive it there, where both sides agree that Christ’s baptism exists.” But those to whom you are going to move say it is not rightly received there, while those from whom you are going to move say it is rightly received there. So what is said by those whom you yourself rank lower, against those whom you yourself rank higher, is either false or, to put it more mildly, uncertain. Put the true, then, before the false, or the certain before the uncertain. For that what you desire can rightly be received there, where you are going to move after receiving elsewhere, is admitted not only by those to whom you are going to pass but by you yourself who are going to pass over. For if you doubted whether it could rightly be received there, you would also doubt whether you ought to pass over there. So if it is uncertain that it is a sin to receive in the party of Donatus, who would doubt that it is certainly a sin not to receive it rather where it is certain that it is no sin? But those who are baptized there through ignorance, thinking it is Christ’s church itself, sin less in comparison with these, yet they are wounded by the sacrilege of schism, and not lightly just because others are wounded more gravely. For when it was said to some, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you,” it was not said because the Sodomites will not be punished, but because the others will be punished more severely.

And yet this may perhaps once have been hidden and uncertain. But the very thing by which those who take notice and are corrected are healed is the thing by which those are weighed down who, when they are no longer permitted to be ignorant, rage stubbornly to their own ruin. For the condemnation of the Maximianists, and the reception of the condemned together with those whom they baptized outside their communion in a schism that is, as their council cries out, sacrilegious, has settled this whole question and removed the whole dispute. It leaves nothing at all between us and those Donatists who are in communion with Primian on which anyone might doubt that Christ’s baptism can be not only possessed but also given by those who are separated from the church. For just as they are forced to admit that those whom Felicianus baptized in schism received true baptism, since they now have them with them in the very baptism they received in schism, so we say that Christ’s baptism exists even outside the Catholic communion, given by those who have been cut off from that communion, because they did not lose it when they were cut off. And what they think they conferred on those whom Felicianus baptized in schism when they reconciled them to themselves, namely not that they should receive what they did not have, but that what they had received and held in schism without profit should profit them, this God truly confers and bestows through the Catholic communion on those who come from any heresy or schism where they received Christ’s baptism: not that they should begin to have the sacrament of baptism, which they did not have, but that what they had should begin to profit them.

So between us and those, so to speak, cardinal Donatists whose bishop at Carthage is Primian, there is now no controversy on this matter. For God willed it to be ended by means of the Maximianists, so that what they would not admit when love was persuading them they might admit when their own example compelled them. But we still argue on this point, so that those may not think they have something to say who are not in communion even with these, and who contend that the Donatists who have remained with them are the purer the fewer they are. Even if they were only the Maximianists, we ought not to despise their salvation; how much more, then, since the same party of Donatus is cut into many tiny fragments, all of which tiny particles blame this one much larger fragment in which Primian is for receiving the baptism of the Maximianists, and each tries to assert that true baptism has remained only with itself, and is not anywhere else at all, neither in the whole world where the Catholic Church is spread, nor in the larger party of Donatus itself, nor in the others besides this one of the tiniest fragments! If all these particles would attend to the voice not of a man but of manifest truth itself, and tame the headstrong spirit of their perversity, they would return not to the larger party of Donatus, from which they were cut off as it had been cut off, but from their own dryness to the very greenness of the Catholic root. For all of these, where they are not against us, are for us; but where they do not gather with us, they scatter.

Now, lest I seem to do this with human arguments, since the obscurity of this question in the earlier times of the church, before the schism of Donatus, drove great men, fathers and bishops endowed with great love, to debate among themselves and waver, while keeping peace, so that for a long time the differing decrees of councils in their several regions wavered, until by a plenary council of the whole world what was held most soundly was confirmed and doubts removed, I bring forth sure proofs from the gospel, by which with the Lord’s help I show how rightly and how truly according to God it was decided that in any schismatic or heretic the church’s medicine should cure the wound by which he was separated, but what remained sound should be acknowledged and approved rather than disapproved and wounded. Certainly the Lord says in the gospel: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” Yet when his disciples reported to him that they had seen someone driving out demons in his name and had forbidden him, because he did not follow him with them, he said: “Do not forbid him. He who is not against you is for you. For no one can do anything in my name and speak evil of me.” If there was nothing in that man to be corrected, then let anyone be secure who is placed outside the communion of the church and gathers in Christ’s name while severed from Christian fellowship; and so that saying will be false: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” But if there was something in him to be corrected, which the Lord’s disciples in ignorance wished to do, why did the Lord himself forbid it to be forbidden, saying, “Do not forbid him”? And how will what he says there be true: “He who is not against you is for you”? For in this deed he was not against them but for them, in that he worked healings through the name of Christ. So that both sayings may be true, as true they are, both that in which he says, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters,” and that in which he says, “Do not forbid him, for he who is not against you is for you,” what remains to be understood except that the man was to be confirmed in his veneration of so great a name, in which he was not against the church but for it, and yet to be blamed for that separation by which, if he gathered, he would scatter; so that if he happened to come to the church he would not receive there what he had, but would correct that in which he had strayed?

For the prayers of Cornelius too, though he was a Gentile, were not unheard, nor were his alms unaccepted; indeed he was counted worthy that an angel should be sent to him and that he should see him when sent, through whom he could certainly have learned all he needed without any man coming to him. But since whatever good he had in his prayers and alms could not profit him unless he was incorporated into the church by the bond of Christian fellowship and peace, he is told to send to Peter, and through him he learns Christ, and through him too, being baptized, he is joined in the fellowship of communion to the Christian people, to whom he was joined only by the likeness of good works. For he would have despised to his ruin the good he did not yet have, if he had grown proud of what he had. So too those who separate themselves from the fellowship of others, violate love, and break the bond of unity: if they do none of the things they received in that fellowship, they are separated in everything, and so anyone they have joined to themselves, if he wishes to come to the church, must receive everything he has not received. But if they do some of the same things, in these they have not separated themselves and to that extent they are held in the joining of the fabric, while in the rest they are torn. So if they have joined anyone to themselves, he is knit to the church in that part in which they too are not separated; and so if he wishes to come to the church, he is healed where he was torn and straying, but where he was sound and connected he is not treated but acknowledged, lest in wishing to treat what is sound we rather wound it. So those whom they baptize they heal from the wound of idolatry or unbelief, but they strike them with the heavier wound of schism. For among the people of God the sword killed the idolaters, but the opening of the earth swallowed the schismatics. And the apostle says: “If I have all faith, so that I move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

If someone is brought to a doctor gravely wounded in some vital part of the body, and the doctor says, “He will die of it unless it is treated,” I do not suppose those who brought him are so foolish as to consider and count up his other, sound limbs and answer the doctor, “So all these sound limbs are worth nothing for his life, and that one wounded limb is enough for his death?” They certainly do not say that, but offer him for treatment. Yet because they offer him for treatment they do not ask the doctor to treat the sound parts as well, but to apply his medicine urgently to that one place from which death threatens even though the rest are whole, and will come unless it is healed. What good then is either sound faith or perhaps only the sound sacrament of faith to a man in whom the health of love has been destroyed by the deadly wound of schism, by whose destruction alone even the whole parts are dragged to death? That this may not happen, God’s mercy does not cease, through the unity of the holy church, to bid them come and be healed by the medicine of reconciliation, by the bond of peace. Let them not think themselves sound because we say they have something sound, nor again think that what is sound must be treated because we show something to be wounded. So in the soundness of the sacrament, since they are not against us, they are for us; but in the wound of schism, whatever they do not gather with Christ they scatter. Let them not be lifted up by what they have. Why do they turn their proud eyes so much on what is sound? Let them deign humbly to look at their wound, and attend not only to what is present but also to what is lacking.

Let them see how many great things profit nothing if one thing is lacking, and let them see what that one thing is; and let them not hear me on this, but the apostle: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,” he says, “but have not love, I have become sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” What then does it profit them if they have even an angel’s tongue in the sacred mysteries, and prophecy like Caiaphas and Saul, so that they sometimes prophesy, whom holy Scripture testifies to have been damnable; if they not only know the sacraments but have them, as Simon Magus had them; if they have faith, as the demons confessed Christ (for they did not fail to believe when they said, “What have we to do with you, Son of God? We know who you are”); if they themselves distribute their goods to the poor, as many do not only in the Catholic Church but in various heresies; if, when some persecution breaks out, they hand over their body to the flames along with us for the faith they confess alike? Yet because they do these things separated, not bearing with one another in love nor eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, by not having love they cannot reach eternal salvation even with all those things, which profit them nothing.

But they think they ask a very clever question: whether Christ’s baptism in the party of Donatus begets sons or not; so that if we grant that it does, they may insist that theirs is the mother church, which could beget sons from Christ’s baptism, and, since there must be one church, may charge from this that ours is not the church. But if we say it does not beget, “Why then,” they say, “are those who pass from us to you not reborn by baptism among you, since they were baptized among us, if they have not yet been born?”

As if it begets from that by which it is separated and not from that by which it is joined! For it is separated from the bond of love and peace, but joined in one baptism. So there is one church, which alone is called Catholic; and whatever of its own it has in the communions of various groups separated from its unity, it is certainly the church that begets through what it has of its own in them, not they. For it is not their separation that begets, but what they have kept of this church; and if they give that up too, they beget nothing at all. So she whose sacraments are retained begets in them all, since it is from these that any such thing can be begotten anywhere, although not all whom she begets belong to her unity, which will save those who persevere to the end. For not only do those not belong to her who are manifest in the open sacrilege of separation, but also those who are mixed in her unity in body but are separated by a very wicked life. For she herself had given birth through baptism to Simon Magus, to whom it was nevertheless said that he had no part in the inheritance of Christ. Did he lack baptism, did he lack the gospel, did he lack the sacraments? But because he lacked love, he was born in vain, and it would perhaps have been better for him not to be born. Were they not born to whom the apostle says, “As to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food”? Yet he calls them back from the sacrilege of schism, into which they were rushing because they were carnal: “As to little ones in Christ,” he says, “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. For while there is envy and strife among you, are you not carnal, and walking according to man? For when one says, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I of Apollos,’ are you not men?” Of these he says earlier: “I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you, but that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by those of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, ‘I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” If these, then, had remained in this obstinacy and perversity, they had certainly been born, and yet they would not have belonged through the bond of peace and unity to the very church from which they had been born. So she begets both through her own womb and through the wombs of handmaids, from the same sacraments as from the seed of her husband. For the apostle does not say in vain that all those things were done as a figure. But those who are proud and are not joined to the lawful mother are like Ishmael, of whom it was said: “Cast out the handmaid and her son; for the son of the handmaid shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” But those who peaceably love their father’s lawful wife, by whose lawful right they were begotten, are like the sons of Jacob who, though born of handmaids, nevertheless took the same inheritance. And those who are born within, in unity, from the womb of the mother herself, and neglect the grace they received, are like Esau, son of Isaac, who was rejected, as God testifies and says, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,” though both were conceived from one union and born from one womb.

They also ask whether sins are forgiven through baptism in the party of Donatus, so that if we say they are forgiven they may answer: “Then the Holy Spirit is there, since when he had been given to the disciples by the Lord’s breathing on them, the Lord then went on to say: ‘Baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone’s, they will be retained.’ And if this is so,” they say, “our communion is the church of Christ; for the Holy Spirit does not work the forgiveness of sins outside the church. And if our communion is the church of Christ, your communion is not the church of Christ. For she is one, whichever she may be, of whom it was said, ‘My dove is one, she is the only one of her mother’; nor can there be as many churches as there are schisms.” But if we say that sins are not forgiven there, “Then,” they say, “there is no true baptism there, and therefore you ought to baptize those you receive from us. And since you do not do this, you admit that you are not in the church of Christ.”

We resist them according to the Scriptures, questioning them so that they may answer for themselves what they ask of us. For I ask them to say whether sins are forgiven where there is no love. For sins are the darkness of souls. We hear John saying, “He who hates his brother is in darkness even until now.” But no one would make schisms if they were not blinded by hatred of their brothers. If then we say that sins are not forgiven there, how is someone who is baptized among them reborn? For what is it to be reborn through baptism but to be renewed from oldness? And how is one renewed from oldness whose past sins are not forgiven? But if he is not reborn, neither has he put on Christ; from which it follows that he seems to need to be baptized again, since the apostle says: “For as many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ”; and if he has not put him on, he is not to be held as baptized in Christ either. But since we say he was baptized in Christ, we admit that he has put on Christ, and if we admit this, we admit that he is regenerated. And if this is so, his sins too have been forgiven. How then does John say, “He who hates his brother remains in darkness even until now,” if forgiveness of sins has already taken place? Or is there no hatred of the brothers in schism? Who would say that, since the origin and persistence of schism is nothing else than hatred of a brother?

They think they solve this question when they say: “Then there is no forgiveness of sins in schism, and so no regeneration of the new man, and therefore no baptism of Christ either.” But since we admit that Christ’s baptism exists there, we put this question to them to solve: was Simon the magician dipped in Christ’s true baptism? They will answer yes, because they are compelled by the authority of holy Scripture. I ask then whether they admit that his sins were forgiven. Certainly they will admit it. Again I ask why Peter told him that he had no part in the lot of the saints. “Because,” they say, “he sinned afterward, wishing to buy with money the gift of God, which he believed the apostles were selling.”

What if he came to baptism itself in pretence? Were his sins forgiven or not? Let them choose what they like; whichever they choose is enough for us. If they say they were forgiven, how then will “the holy Spirit of discipline flee the deceitful,” if in this deceitful man he worked the forgiveness of sins? If they say they were not forgiven, I ask: if afterward he confessed his pretence with a stricken heart and true sorrow, would he be judged to need baptism again? And if it is utter madness to say so, let them admit that a man can be baptized with Christ’s true baptism and yet his heart, persisting in malice or sacrilege, may not let the abolition of sins take place; and so let them understand that in communions separated from the church men can be baptized, where Christ’s baptism is given and received by the same celebration of the sacrament, yet it profits for the forgiveness of sins only when each one, reconciled to unity, is stripped of the sacrilege of dissension, by which his sins were retained and not allowed to be forgiven. For just as with the man who came in pretence it happens that he is not baptized again, but is cleansed by that devout correction and truthful confession, which could not happen without baptism, so that what was given before begins to be effective for salvation once that pretence has gone through truthful confession; so too the man who, as an enemy of the love and peace of Christ, received in some heresy or schism Christ’s baptism, which those who separated themselves did not lose, and by which sacrilegious crime his sins were not forgiven, is not to be baptized again when he corrects himself and comes to the fellowship and unity of the church; because by the reconciliation and peace itself it is granted that the sacrament, which received in schism could not profit, begins to profit for the forgiveness of his sins now in unity.

But suppose they say that in the man who came in pretence his sins were indeed forgiven, by the holy power of so great a sacrament, at that very moment of time, but returned at once because of his pretence; so that the Holy Spirit was both present to the baptized man so that his sins departed, and fled from the persistence of his pretence so that they returned; so that both sayings are true, “As many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ,” and, “For the holy Spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful”; that is, the holiness of baptism clothes him with Christ, and the ruin of pretence strips him of Christ, as happens when someone passes from darkness through light into darkness: his eyes are fixed on darkness all the time, but the light cannot help shining on him as he passes. If, then, they say this, let them understand that this also happens in those who are baptized outside the communion of the church, but with the church’s baptism. For this, wherever it is, is holy in itself, and so it does not belong to those who separate themselves but to the church from which they separate themselves; yet it has force even among them to this extent, that they pass through its light into the darkness of their dissension, the sins returning at once which the holiness of baptism had forgiven at that moment of time, as the darkness returns which the light had dispelled as they passed.

For that forgiven sins return where there is no brotherly love the Lord teaches most plainly in the gospel about that servant whom, when he found him to owe ten thousand talents, he forgave everything at his entreaty; but when he had not had pity on his fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii, the lord ordered him to repay what he had forgiven him. The time, then, when pardon is received through baptism is like the time of rendering account, so that all the debts found are forgiven. Yet that servant did not afterward lend money to his fellow servant and then, when he could not repay, refuse him pity; his fellow servant already owed him when he himself, rendering account to his lord, was released from a debt of such size; and he had not forgiven his fellow servant what he owed him, and came in that state to have his lord forgive him. The fellow servant’s words show this: “Have patience with me and I will repay you.” Otherwise he would have said, “You had already forgiven me this; why do you demand it again?” The Lord’s own words make this still clearer. For he says, “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.” He did not say, “to whom he had already forgiven a debt of a hundred denarii”; for if he had forgiven it, the man did not owe it to him. Since then he said, “who owed him,” it is plain that he had not forgiven it. And it would indeed have been better, and more fitting for one so deep in debt who was about to render account and hoped for his lord’s mercy, that he should first forgive his fellow servant what was owed him, and so come to the rendering of account where his lord’s mercy was to be implored. Yet what he had not yet forgiven his fellow servant did not prevent his lord from forgiving him everything he owed at that time of accounting. But what good was it, since because of his persisting hatred everything was at once heaped back on his head? So the grace of baptism is not prevented from forgiving all sins, even if hatred of a brother persists in the mind of the one to whom they are forgiven. For yesterday is released, and whatever is before it is released, even the very hour and moment before baptism and in baptism. But from then on he at once begins to be guilty not only of the following days, hours, and moments but also of the past ones, since all that was forgiven returns. And these things often happen in the church.

For it often happens that a man has an enemy whom he hates most unjustly, although we are commanded to love even unjust enemies and to pray for them. But suddenly, in danger of death, he begins to be alarmed and asks for baptism, which he receives in such haste that the time of danger scarcely allows the necessary questioning of a few words, much less a very long sermon to drive that hatred from his heart, even if it were known to the one baptizing. Certainly these things never cease to happen, not only among us but among them too. What then do we say? Are this man’s sins forgiven or not? Let them choose just what they like. For if they are forgiven, they return at once; the gospel says so, the truth cries it aloud. So whether they are forgiven or not, a remedy is needed afterward. Yet if he lives, and learns that this must be corrected, and corrects it, he is not baptized again, either among them or among us. So too the things that schismatics or heretics have and do no differently from the true church, we do not amend when they come to us, but rather approve. For in what they do not differ from us, in that they are not separated from us. But since these things profit them nothing as long as they are schismatics or heretics, because of the other things in which they differ from the truth and because of the most monstrous crime of separation itself, whether their sins have remained on them or, once forgiven, have at once returned, we urge them to come to the salvation of peace and love, not only so that they may have something they did not have, but so that what they had may also begin to profit them.

So it is in vain that they say to us: “If you accept our baptism, what do we lack, that you should think we ought to look to your communion?” For we answer: we do not accept your baptism, because that baptism does not belong to schismatics or heretics, but to God and the church, wherever it is found and wherever it is carried. What is yours is only that you think perversely, act sacrilegiously, and are impiously separated. For if you held or believed everything else that is true, and still persisted in that same separation against the bond of brotherly peace, against the unity of all the brothers, who have been shown throughout the whole world just as they were promised, all of whose cases and hearts you have never in any way been able to know and examine so as to condemn them justly, and who cannot be guilty because they believed the church’s judges rather than the litigants, you would lack only this: what he lacks who does not have love. Now why need we go over it again? Look for yourselves in the apostle at how much it is that you lack. And what difference does it make whether one who does not have love flies outside, carried off by some wind of temptation, or does not leave the Lord’s harvest within, to be separated at the last winnowing? And yet even such people, if they have once been born through baptism, need not be born again.

For the church gives birth to all through baptism, whether within herself, that is, from her own womb, or outside herself from the seed of her husband. But Esau too, though born of the wife, was separated from the people of God because of discord with his brother; and Asher, born through the wife’s authority indeed but of the handmaid, received the land of promise because of concord with his brothers. So also, that Ishmael was separated from the people of God was not due to his mother being a handmaid but to discord with his brother; and the authority of the wife, whose son he rather was, did not help him, since by her marital rights he was both begotten in the handmaid and received from the handmaid. So among these people, whoever are born are born by the right of the church, which is in baptism; but if they agree with their brothers, they will come through the unity of peace to the land of promise, not to be cast out again from the mother’s womb but to be acknowledged in the father’s seed; but if they persist in discord, they will belong to Ishmael’s portion. Now Ishmael was first and Isaac afterward, and Esau first and Jacob later, not because heresy gave birth before the church, or the church itself first bore the carnal or natural and afterward the spiritual, but because in the very lot of our mortality, since we are born of Adam, “what is first is not the spiritual but the natural; afterward the spiritual.” And from that natural sense, since “the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God,” all dissensions and schisms are born. Those who persist in that sense, the apostle says, belong to the old covenant, that is, to the desire for earthly promises, in which spiritual things are indeed figured, but “the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God.”

Whenever, then, people of this kind have begun to exist in this life, so that though already imbued with the divine sacraments as they were distributed through the ages they still think carnally, and hope for and desire carnal things from God, whether in this life or after it, they are natural men. But the church, which is the people of God, is an ancient thing even in the pilgrimage of this life, having a natural portion in some people and a spiritual portion in others. To the natural belongs the old covenant, to the spiritual the new. But in the first times, from Adam to Moses, both were hidden. From Moses the old was made manifest, and in it the new was hidden, because it was signified in a hidden way. But after the Lord came in the flesh, the new was revealed. The sacraments of the old ceased, but such desires did not cease. For they are in those whom the apostle describes as already born through the sacrament of the new covenant, yet still natural and unable to perceive the things of the Spirit of God. For just as under the sacraments of the old covenant some lived as spiritual men, belonging in a hidden way to the new covenant which was then hidden, so now too under the sacrament of the new covenant, which has already been revealed, many live as natural men. If they will not advance to perceiving the things of the Spirit of God, to which the apostle’s word urges them, they will belong to the old covenant. But if they advance, even before they grasp it they belong to the new by that very advance and approach. And if they are snatched from this life before they become spiritual, kept by the holiness of the sacrament, they are counted in the land of the living, where our hope and portion is the Lord. Nor do I find any truer meaning in what is written, “Your eyes saw my imperfection,” since it continues, “and in your book all shall be written.”

She who gave birth to Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham also gave birth to Moses and the prophets, later in time, before the Lord’s coming; and she who gave birth to these also gave birth to the apostles and our martyrs and all good Christians. For they all appeared, born at different times, but they are held together in the fellowship of one people, and as citizens of the same city they have experienced the labours of this pilgrimage, and some of them are experiencing them now, and the rest will experience them to the end. Likewise she who gave birth to Cain and Ham and Ishmael and Esau also gave birth to Dathan and others like him in the same people; and she who gave birth to these also gave birth to Judas the false apostle and Simon Magus and the other false Christians down to these times, stubbornly hardened in natural affection, whether they are mixed within unity or dissent by open severance. But when such men are evangelized by spiritual men and imbued with the sacraments, it is as if Rebecca gives birth to them by herself, as she did to Esau; but when such men are begotten in the people of God through those who do not proclaim the gospel purely, it is Sarah indeed, but through Hagar. Again, when good spiritual men are begotten through carnal men who evangelize or baptize, Leah or Rachel bears them by marital right, but through the womb of a handmaid; but when good believers are begotten in the gospel through spiritual men, believers who either attain to the disposition of spiritual maturity, or do not cease to strive toward it, or fail to do so only because they cannot, they are born into new life and the new covenant as Isaac from the womb of Sarah or Jacob from the womb of Rebecca.

So whether they seem to dwell within or are openly outside, what is flesh is flesh; whether it persists in its barrenness on the threshing floor or is carried outside by the occasion of temptation as by a wind, what is chaff is chaff. And even one who is mixed with the congregation of the saints in carnal hardness is always divided from the unity of that church which is without spot or wrinkle. Yet no one is to be despaired of, whether one who appears such within or one who opposes more openly outside. But the spiritual, or those advancing toward it with devout zeal, do not go outside; for even when by some perversity or necessity of men they seem to be expelled, they prove there more than if they had remained within, since they in no way rise up against the church but are rooted in the solid rock of unity with the strongest might of love. To this belongs what is said in Abraham’s sacrifice: “But the birds he did not divide.”

On the question of baptism, then, I think I have now argued enough. And since what is called by the name of the Donatists is a most manifest schism, it remains for us to believe devoutly about baptism what the universal church holds, far removed from the sacrilege of schism. Yet if in that church some still thought one thing and others another on this question, while keeping peace, until a universal council approved some one thing, refined and pure, the love of unity would cover the error of human weakness, as it is written: “For love covers a multitude of sins.” For where love is absent, everything else is possessed in vain; where it is present, some things are pardonably lacking.

There are great proofs of this in the letters of the blessed martyr Cyprian, to come now to him by whose authority these men carnally flatter themselves, while they are spiritually slain by his love. For in those times, before the consent of the whole church had confirmed by the decision of a plenary council what was to be followed in this matter, it seemed good to him, with about eighty of his fellow bishops of the African churches, that every man who had been baptized outside the communion of the Catholic Church must be baptized again on coming to the church. That this was not rightly done the Lord surely did not disclose to so great a man for this reason: that his devout humility and love in guarding the peace of the church for its health might be made plain, and be marked, so to speak, for medicinal knowledge not only for the Christians of that time but for those who came after. For when a bishop of such merit, of so great a church, of so great a heart, of such eloquence, of such virtue, thought something about baptism other than what truth, more carefully examined, was to confirm, and many of his colleagues held what, though not yet clearly shown, both the past custom of the church and afterward the whole Catholic world embraced, he nevertheless did not cut himself off from the others who thought differently by separating his communion, and he never ceased to urge the others too to “bear with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” For so, while the framework of the body remained, if anything was weak in some members it would recover by the health of the others, rather than being deadened by severance and admitting the care of no treatment. And if he had separated himself, how many would have followed! What a name he would have made for himself among men! How much more widely would men be called Cyprianists than Donatists! But he was not a son of perdition, of such as it was said, “You cast them down while they were being lifted up,” but he was a son of the church’s peace, who, endowed with such enlightenment of heart, did not see something for this reason: that through him something more excellent might be seen. “And yet,” says the apostle, “I show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” He penetrated less, then, so as to discern the hidden secret of the sacrament; but if he knew all mysteries and did not have love, he would be nothing. But since, though he saw that less clearly, he guarded love humbly, faithfully, and bravely, he was counted worthy to reach the crown of martyrdom, so that if any cloud had crept into his clear mind from the human condition, it might be put to flight by the glorious brightness of his shining blood. For not in vain did the Lord Jesus Christ himself, when he called himself the vine and his own as branches in the vine, say that they are cut off and taken from the vine as useless branches that bear no fruit. And what is the fruit but that new offspring of which he also says, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another”? That is the love without which the rest profits nothing. The apostle also says: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control.” All these begin from love, and through the rest of their joining make, as it were, a marvellous cluster. Nor did the same Lord add in vain, “But the branches in me that bear fruit my Father prunes, that they may bear more fruit,” unless because even those who abound in the fruit of love may still have something to be pruned, which the husbandman does not leave untended. So that this holy man, thinking differently about baptism from the truth of the matter, which was afterward thoroughly treated and confirmed by most careful consideration, remained in Catholic unity, this was both made up for by the abundance of his love and pruned by the knife of his suffering. But lest I seem to say these things in praise of the most blessed martyr (praise that is not his but belongs to him by whose grace he became such) in order to avoid giving proof, let us now bring proofs from his letters, by which above all the mouths of the Donatists may be shut. For they set his authority before the unlearned, to show that they act rightly, as it were, in baptizing again the faithful who come to them; most wretched as they are, and unless they correct themselves altogether condemned by themselves, who choose to imitate in so great a man what did him no harm for this reason: that he walked with most persevering steps to the end in that peace from which these have strayed, who have not known the way of peace. There is indeed this point: that Christ’s baptism is holy everywhere, and though it is among heretics or schismatics it does not belong to the heresy or schism itself, and so those who come from there to the Catholic Church itself ought not to be baptized again. But still it is one thing to err in this, and another for men who have strayed from Catholic peace and plunged into the abominable pit of severance to judge, on top of that, that others must be rebaptized. For in that holy soul the breasts of love covered that blemish on its whiteness, but in these men an unpeaceable face displays this soot in its hellish foulness. But what we are going to treat next, concerning the authority of blessed Cyprian, we shall take up from another beginning.

I have set out to show, with the Lord’s help, how much the things brought forward against us by the party of Donatus, as if on the authority of blessed Cyprian, tell for us, that is, for Catholic peace, and how much they tell against those who bring them forward. If then the need to reply compels me to recall again things I have already set down in other books, though I shall do it sparingly, it ought not to be burdensome to those who have already read and retain them; for what is necessary for instruction must be instilled more often in the slower, and when the same things are turned over and treated in many and varied ways, they help even those endowed with greater understanding, both toward ease of knowing and toward fullness of discussion. I know too how it usually vexes a reader when, on running into some knot of a question, he is sent from the book he holds in his hands to another, to look for its solution, a book he perhaps does not have. So if the needs of the present questions compel me to repeat briefly whatever I have already said in other books, let those who know forgive it, so that those who do not know may not be put out. For it is better to offer something to one who has it than to put off one who does not.

What then do these men say when they are choked by the force of the truth to which they will not consent? “Cyprian,” they say, “whose great merit and great learning we know, decreed in council, with many of his fellow bishops contributing their own opinions, that heretics or schismatics, that is, all who are outside the communion of the one church, do not have baptism, and that therefore anyone baptized by them who comes to the church must be baptized in the church.” Cyprian’s authority does not frighten me, because Cyprian’s humility refreshes me. We know indeed the great merit of Cyprian, bishop and martyr; but is it greater than that of Peter, apostle and martyr? Of him the same Cyprian speaks thus in his letter to Quintus: “For not even Peter, whom the Lord chose first and on whom he built his church, when Paul later disputed with him about circumcision, claimed anything for himself insolently or assumed anything arrogantly, so as to say that he held the primacy and that newcomers and latecomers ought rather to obey him; nor did he despise Paul because he had earlier been a persecutor of the church; but he admitted the counsel of truth and readily agreed to the lawful reasoning that Paul defended, giving us, namely, an example both of concord and of patience, that we should not obstinately love our own views, but should rather take as our own whatever is at times usefully and wholesomely suggested by our brothers and colleagues, if it is true and lawful.” Here Cyprian recalls what we too have learned in the holy Scriptures: that the apostle Peter, in whom the primacy of the apostles stands out by so excellent a grace, was corrected by the later apostle Paul when he was in the habit of acting about circumcision otherwise than the truth required. If then Peter could in some point not walk straight toward the truth of the gospel, so as to compel the Gentiles to live like Jews, as Paul writes in the letter in which he calls God to witness that he is not lying (for he says, “What I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie”; and after this so holy and fearful calling of God to witness he related all these things, in which he said: “When I saw that they were not walking straight toward the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all: If you, though you are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”), if Peter, I say, could compel the Gentiles to live like Jews against the rule of truth that the church afterward held, why could not Cyprian compel heretics or schismatics to be baptized again against the rule of truth that the whole church afterward held? I think that Bishop Cyprian is compared with the apostle Peter without any insult to himself, so far as the crown of martyrdom is concerned. Indeed I ought rather to fear being insulting toward Peter. For who does not know that that primacy of apostleship is to be preferred to any episcopate whatever? But though the grace of their chairs differs, the glory of the martyrs is one; and if perhaps the hearts of those who confess and die for the true faith in the unity of love surpass one another in some respect, the Lord knows, by whose hidden and wonderful dispensation of graces the thief hanging on the cross confesses him once and is sent into paradise that very day, while Peter, following the Lord, denies him three times and his crown is put off; for us to judge from this is rash. Yet if anyone now compelled someone to be circumcised after the Jewish manner and so to be baptized, the human race would detest this far more than if someone were compelled to be rebaptized. So since Peter, doing that, is corrected by Paul, his junior, and, kept by the bond of peace and unity, is advanced to martyrdom, how much more easily and firmly is what has been established by the decrees of the universal church to be preferred to the authority of a single bishop or to the council of a single province, since this same Cyprian stated what he thought in such a way that he wished to remain in the peace of unity even with those who thought differently on this matter! This is shown by his own first speech at the opening of that same council which these men bring forward. For it runs as follows.

“When on the first of September very many bishops from the provinces of Africa, Numidia, and Mauretania had gathered at Carthage, with presbyters and deacons, and with the greater part of the people also present, and when the letter of Jubaianus written to Cyprian had been read, and likewise Cyprian’s reply to Jubaianus on baptizing heretics, and what the same Jubaianus afterwards wrote back to Cyprian, Cyprian said: ‘You have heard, dearest colleagues, 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. 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. For none of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops or compels his colleagues to the necessity of obeying by tyrannical terror, since every bishop, 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. 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.’”

Now let the proud and swollen necks of the heretics raise themselves, if they dare, against the holy humility of this speech. Mad Donatists, whom we long and pray to see return to the peace and unity of the holy church and be healed in it, what do you say to this? You are certainly in the habit of throwing in our faces Cyprian’s letters, Cyprian’s opinion, Cyprian’s council; why do you take up Cyprian’s authority for your schism and reject his example for the peace of the church? And who does not know that the holy canonical Scripture, both of the Old and of the New Testament, is contained within its own fixed limits, and is so preferred to all later letters of bishops that there can be no doubt or dispute at all whether whatever is established to be written in it is true or right; but that the letters of bishops, which have been written or are being written since the canon was confirmed, may be criticized, if anything in them happens to stray from the truth, by the perhaps wiser word of someone more skilled in the matter, by the weightier authority and more learned prudence of other bishops, and by councils; and that the councils themselves, which are held in particular regions or provinces, yield without any equivocation to the authority of plenary councils, which are held from the whole Christian world; and that the plenary councils themselves are often amended, the earlier by the later, when by some experience of things what was closed is opened and what lay hidden is known, without any puffing of sacrilegious pride, without any swollen neck of arrogance, without any contention of spiteful envy, with holy humility, with Catholic peace, with Christian love?

So holy Cyprian, the loftier the humbler, who so loved Peter’s example that he said, “giving us, namely, an example both of concord and of patience, that we should not obstinately love our own views, but should rather take as our own whatever is at times usefully and wholesomely suggested by our brothers and colleagues, if it is true and lawful,” shows well enough that he would most readily have corrected his opinion if anyone had shown him that Christ’s baptism can be given by those who have gone outside just as it could not be lost when they went outside, on which we have already said much. Nor would we ourselves dare to assert anything of the kind if we were not made firm by the most harmonious authority of the universal church, to which he too would without doubt have yielded, if already in his time the truth of this question had been refined, declared, and established by a plenary council. For if he praises and proclaims Peter for being corrected patiently and harmoniously by a single junior colleague, how much more quickly would he himself, with the council of his province, have yielded to the authority of the whole world once the truth was made plain! Indeed so holy and so peaceable a soul could most readily have agreed even with one person who spoke and showed the truth. And perhaps it happened, but we do not know. For not everything that was done among the bishops at that time could be committed to memory and writing, nor do we know everything that was committed. For how could this matter, wrapped in such clouds of altercation, have been brought to the clear illumination and confirmation of a plenary council, unless it had first been established by being treated at length throughout the regions of the world in many discussions and conferences of bishops on this side and that? This is what the soundness of peace does: when some rather obscure things are long inquired into and, through the difficulty of discovery, give rise to differing opinions in brotherly debate until a clear truth is reached, the bond of unity remains, so that the incurable wound of error does not remain in a part cut off.

And so it often happens that something is less revealed to the more learned, so that their patient and humble love, in which there is greater fruit, may be proved, either in how they keep unity when they think differently in rather obscure matters, or in how they accept the truth when they learn that it has been declared contrary to what they thought. Of these two, we hold one made manifest in blessed Cyprian, namely how he kept unity with those from whom he differed; for he says, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” The other, namely how he could accept the truth, once found, against what he thought, his merits proclaim even if letters are silent. If no letter is found, his crown bears witness; if no council of bishops shows it, the company of angels shows it. For it is no small proof of a most peaceable soul to have been counted worthy of martyrdom in that unity from which, though thinking differently, he would not separate himself. For we are men; and so to think something otherwise than as it is, is a human temptation. But to come, through too much love of one’s own opinion or envy of better men, to the sacrilege of breaking communion and founding a schism or heresy is diabolical presumption. And to think nothing otherwise than as it is, is angelic perfection. Since then we are men, but in hope are angels of God, to whom we shall be equal in the resurrection, as long as we do not have the perfection of an angel, let us not have the presumption of the devil. That is why the apostle says, “Let no temptation take hold of you but what is human.” It is human, then, to think something otherwise. Therefore he says in another place, “As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us think this; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” But to whom does he reveal it, when he wills, whether in this life or after it, if not to those who walk in the way of peace and do not stray into any severance? Not such as these men, who have not known the way of peace and have broken the bond of unity for no other reason. And so the apostle, having said, “And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you,” lest they think that what they thought otherwise could be revealed to them outside the way of peace, at once added, “Nevertheless, to what we have attained, in that let us walk.” Walking in that with most persevering endurance, his blood shed not apart from unity but in unity (for if he handed over his body to be burned and did not have love it would profit him nothing), Cyprian came through the confession of martyrdom to the angelic light, so that, if not before, then there at least he recognized as revealed what he thought otherwise, when he did not put the opinion of a different view ahead of the bond of unity.

So you Donatists, what do you say to this? If our opinion about baptism is true, all who thought otherwise in Cyprian’s time were not separated from the unity of the church until God revealed to them what they thought otherwise. Why then have you broken the bond of peace by sacrilegious separation? But if your opinion about baptism is true, Cyprian and the others with whom you say he held such a council remained in unity with those who thought otherwise. Why have you broken the bond of peace? Whichever of these you choose, you are forced to pass sentence against your own severance. Answer: why did you separate yourselves? Why have you set up an altar against the whole world? Why are you not in communion with the churches to which the apostolic letters were sent, which you hold and read and say you live by? Answer: why did you separate yourselves? Certainly so as not to perish by communion with the wicked. How then did Cyprian and so many of his colleagues not perish? Though they believed that heretics and schismatics do not have baptism, yet when such men were received without baptism, and they believed that their sins, so monstrous and so sacrilegious, were upon them, they still preferred to be in communion with them rather than be separated from unity, as Cyprian says: “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.”

If then the righteous perish by such communion with the wicked, the church had already perished in Cyprian’s time. Where then did Donatus come from? Where was he catechized, where baptized, where ordained, when the contagion of communion had already extinguished the church? But if the church existed, the wicked could do the good no harm in one communion. Why did you separate yourselves? Look, I see in unity Cyprian and his other colleagues, who, holding a council, judged that all who had been baptized outside the communion of the church did not have it, and that therefore it must be given them when they come. But look, again I see in the same unity some who thought differently on this matter and, recognizing Christ’s baptism in those who came from heretics or schismatics, did not dare to baptize them again. All these Catholic unity embraces in its motherly bosom, bearing one another’s burdens and eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, until the Lord should reveal to one side or the other whatever they thought otherwise. If the former thought the truth, were they not defiled by the latter, or were they? If the latter thought the truth, were they not defiled by the former, or were they? Choose what you like. If they were defiled, there was no church even then. Answer: where did you come out from to get here? But if the church remained, the good are in no way defiled by the wicked through such communion. Answer: why did you break the bond?

Or perhaps schismatics received without baptism do not defile, while those who handed over the sacred books do defile? Indeed, that the traitors were yours the most manifest records of proceedings bear witness. And if you had then spoken the truth against those you accused, you would have persuaded the unity of the whole world of your case, so that you would be retained and they excluded. But if you tried to do this and did not succeed, the whole world is innocent, which believed the church’s judges rather than the defeated litigants. And if you did not wish to plead your case, the whole world is innocent, which could not condemn men unheard. Why then did you separate yourselves from the innocent? You cannot defend the sacrilege of your schism. But I leave this aside; I say this: if the traitors could defile you, who were not convicted by you and by whom you were defeated, much more could the sacrileges of schismatics and heretics, received without baptism according to your opinion, defile Cyprian. Yet he did not separate himself; and since the church remained, it is plain that he could not be defiled. Why then did you separate yourselves, I do not say from the innocent, which is proved, but from the traitors themselves, which is not proved? Or, as I had begun to say, are the crimes of traitors graver than those of schismatics? Let us not bring deceitful scales, on which to weigh what we like and as we like, saying at our own pleasure, “This is heavy, this is light”; but let us bring the divine balance from the holy Scriptures, as from the Lord’s treasuries, and weigh on it which is graver; or rather let us not weigh, but recognize what has been weighed by the Lord. At the time when the Lord showed by recent examples of punishment that the earlier offences were to be avoided, when an idol was made and worshipped, and a prophetic book was burned by the anger of a contemptuous king, and schism was attempted, idolatry was punished by the sword, the burning of the book by slaughter in war and captivity in a foreign land, schism by the opening of the earth, the leaders being buried alive and the rest consumed by fire from heaven. Who now will doubt that the crime more heavily punished was the more wicked committed? If those who came from such sacrilegious men without baptism, as you say, did not defile Cyprian, how could traitors defile you, traitors not convicted but invented? Even if they had not handed over the books to be burned but had burned them with their own hands, they would certainly have been guilty of a lesser crime than if they had committed schism, since the one was punished more mildly and the other more heavily, not by human judgment but by divine.

Why then did you separate yourselves? If you have any sense, you surely see that you can find nothing to answer. “Things have not failed us so completely,” they say, “that we cannot answer: this is what we want. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” They do not understand that this was said to those who wished to judge not manifest deeds but the hearts of others. For how does the apostle himself say so much about the crimes of schisms and heresies? Or how is it sung in the psalms, “If you truly love justice, judge rightly, sons of men”? And why does the Lord himself say, “Do not judge by persons, but judge with right judgment,” if it is not lawful to judge anyone? Finally, why did they themselves judge at all about those traitors, about whom they judged falsely, servants of another? To their own master they stood or fell. Why, lastly, did they not hesitate to pronounce such a judgment on the recent Maximianists, “by the truthful mouth of a plenary council,” as they say, as to compare them with those first schismatics whom the earth swallowed alive? Yet some of them, which they cannot deny, they either condemned when innocent or received back when guilty. But when the truth is spoken, which they cannot answer, they gnaw out rough mutterings: “This is what we want. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” But when a weak sheep is caught sight of alone, where the shepherd who would protest seems absent, the teeth are bared and the feeble throat is broken: “You would be a good man, if you were not a traitor; look to your soul, be a Christian.” What shameless rage! When it is said to a Christian, “Be a Christian,” what else is he being taught but to deny that he is a Christian? Was there anything else those persecutors of Christians wished to teach, whom the martyrs resisted and so became martyrs? Or is what is committed by the threatening sword thought lighter than what is committed by the plotting tongue?

Answer this, you ravening wolves who, wishing to be clothed in sheepskins, think that blessed Cyprian’s letters are on your side: did the sacrilege of schismatics defile Cyprian or not? If it did, then the church perished even then; there was nothing for you to be propagated from. But if it did not, by what crime of another can the innocent be defiled in unity, if they cannot be defiled by the sacrilege of schism? Why then did you separate yourselves? Why, while fleeing the lighter things you invent, have you committed the very sacrilege of schism, which is graver than all? Or perhaps you are now pleased to admit that those who had been baptized outside the communion of the church, either in some schism or in heresy, were no longer schismatics or heretics, because by passing over to the church and anathematizing their former errors they had ceased to be what they were? How then did their crimes not remain upon them without baptism? Or was that Christ’s baptism, which could not profit them outside the communion of the church, but when they came and, having anathematized their past error, were received into the peace of the church by the laying on of hands, then, once they were rooted and grounded in love, without which everything else is fruitless, what they had been carrying outside without fruit began to profit them both for the forgiveness of sins and for holiness of life?

So do not throw Cyprian’s authority at us in favour of repeating baptism, but hold with us Cyprian’s example in favour of preserving unity. For that question of baptism had not yet been carefully treated, but the church nevertheless held a most wholesome custom: in schismatics and heretics too, to correct what is wrong, not to repeat what was given; to heal what is wounded, not to treat what is sound. This custom, I believe, came from apostolic tradition, as many things are not found in their writings nor in the councils of later men, and yet, because they are kept throughout the whole church, are believed to have been handed down and commended by none but the apostles. This most wholesome custom, then, holy Cyprian says began, as it were, to be corrected through his predecessor Agrippinus; but, as the truth more carefully examined has taught, which after great waves of doubt was brought to the confirmation of a plenary council, it is more truly believed to have begun to be corrupted through Agrippinus, not corrected. So when so great a question burst upon them, since it was hard to give an account of the forgiveness of sins and of man’s spiritual regeneration, whether it could take place among schismatics or heretics, and the authority of Agrippinus went before, and of some who had agreed with him, men who failed on this question and had preferred to attempt something new rather than hold a custom whose defence they did not understand, plausible reasons rushed upon the eyes of the soul and blocked the path of searching out the truth.

Nor do I think that blessed Cyprian expressed rather freely what he thought against the custom, and spoke first, for any other reason than that he might most gratefully receive another, if anyone should happen to appear to whom something had been better revealed, and might show that not only diligence in teaching is to be imitated but also modesty in learning; but that, if no one appeared who could bring something by which all those plausible reasons that moved him might be refuted, he might remain in the same opinion, with a good conscience both for not having hidden what he thought was truth and for having kept the unity he loved. For so he understood what the apostle says: “But let two or three prophets speak, and let the rest judge. If something is revealed to another who sits by, let the first be silent.” In this, he says, “he taught and showed that many things are revealed to individuals for the better, and that each one ought not to fight obstinately for what he had once imbibed and held, but should gladly embrace whatever has appeared better and more useful.” By these words he certainly not only admonished those who saw nothing better to agree with him, but also urged any who could bring something by which the former custom might rather be confirmed as to be kept, so that, if it were such that it could not be refuted, he too might show how truly he had said “that each one ought not to fight obstinately for what he had once imbibed and held, but should gladly embrace whatever has appeared better and more useful.” But since at that time only those had appeared who opposed the custom to him, but did not bring such defences of the custom itself as would move such a soul as his, this most serious man would not yield his reasons, which though not true (that was hidden from him) were yet not defeated, to a custom that was indeed true but not yet vindicated. Yet unless Agrippinus before him and some of his fellow bishops throughout Africa had tried to abandon that custom, even by the decisions of a council, he would not have dared even to reason against it; but troubled by so obscure a question, and seeing everywhere a universal and firm custom, he would rather have pressed himself in prayer and earnestness of mind toward God, so that he might perceive and teach that what afterward seemed good to a plenary council was true. But since the authority of the preceding council held through Agrippinus had received him when he was weary, he preferred to defend what his predecessors had, as it were, found, rather than labour further in searching. For at the end of his letter to Quintus he shows in this way on what, as on a little bed of authority, he rested as if tired.

“This indeed,” he says, “Agrippinus too, a man of good memory, with his other fellow bishops who at that time governed the Lord’s church in the province of Africa and Numidia, decreed, and confirmed after weighing it in common deliberation. We too have followed their devout and lawful judgment, wholesome and in keeping with the faith and the catholic church.” By this testimony he shows well enough that he would have cited it much more if any council beyond the sea, or a universal council, had been held on this matter. But none had yet been held, because the whole world was held by the strength of custom, and this alone was set against those who wished to bring in novelty, because they could not grasp the truth. Afterward, however, while it was treated and examined by many on both sides, it was not only found but also brought to the authority and strength of a plenary council, after Cyprian’s passion indeed, but before we were born. That this was the custom of the church, which afterward, when many ambiguities had been discussed and the truth perceived, was confirmed by a plenary council, is shown well enough also by the words of blessed Cyprian himself in that same letter to Jubaianus which is recorded to have been read in the council. For he says: “But someone says: ‘What then will become of those who in the past, coming from heresy to the church, were admitted without baptism?’” Here he certainly shows well enough what was usually done, though he did not wish it done; and by the very fact that he cites the council of Agrippinus he plainly indicates that the custom of the church was otherwise. For there was no need to wish to establish this by a council if it was already held by custom; and in that council itself some of the opinions declare outright that they decreed what they thought should be decreed against the custom of the church. Therefore let these men consider this one thing, which is plain to all: if Cyprian’s authority is to be followed, it is to be followed rather in keeping unity than in changing the church’s custom; but if his council is attended to, the later council of the universal church is to be preferred to it, of which he rejoiced to be a member, and which he often urged others to imitate him in keeping within the framework of the whole body. For later councils are preferred by later generations to earlier ones, and the universal is always, by the best right, preferred to the parts.

But what do these men do when they are shown that holy Cyprian, even though he did not admit those baptized in heresy or schism, yet was in communion with those who did admit them, as he declared most plainly when he said, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently”? If he was stained by communion with such men, why do they follow his authority in repeating baptism? But if he was not stained by communion with such men, why do they not imitate his example in keeping unity? Does anything remain here but for them to say, “This is what we want”? What else do all wicked and criminal men answer to the word of truth and justice, the dissolute, drunkards, adulterers and the shameless of every kind, thieves, robbers, murderers, brigands, sorcerers, idolaters? What else do they answer when truth rebukes them but, “This is what I want, this is what pleases me”? And if they have been dipped in the Christian name, they also say, “Who are you to judge another’s servant?” Yet these are more modest than the Donatists in this, that when they suffer some penalty under divine and human laws for their abandoned conduct and deeds, they do not call themselves martyrs. But these men want to have at once the life of the sacrilegious and the reputation of the innocent, no penalty for wicked deeds and the glory of martyrs for just penalties; as if God’s mercy and patience toward them were not the greater, the more, “chastising them little by little,” he “gives them room for repentance,” and does not cease to redouble his scourges in this life, so that, considering what they suffer and why they suffer it, they may at some time come to their senses; and that those who for the unity of Donatus have already received the baptism of the Maximianists may rather embrace the baptism of the whole world for the peace of Christ, be restored to the root, be reconciled to unity, and see that nothing has remained to them to say, but that something has remained to do: that for their past deeds a sacrifice of love be offered to a God who can be appeased, whose unity they have broken by an abominable crime, on whose sacraments they have inflicted such long-continued injuries. “For the Lord is merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and abounding in mercy and true.” Let them embrace him as merciful and long-suffering in the present life, and fear him as true in the life to come. “For he does not will the death of the wicked so much as that he should turn and live,” because he turns aside his sentence against the injuries done to him. This is our exhortation.

This is why we have them as enemies: because we speak the truth, because we are afraid to be silent, because we dread to cease from pressing as hard as we can, because we obey the apostle who says, “Preach the word, be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, exhort, rebuke.” But, as the gospel says, “they love the glory of men more than the glory of God,” and they fear being rebuked for a time, but do not fear being condemned for ever. They themselves see what evil they do; they see that there is nothing at all for them to answer; but they pour mists over the unlearned, while they themselves are swallowed alive, that is, perish knowingly and with full awareness. They saw that people shuddered at and gravely detested the fact that they had divided themselves into many schisms, and above all at the capital of Africa and its most famous city, Carthage. They tried to patch up the disgrace of their rags; thinking they could do away with the Maximianists, they pressed hard with great effort through Optatus the Gildonian, inflicted many evils and most savage persecutions on them, and received some of them back, thinking that all could be converted by the same terror. But to those whom they received they would not do the injury of baptizing again those whom they had baptized in schism, or rather of having them rebaptized inside by the very men who had baptized them outside; and in this way they set a limit against their own abominable custom. They feel how wickedly they now act in violating the baptism of the whole world after accepting the baptism of the Maximianists; but they are afraid of those they have rebaptized, lest these should perhaps not spare them if they themselves spared others, lest these should demand their own souls of them if they ceased to slaughter the souls of others.

They find nothing to answer about the reception of the Maximianists. If they say, “We received them as innocent,” the answer is: “Then you had condemned the innocent.” If they say, “We did not know,” then you judged rashly (just as you also pronounced a rash sentence on the traitors), and you spoke falsely in saying, “Know that they have been condemned by the truthful mouth of a plenary council”; for the innocent could not have been condemned by a truthful mouth. If they say, “We did not condemn them,” the council is read out, and the names both of the bishops and of the cities are read out. If they say, “That council is not ours,” the proconsular records are read out, in which they cited that same council more than once, so as to exclude those same Maximianists from the basilicas and drive them out by the clamour of the courts and the onslaught of auxiliary troops. If they say that Felicianus of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras, whom they afterward received, had not been with Maximian, the records are read out in which, on the basis of their council held against the Maximianists, they demanded from the public courts that these very men be excluded from the basilicas. If they say, “They were received for the sake of peace,” the answer is: “Why then do you not acknowledge true and full peace? Who drove you, who compelled you, for the peace of Donatus to receive a condemned schismatic, and against the peace of Christ to condemn the world unheard?” Truth certainly presses them; they see that they have nothing to answer, and think that they have nothing to do. They find nothing to say; they are not allowed to be silent; they prefer to struggle against the truth with perverse words rather than be restored to peace by confessing their errors.

But who does not understand what they may be saying in their hearts? “What then shall we do,” they say, “about those we have already rebaptized?” The answer is: return with them to the church; bring those you have wounded to be treated with the medicine of peace; bring those you have killed to be raised by the life of love. Brotherly concord has great power to make God gracious. “If two of you agree on earth,” says the Lord, “whatever you ask will be done for you.” If two men, how much more two peoples! Let us prostrate ourselves together before the Lord; share unity with us; let us share sorrow with you; and let love cover a multitude of sins. Seek counsel from blessed Cyprian himself; see how much he relied on the good of unity. That is why he did not break away from those who thought differently, and though he held that those baptized outside the communion of the church did not have baptism, he still believed that those admitted to the church in simplicity could, because of the bond of unity itself, attain to pardon. For so he solved the question he put to himself, writing thus to Jubaianus: “But someone says: ‘What then will become of those who in the past, coming from heresy to the church, were admitted without baptism?’ The Lord is able by his mercy to grant pardon, and not to separate from the gifts of his church those who, admitted to the church in simplicity, have fallen asleep in the church.”

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.

As for the statement that the Holy Spirit is given by the laying on of hands only in the Catholic Church, our forefathers no doubt wished this to be understood of what the apostle says: “Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” For this is the love which those who are cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church do not have; and so, even if they speak with the tongues of men and of angels, if they know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if they have all prophecy and all faith so that they move mountains, and distribute all they have to the poor and hand over their body to be burned, it profits them nothing. But he does not have the love of God who does not love the unity of the church; and so it is rightly understood to be said that the Holy Spirit is not received except in the Catholic Church. For the Holy Spirit is not now given by the laying on of hands with temporal and perceptible miracles bearing witness, as he was given before to commend the new faith and to extend the church’s beginnings. For who now expects that those on whom hands are laid to receive the Holy Spirit will suddenly begin to speak in tongues? But invisibly and secretly divine love is understood to be breathed into their hearts because of the bond of peace, so that they can say, “Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” But there are many workings of the Holy Spirit; when the same apostle had listed them in a certain place, as far as he thought sufficient, he concluded thus: “But all these one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each his own as he wills.” Since then the sacrament is one thing, which even Simon Magus could have; the working of the Spirit is another, which commonly takes place even in wicked men, as Saul had prophecy; and another is that working of the same Spirit which only the good can have, such as “the end of the commandment, love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned”: whatever heretics and schismatics may receive, the love that covers a multitude of sins is the proper gift of Catholic unity and peace; and not of it in all its members, because not all belong to it, as we shall see in its place. Yet that love cannot exist apart from it, the love without which the rest, even if they can be acknowledged and approved, cannot profit and set free. But the laying on of hands, unlike baptism, can be repeated. For what else is it but prayer over a man?

For since the Lord, as a type of unity, gave Peter the power that whatever he loosed on earth should be loosed, it is plain that that unity is also called the one perfect dove. Do all the greedy, then, over whom the same Cyprian groaned deeply within the Catholic Church itself, belong to that same dove? For robbers, I think, can be called not doves but hawks. How then did they baptize, who “seized estates by treacherous frauds” and “increased their gains by multiplying interest,” if only that dove, that is, that unity which cannot be understood except in the good, simple, chaste, and perfect, baptizes? Or perhaps, through the prayers of the holy spiritual men who are in the church, as through the constant moaning of the dove, the great sacrament is administered, and a hidden dispensation of God’s mercy, so that the sins even of those are loosed who are baptized not by the dove but by the hawk, if they come to that sacrament with the peace of Catholic unity? But if this is so, why then are not the sins of anyone who comes from heresy or schism to Catholic peace loosed through their prayers? The integrity of the sacrament is recognized everywhere; but it will not avail for that irrevocable forgiveness of sins outside the unity of the church, nor will the prayers of the saints, that is, the moaning of that one dove, be able to help one placed in heresy or schism; just as they cannot help one placed within, if by a most wicked life he holds the debts of his sins against himself, not only if he is baptized by the hawk, but even if he is baptized by the devout ministry of the dove herself.

“As the Father has sent me,” he says, “I also send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you remit anyone’s sins, they will be remitted to him; if you retain anyone’s, they will be retained.” If then they bore the person of the church, and this was said to them as if it were said to the church itself, the peace of the church forgives sins and estrangement from the church’s peace retains sins, not according to the will of men but according to the will of God and the prayers of the holy spiritual men, who judge all things but are themselves judged by no one. For the rock retains, the rock forgives; the dove retains, the dove forgives; unity retains, unity forgives. But the peace of this unity is only in the good, whether already spiritual or advancing toward spiritual things by harmonious obedience; it is not in the wicked, whether they make an uproar outside or are tolerated within with groaning and baptize and are baptized. But just as those who are tolerated within with groaning, though they do not belong to the same unity of the dove and to that glorious church that has no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, yet, if they are corrected and confess that they came to baptism in great wickedness, are not rebaptized, but begin to belong to the dove, through whose groaning their sins are loosed, which were retained while they were estranged from its peace; so too those who are more openly outside, if they have received the same sacraments, when they come corrected to the unity of the church are set free not by repeated baptism but by the same law of love and bond of unity. For if “only the leaders in the church, grounded on the law of the gospel and the Lord’s ordination, may baptize,” were those who seized estates by treacherous frauds and increased their gains by multiplying interest such men? For I think that those are grounded on the Lord’s ordination to whom the apostle, giving a pattern, says: “not greedy, not seeking base gain.” Yet such men baptized in Cyprian’s own times, men whom he confesses with great groaning to have been his fellow bishops, and whom he bears with great reward for his endurance. Yet they did not give the forgiveness of sins, which is given through the prayers of the saints, that is, through the moaning of the dove, whoever baptizes, if those to whom it is given belong to its peace. For the Lord would not have said to robbers and usurers, “If you forgive anyone’s sins they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone’s, they will be retained.” Outside indeed “nothing can be either bound or loosed, where 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 does not have peace with the dove, whether he is openly outside or seems to be within.

As for Dathan and Abiram, who tried to usurp for themselves the right to sacrifice against the unity of God’s people, and the sons of Aaron, who put strange fire on the altar, we know that they did not go unpunished. Nor do we say that such crimes remain unpunished unless such men correct themselves, if the patience of God, leading to repentance, grants them time for correction.

Those, however, who say that baptism must not be repeated because only a hand was laid on those whom Philip the deacon had baptized say nothing to the point, and God forbid that we should use such arguments when seeking the truth. So we do not yield the more to heretics if we say that what they have of Christ’s church is not theirs, and if we will not, because of the crimes of deserters, refuse to recognize the standards of our emperor; rather, since the Lord our God is a jealous God, whatever of his we recognize in anyone, let us in no way grant him that he should think it his own. Certainly God himself, being jealous, reproaches the woman who committed fornication against him, as a figure of the transgressing people, and says that she gave what was his to her lovers, and received back from them what was not theirs but his. Between the adulterous woman and her adulterous lovers, God, as a jealous and angry husband, still recognizes his own gifts. And shall we say that baptism consecrated by the words of the gospel belongs to heretics, and, moved by their deeds, wish to attribute to them even what is God’s, as if they could defile it, or make what is God’s their own because they themselves would not be God’s?

Who is that adulterous woman whom the prophet Hosea describes, who said, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my clothes and my linen and all that is fitting for me”? It may indeed be understood of the transgressing nation of the Jews. But whom else do false Christians imitate (for that is what all heretics and schismatics are) but false Israelites? For there were also true Israelites, as the Lord himself bears witness to Nathanael, saying, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.” And who are true Christians but those of whom the same Lord says, “He who loves me keeps my commandments”? And what is it to keep his commandments but to persist in love? Hence he also says, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another,” and again, “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” And who doubts that this was said not only to those who then heard the words of one present in the flesh, but also to those who now learn through the gospel the words of one seated in heaven? For he came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it. And the fullness of the law is love, in which Cyprian was so strong that, though he thought differently about baptism, he still did not desert unity, and was a fruitful branch rooted in the Lord’s vine, which the heavenly husbandman pruned with the knife of his suffering so that it might bear more fruit. But the enemies of this brotherly love, whether they are openly outside or seem to be within, are false Christians and antichrists. For when they find occasions they go outside, as it is written: “He who wishes to depart from his friends seeks occasions.” But even if occasions are lacking, while they seem to be within, they are separated from that invisible structure of love. Hence John says: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.” He does not say that they became strangers by going out, but declared that they went out because they were strangers. The apostle also speaks of some who had strayed from the truth and were overturning the faith of some, whose word was spreading like a cancer; and when he says they are to be avoided, he yet indicates that they were in one great house, but as vessels for dishonour, I believe because they had not yet gone outside. Or if they had already gone out, how does he say they were in the same great house with vessels of honour, unless perhaps because of the sacraments themselves, which have not been changed even in the separated conventicles of heretics, he says that all belong to one great house, but with different deserts, some for honour, some for dishonour? For so he speaks, writing to Timothy: “But avoid profane novelties of words; for they will advance greatly in ungodliness, and their word spreads like a cancer. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have strayed from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they overturn the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earthenware, and some for honour, some for dishonour. If anyone, then, cleanses himself from such things, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified, useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work.” And what is it to cleanse oneself from such things but what he said a little before: “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity”? And lest anyone think he could perish with such men, as being in one great house, he most watchfully said beforehand, “The Lord knows those who are his,” namely those who by departing from iniquity cleanse themselves from the vessels made for dishonour, so as not to perish with those whom they are forced to tolerate in the great house.

So the wicked and criminal, carnal, natural, and devilish, think that things are given them by their seducers which are nothing but gifts of God, whether sacraments or some spiritual workings concerning present salvation. But these men do not have love for God, but are taken up with those by whose pride they are seduced; and they are compared to the woman committing fornication whom the prophet records as saying, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my clothes and my linen and my oil and all that is fitting for me.” For so heresies and schisms arise, when the carnal people that is not founded in the love of God says, “I will go after my lovers,” with whom it shamefully commits fornication, whether by corruption of faith or by the elation of pride. But for the sake of those who, having suffered difficulties and straits and obstacles in the vain reasonings of those who seduce them, are pierced with fears and return to the way of peace and to seeking God sincerely, he goes on to say: “Therefore, behold, I will fence her way with stakes and build thorns in her way, and she will not find her path. And she will pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she will seek them and not find them, and she will say: I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.” Then, lest the things which the seducers have entire, and which come from the teaching of truth, through which they seduce to the falsehoods of their dogmas and dissensions, lest those entire things, I say, be thought theirs, he at once added: “And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain and the wine and the oil, and multiplied silver for her. But she made gold and silver things for Baal.” For he had said above, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread,” and so on, certainly not understanding that whatever the seducers too hold entire and lawful is God’s, not men’s. Nor would they claim these things for themselves and assert them as their own, were they not in turn seduced by the seduced peoples, when they are believed and given such honours that through them they have the power to say such things and claim such things for themselves, so that their error is called truth and their crime is thought righteousness, because of the sacraments and scriptures which they hold for show, not for salvation. And so through Ezekiel too it is said to the same harlot: “And you took some of the vessels of your glory, of my gold and my silver which I gave you, and made yourself male images, and committed fornication with them. And you took my many-coloured garment and covered your idols, and set my oil and my incense before your idols, and my bread which I gave you. With fine flour and honey and oil I fed you, and you set these before your idols for a pleasing odour; and you did all this.” For the carnal soul turns all the sacraments and words of the holy books into the images of its phantasms, with which it delights to wallow. Yet, though those images are false and are “doctrines of demons in the hypocrisy of liars,” the sacraments and divine oracles are not therefore to be so dishonoured as to be counted theirs, since the Lord says, “of my gold and my silver,” and “my many-coloured garment,” and “my oil and incense and my bread,” and so on. Or, because those who err think these things belong to those by whom they are seduced, must we therefore not recognize whose they are, when he himself says, “And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain and the wine and the oil, and multiplied silver for her”? For he did not say that she did not have these things because she was a harlot; she is said to have had them, and not as her own nor her lovers’, but God’s, whose alone they are. Although, then, she had her own fornication, the things with which she adorned that fornication, whether seduced or seducing, were not hers but God’s. If these things were figured of the Jewish nation, where the scribes and Pharisees rejected God’s commandment in order to establish their own traditions, so that together with a people abandoning God they committed fornication in a certain way; and yet such fornication among the people of that time, which the Lord exposed by rebuking it, did not make the sacraments theirs, which were not theirs but God’s, who says, speaking to the harlot, that all those things are his (which is why the Lord himself sent even those he cleansed from leprosy to those same sacraments, to offer sacrifice for themselves to the priests, because there had not yet succeeded to them the sacrifice which he himself afterward willed to be celebrated in the church in place of all those, since in all those he himself was foretold): how much more ought we, finding the sacraments of the new covenant among any heretics or schismatics whatever, not attribute them to those men, nor reject them as if unrecognized, but, though in the house of a harlot, recognize the gifts of the lawful husband, and with the word of truth amend that fornication which belongs to the unchaste woman, not blame those gifts which belong to the merciful Lord!

From considering these and such things, our fathers, not only before Cyprian or Agrippinus but also afterward, held the most wholesome custom: whatever divine and lawful thing they found entire in any heresy or schism, they approved rather than denied; but whatever was foreign and proper to that error or dissension, they truly rebuked and healed. But the remaining points to be considered from the letter written to Jubaianus must, because of the length of this volume, be taken up and treated, I think, from another beginning.

The church, compared with paradise, shows us that men can indeed receive its baptism even outside, but that no one either obtains or keeps the salvation of blessedness outside it. For the rivers from the fountain of paradise, as Scripture testifies, flowed abundantly even outside. For they are named, and the lands through which they flow are mentioned, and all know that these lie outside paradise. Yet in Mesopotamia or in Egypt, where those rivers came, there is not the happiness of life that is recorded in paradise. So it happens that, though the water of paradise is outside paradise, blessedness is only within paradise. So then the church’s baptism can be outside the church, but the gift of the blessed life is found only within the church, which is also founded on the rock, which has received the keys of binding and loosing. This is the one that holds and possesses all the power of her bridegroom and Lord, through which marital power she can bear sons even from handmaids; and these, if they are not proud, are called to the lot of the inheritance, but if they are proud, they will remain outside.

All the more, then, since we fight for the honour and unity of the church, let us not attribute to heretics whatever of the church’s we recognize among them; but let us teach them by rebuking them that what they have from unity does not avail for salvation unless they come to that same unity. For the water of the church is faithful and saving and holy for those who use it well, but no one can use it well outside the church. For those who use it badly, both outside and inside, it is borne to their punishment, not to their reward. And so baptism cannot be corrupted and adulterated, even if it is possessed by the corrupt and adulterous, just as the church itself is incorrupt and chaste and modest; and so the greedy, robbers, and usurers do not belong to it, though Cyprian himself testifies in many passages of his letters that they are not only outside but also within; and yet they are baptized and baptize without a changed heart.

For he says this too in a letter of his to the clergy about entreating God, taking on himself, like holy Daniel, the sins of his people. For among the many evils he lists he also says this: “renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds,” as the apostle says of some: “For they profess that they know God, but in deeds they deny him.” So blessed Cyprian charges that these men are found within the church itself, who are baptized without their heart changed for the better, since they renounce the world in words, not in deeds; while the apostle Peter says, “So baptism saves you too in a like form, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience to God,” which those certainly did not have of whom it is said, “renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds.” And yet he does this rebuking and reproving them, so that they may at some time walk in the way of Christ and prefer to be his friends rather than the world’s.

If they had obeyed him and had begun now to live rightly, not as false Christians but as true Christians, would he have ordered them to be baptized again? Certainly not; but true conversion would have granted them this: that the sacrament, which while they were unchanged availed for ruin, would begin, once they were changed, to avail for salvation. For neither are those devoted to the church who seem to be within and live against Christ, that is, act against Christ’s commandments; nor are they at all to be judged to belong to that church which he himself so cleanses with the washing of water in the word, as to present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. 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 one, she is the only one of her mother”; for she is without spot and wrinkle. Or let anyone who can assert that those who renounce the world in words, not deeds, are members of this dove. Meanwhile, as to what we see: hence, I think, it was said, “He who regards the day regards it to the Lord”; for God judges every day. But according to the foreknowledge of him who knows whom he predestined before the foundation of the world to be conformed to the image of his Son, many even who are openly outside and are called heretics are better than many good Catholics; for we see what they are today, we do not know what they will be tomorrow. And to God, with whom things to come are present, even what they will be they already are; but we ask, according to what each man is at present, whether those are today to be counted among the members of that church which is called the only dove and the bride of Christ without spot or wrinkle, of whom Cyprian says, in the letter I have mentioned, that they “do not keep the way of the Lord nor observe the heavenly commands given us for salvation,” that they do not do the Lord’s will, “being eager for property and gain, pursuing pride, given over to rivalry and dissension, careless of simplicity and faith, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds, each pleasing himself and displeasing everyone.” But if that dove does not recognize them among her members, and the Lord, if they remain in the same perversity, will say to such men, “I do not know you; depart from me, you who work iniquity,” they seem to be in the church but are not; indeed they act against the church. How then can they baptize with the church’s baptism, which profits neither themselves nor those who receive it, unless they are changed within by true conversion, so that the sacrament itself, which did not profit them when they received it, while they renounced the world in words and not in deeds, may begin to profit them when they begin to renounce it in deeds too? So it is also with those whose separation is open; for neither these nor those are members of that dove today, but some of them perhaps will be.

So we do not accept the baptism of heretics when we do not baptize after them; but what we recognize to be Christ’s, even in wicked men, whether openly separated outside or secretly separated within, we receive with due reverence, once they have been corrected in that in which they went astray. And just as I seem to be pressed when it is said to me, “Then a heretic forgives sins?”, so I too press when I say, “Then does one who does not keep the heavenly commandments, greedy, a robber, a usurer, envious, renouncing the world in words, not in deeds, forgive sins?” If by the power of God’s sacrament, then the one as well as the other; if by his own merit, neither the one nor the other. For that sacrament is recognized as Christ’s even in wicked men, but in the body of the only dove, incorrupt, holy, chaste, without spot and wrinkle, neither the one nor the other is found. And just as baptism does not profit the one who receives it while renouncing the world in words, not in deeds, so it does not profit one who is baptized in heresy or schism; but for both, when corrected, what did not profit before, yet was present, begins to profit.

So one baptized in heresy does not become a temple of God. Is he therefore to be held as unbaptized? For neither does a greedy man baptized within become a temple of God, if he does not depart from greed. For those who become a temple of God certainly possess the kingdom of God; but the apostle says, among many things, “Neither the greedy nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God.” For in another place the same apostle compares greed with the service of idols: “And greed,” he says, “which is the service of idols.” This sense the same Cyprian so amplified in his letter to Antonianus that he did not hesitate to compare greed with the sin of those who in time of persecution had declared by certificates that they would offer incense. So then one baptized in heresy in the name of the Holy Trinity does not become a temple of God, if he does not depart from heresy, just as one baptized in greed in the same name does not become a temple of God, if he does not depart from greed, which is the service of idols. For the same apostle also says this: “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” So let no one ask us of what god he becomes the temple, who we say does not become the temple of God. Yet he is not therefore unbaptized, nor does his unclean error cause the sacrament he received, consecrated with the words of the gospel, not to be holy; just as the other’s greed, which is the service of idols and great uncleanness, cannot cause the baptism he receives not to be holy, even if he is baptized by another equally greedy man with the same words of the gospel.

“So it is in vain,” he says, “that some who are defeated by reason set custom against us, as if custom were greater than truth, or as if in spiritual matters one ought not to follow what has been revealed for the better by the Holy Spirit.” This is plainly true, since reason and truth must be put before custom. But when truth supports custom, nothing ought to be held more firmly. Then he goes on to say: “For one who errs in simplicity can be pardoned, as the blessed apostle Paul says of himself: ‘I who was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, but I obtained mercy, because I acted in ignorance.’ But after inspiration and revelation have come, whoever persists knowingly and deliberately in what he had erred in sins without the excuse of ignorance. For he relies on a kind of presumption and obstinacy, though he is overcome by reason.” It is most true that the sin of one who sins knowingly is far graver than that of one who sins unknowingly. And so the holy man Cyprian, not only learned but also teachable (for he so understood this point in the apostle’s praise of a bishop as to say that this too is to be loved in a bishop, that he not only teaches with knowledge but also learns with patience), I do not doubt that if he had discussed this question, long and much debated in the church, with the most holy and learned men through whom it afterward came about that that ancient custom was confirmed even by a plenary council, he would without hesitation have shown not only how learned he was in what he had grasped with the firmest truth, but also how teachable in what he had less noticed. And yet, though it is most manifest that one who knows sins far more gravely than one who does not, I wish someone would tell me, if one man falls into heresy not knowing how great an evil it is, and another does not depart from greed knowing how great an evil it is, which of them is worse. I can also put it this way: if one man not knowing rushes into heresy, and another knowing does not depart from idolatry (since the apostle too says, “greed, which is the service of idols,” and Cyprian himself understood the same sentence in no other way, as I said, writing to Antonianus, where he says: “Nor let the new heretics flatter themselves in this, that they say they do not hold communion with idolaters, since among them there are both adulterers and defrauders who are held guilty of the crime of idolatry. ‘For know this, understanding that every sexually immoral or unclean person or defrauder, which is idolatry, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God’”; and again: “Put to death, therefore, your members which are on earth, sexual immorality, uncleanness, and evil desire and greed, which is the service of idols”), I ask, then, who sins more gravely, one who has fallen into heresy unknowingly, or one who knowingly has not departed from greed, that is, from idolatry? By the rule by which the sins of the knowing are ranked above sins of ignorance, the greedy man with knowledge prevails in crime. But lest perhaps the very magnitude of the crime of heresy does what knowing commission does in greed, let the ignorant heretic be made equal to the knowing greedy man; although the testimony he himself cited from the apostle does not seem to show this. For what do we detest in heretics but blasphemies? But wishing to show that sins of ignorance belong to easy pardon, he cited the apostle where he says, “I who was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, but obtained mercy, because I acted in ignorance.” But if possible, as I said, let both sins be weighed equally, the blasphemy of the ignorant and the idolatry of the knowing, and let the same sentence judge the one who, seeking Christ, fell into a plausible discourse of falsehood, and the one who knowingly resists Christ speaking through the apostle: “For every sexually immoral or unclean or greedy person, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Why are baptism and the words of the gospel disapproved in the one and approved in the other, when both are found strangers to the members of that dove? Or is it because the one is an open litigant outside, so that he is not let in, while the other is a crafty flatterer within, so that he is not thrown out?

As for his saying, “And let no one say, ‘We follow what we received from the apostles,’ since the apostles handed down only one church and one baptism, which is appointed only in that same church,” it does not move me so much as to dare to reject Christ’s baptism when found among heretics (just as when I find the gospel itself among them I must approve it, though I detest their error), as it reminds me that there were some even in holy Cyprian’s time who said that that custom, against which the African councils were held, and of which he himself had said a little before, “It is in vain that some who are defeated by reason set custom against us,” had been handed down by the apostles. Nor do I find why the same Cyprian found this custom, which after Cyprian was confirmed even by a plenary council of the whole world, so strong even before, that when a man endowed with such knowledge sought an authority to follow for changing it, he found only the council of Agrippinus, held in Africa alone a few years before him. Seeing that this was not enough against the practice of the whole world, he seized on these reasons, which we now, made firm by the antiquity of the custom itself and the authority of the later plenary council, find on more careful consideration to be plausible rather than true; though they seemed true to him as he laboured in a most obscure question and wavered about the forgiveness of sins, whether it could fail to take place in Christ’s baptism and whether it could take place among heretics. If less was revealed to him on this, so that the greatness of his love, by which he did not desert unity, might be proved, no one ought therefore to dare to set himself above such strong foundations of his, above the merits of his virtues and so great an abundance of graces, because, admonished by the firmness of a universal council, he sees something that Cyprian did not see, since the church did not yet have a plenary council on this matter; just as no one is so mad as to set himself above the merits of the apostle Peter because, taught by the letters of the apostle Paul and strengthened by the very custom of the church, he does not compel the Gentiles to live like Jews, as Peter once had compelled them.

We do not, then, find any case in the apostles of someone who, baptized among heretics, was admitted in that same baptism and given communion. But neither do we find that anyone coming from heretics, who had been baptized among them, was baptized again by the apostles. But that custom, which even then men looking back did not see to have been instituted by later men, is rightly believed to have been handed down by the apostles; and there are many such things, which it would take long to repeat. So if those to whom Cyprian, wishing to persuade them of what seemed right to him, said, “And let no one say, ‘We follow what we received from the apostles,’” were saying something, how much more strongly do we now say: “What the church’s custom has always held, what this disputation could not dissuade it from, and what a plenary council has confirmed, this we follow!” Besides, when the reasons on both sides of the disputation and the testimonies of Scripture have been well examined, it can also be said: “What the truth has declared, this we follow.”

In fact, what some set against Cyprian’s arguments, that the apostle says, “Nevertheless in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed,” Cyprian rightly refutes, showing that it does not bear on the case of heretics, since the apostle was speaking of those who were within, seeking their own ends with malicious envy. They did proclaim Christ, as the truth is by which we believe in Christ, but not in the spirit in which he was proclaimed by good evangelists, the sons of that dove. “For Paul in his letter,” he says, “was not speaking of heretics or of their baptism, so that he could be shown to have set down anything bearing on this matter. He was speaking of brothers, whether walking disorderly and against the discipline of the church, or keeping the truth of the gospel in the fear of God. And he stated that some of them spoke the word of God steadfastly and fearlessly, but some were engaged in envy and dissension; that some kept kindly love toward him, but others had malicious dissension; yet that he bore everything patiently, so long as, whether in truth or in pretence, the name of Christ that Paul preached should come to the knowledge of very many, and the sowing of the word, still new and unformed, should spread through the preaching of those who spoke. But it is one thing for those who are within the church to speak in the name of Christ, another for those who are outside and act against the church to baptize in the name of Christ.” These words of Cyprian seem to remind us to distinguish between those who are wicked outside and those who are wicked within. And he says that those of whom the apostle says that they proclaimed the gospel not purely but from envy were within, and he speaks the truth. Yet I think I say this not rashly: if no one outside can have anything that is Christ’s, neither can anyone within have anything that is the devil’s. For if that enclosed garden could have the devil’s thorns, why could not Christ’s fountain also flow outside the garden? But if it could not, where did so great an evil of envy and malicious dissension come from in those who were within, even in the times of the apostle Paul himself? For these are Cyprian’s words. Or is envy and malicious dissension perhaps a small evil? How then were these men in unity who were not in peace? For the voice, not mine nor any man’s, but the Lord’s own, sounded not through men but through angels when Christ was born: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” This would certainly not have sounded from an angel’s mouth when Christ was born on earth, unless God wished it understood that those are in the unity of Christ’s body who are in the peace of Christ, and that those are in the peace of Christ who are of good will. And just as good will is in benevolence, so ill will is in malevolence.

Now how great an evil envy itself is, which cannot be other than malicious! Let us not look for other witnesses. Cyprian himself is enough for us, through whom the Lord thundered so many most true things about jealousy and envy and gave such wholesome precepts. Let us read, then, Cyprian’s letter on jealousy and envy, and see how great an evil it is to envy those who are better, the origin of which evil he teaches, in words to be remembered, came from the devil himself. “To be jealous of what you see to be good,” he says, “and to envy those better than you seems to some, dearest brothers, a light and small offence.” Then a little later, seeking the head and origin of that evil, he says: “From this the devil, at the very beginning of the world, both perished first and destroyed others.” And a little later: “What an evil it is,” he says, “dearest brothers, by which an angel fell, by which that lofty and splendid sublimity could be circumvented and overthrown, by which he himself who deceived was deceived! From then on envy rages on the earth, as one who is to perish by envy obeys the master of perdition, as one who is jealous imitates the devil, as it is written: ‘But by the envy of the devil death entered into the world.’ So those who are on his side imitate him.” We recognize how true, how strong are these words of Cyprian in a letter well known to the peoples. Truly it befitted Cyprian both to rebuke and to warn gravely about jealousy and envy, whose heart was proved by so great an abundance of love to be utterly free of so deadly an evil. Guarding this love most watchfully with his colleagues, who without malice thought differently about baptism, while he too, not from malicious contention but by human temptation, thought otherwise (which God would reveal to him afterward, when he willed, as he persevered in love), he remained in the unity of communion, saying openly: “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently. For none of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops or compels his colleagues to the necessity of obeying by tyrannical terror.” And at the end of this letter he says: “We have written this back to you briefly, dearest brother, according to our small ability, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to prevent each of the bishops from doing what he thinks, since he has the free power of his own judgment. We, for our part, do not quarrel over heretics with our colleagues and fellow bishops, with whom we keep divine concord and the Lord’s peace, especially since the apostle also says: ‘But if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor has the church of God.’ Love of heart, the honour of our college, the bond of faith, and the concord of the priesthood are kept by us patiently and gently. For this reason too we have now written, as far as our small ability could, with the Lord’s permission and inspiration, a little book on the good of patience, which we have sent to you out of mutual love.”

With this patience of love he bore not only good colleagues who without malice thought otherwise on an obscure question, as he too was borne with, until with the passing of time the most wholesome custom, when God willed, was confirmed by a plenary council once the truth was declared; but also manifestly wicked men, well known to him, who thought otherwise not because of the obscurity of the question but acted, by the habits of a lost life, against what they preached, as the apostle says of them: “You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal?” For of such men, bishops of his own time, his colleagues and remaining in communion with him, he says in his letter: “While brothers in the church went hungry, they wanted to have money in abundance, to seize estates by treacherous frauds, to increase their gains by multiplying interest.” Here there is no obscurity of question. Scripture cries out openly: “Neither the greedy nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God,” and, “who has not lent his money at interest,” and, “every sexually immoral and unclean and greedy person, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Such greedy men, then, who not only greedily hoarded their own but fraudulently seized what belonged to others, such idolaters, as he himself understands and proves, he would certainly not have rebuked unless he had known them; for he would not bear false witness against his fellow bishops. And yet, for the sake of Christ, who died for the weak, lest by rooting up the tares before the time the wheat should be rooted up with them, he bore them with the heart of a father’s and a mother’s love, imitating the apostle Paul, who with the same love for the church endured those who were malicious and envious toward him.

But since “by the envy of the devil death entered into the world,” and those who are on his side imitate him, not through what they were created by God but through the perversity they have from themselves (as Cyprian himself recalls, since the devil too, before he was the devil, was an angel and was good), how are those who are on the devil’s side in the unity of Christ? Without doubt, as the Lord himself says, “An enemy has done this,” who sowed tares over the wheat. So just as what is the devil’s is to be rebuked within, so what is Christ’s is to be recognized outside. Or does Christ not have his own outside the unity of the church, while the devil has his own within the unity of the church? This can perhaps be said of men, in the sense that outside the communion of the church God has none of his own, just as among the holy angels the devil has none of his own; whereas the devil has been allowed to mix tares, that is, wicked men, into this church, which still bears the mortality of the flesh while it is a pilgrim away from the Lord, and he has been permitted this because of the church’s pilgrimage, so that the rest of that homeland which the holy angels enjoy may be desired more ardently. But this cannot be said of the sacraments. For just as the tares within can have and handle them, not for salvation but for their ruin, for which they are destined to the fire, so too the tares outside, who received them from those within when they withdrew, because in withdrawing they did not lose them. This is shown without doubt when they are not given back to those who return, when perhaps some of those very ones who had withdrawn come back. Nor let anyone say, “What wheat do the tares have?” For if that is so, the condition is equal within and without in this respect at least. For grains of wheat are not lacking in the tares outside while being found in those within. But when the question is about the sacrament, the question is not whether the tares have anything of wheat, but whether they have anything of heaven. For the tares both outside and inside share the rain with the wheat itself, which is heavenly and sweet in itself, even if the tares grow barren from it. So too Christ’s gospel sacrament is divine and sweet, and is not to be rejected because of the barrenness of those on whom it rains even outside.

Someone may say that the tares within are more easily turned into wheat. I grant that it is so; but what has this to do with repeating baptism? If perhaps someone converted from the heretics anticipates, by the time and ease of his conversion, one who is more slowly corrected and changed from malice within, is baptism not to be repeated for him, but to be repeated for the one who has been anticipated by the man coming from the heretics, because he was corrected more slowly? So it has nothing to do with the matter now in question who turns sooner or later from his own perversity to the uprightness of faith or hope or love. For even if the wicked within can more easily become good, yet sometimes some from the number of those outside anticipate some of those within by their conversion, and, reconciled to unity while the others remain barren, bear fruit with patience, thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold. Or if only those are to be called tares that persist in wicked error to the end, there are both much wheat outside and many tares within.

But, it is said, the wicked outside are worse than the wicked within. It is indeed a great question whether Nicolaus, already outside, was worse than Simon, still within, since the one was a heretic and the other a magician. But if division itself, being the surest sign of violated love, is held a graver evil, I grant that it is so. But many, having lost love, do not go outside for this reason: that they are held by worldly advantages, and, seeking their own, not the things of Jesus Christ, they do not wish to withdraw, not from Christ’s unity, but from their own interests. Hence it is said in praise of love: “It does not seek its own.”

Now then it is asked how men on the devil’s side can belong to the church that has no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, of which it is also said, “My dove is one.” If they cannot, it is plain that she groans among strangers, both lying in wait within and barking against her outside. Yet such men even within both receive and have and hand on baptism, which is holy in itself and is in no way violated by their malice, in which they persist to the end. Hence the same blessed Cyprian teaches us that baptism, consecrated with the words of the gospel as the church received it, is to be considered in itself, with no perversity or malice of either recipients or givers joined or mixed with it; since he himself reminds us of both points: that there were some within who did not keep kindly love but were engaged in envy and malicious dissension, of whom the apostle Paul spoke; and that the envious are on the devil’s side, as he testifies most plainly in the letter he wrote on jealousy and envy. Therefore, since it is plain that it can happen that in those who are on the devil’s side Christ’s sacrament is still holy, not for their salvation but for their judgment, not only if they are perverted after receiving baptism but even if they receive it while such, as the same Cyprian shows, “renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds”; and that, if they are afterward corrected, what they received while perverse is not therefore to be repeated; it is now, I think, clear and plain that in this question of baptism we must think not who gives but what he gives, not who receives but what he receives, not who has but what he has. For if men on the devil’s side, and so in no way belonging to the only dove, can still receive and have and give the holiness of baptism, in no way violated by their perversity, as we are reminded by Cyprian’s own letters, why do we attribute to heretics what is not theirs? Why do we say that what is Christ’s is theirs, and do not rather recognize in them the standards of our emperor and amend the deeds of deserters? So it is indeed one thing, as holy Cyprian says, “for those who are within the church to speak in the name of Christ, another for those who are outside and act against the church to baptize in the name of Christ.” But many who are within act against the church by living badly and drawing weak souls into their way of life; and some who are outside speak in Christ’s name and are not forbidden to do the works of Christ, but only to be outside, when we rebuke or reprove or exhort them so that they may be healed. For he too was outside who did not follow with the disciples and drove out demons in Christ’s name, which the Lord warned them not to forbid, though certainly he needed to be healed where he was wounded, by those words of the Lord where he says, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” So some things are done outside in Christ’s name not against the church, and some within, on the devil’s side, against the church.

What of the fact, remarkable as it is, which anyone who pays careful attention finds can happen, that some, with love intact, teach something unprofitable, as Peter compelled the Gentiles to live like Jews, as Cyprian himself compelled heretics to be baptized again (hence the apostle says to such good members, rooted in love but in some point not walking straight, “If in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you”); and that some, on the other hand, without love teach something wholesome, of whom the Lord says, “They sit on Moses’ seat; do what they say, but do not do what they do; for they say and do not do”? Hence the apostle too says of those envious and malicious men who still proclaimed Christian salvation, “Whether in pretence or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed.” Therefore the perversity of men is to be corrected both within and without, but the divine sacraments and oracles are not to be attributed to men. So he does not act as patron of heretics who does not attribute to them what, though it is among them, he recognizes is not theirs. We do not grant baptism to a heretic, but we recognize the baptism of him of whom it was said, “This is he who baptizes,” wherever we find it. But the faithless and blasphemous man, if he remains in faithlessness and blasphemy, receives forgiveness of sins neither outside the church nor within; or if he receives it for a moment of time because of the power of the sacrament, the same power works both outside and within, just as the power of Christ’s name worked the expulsion of demons even outside.

“But we find that the apostles in all their letters curse and detest the sacrilegious perversity of heretics, so that they say that their word creeps like a cancer.” What then? Does not Paul show that those who said, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” were corrupters of good morals through evil conversations, adding at once, “Evil conversations corrupt good morals”? And yet he indicated that they were within when he said, “How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” And where does he not detest the greedy? Or could anything be said more forcefully than that greed was called the service of idols, as the same apostle put it, and as Cyprian understood it no otherwise and inserted it in his letters where needed? Yet he admits that in his times there were in the church greedy men, and not of any sort, but robbers and usurers, and not just any men, but bishops. And yet I would gladly understand those of whom the apostle says, “Their word creeps like a cancer,” to have been outside; but Cyprian himself does not let me. For when, writing to Antonianus, he showed that before the time of the final separation of the righteous and the wicked there must be no withdrawal from the unity of the church because of the mixture of the wicked, where he declares how holy he is and how most worthy of that glory of martyrdom which he obtained, he says: “How great is the swelling of arrogance, how great the forgetfulness of humility and gentleness, how great the boasting of his arrogance, that anyone should either dare or believe himself able to 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 had been granted to him to carry the fan and cleanse the threshing floor, to try to separate the chaff from the wheat; and, whereas the apostle says, ‘In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of clay,’ to seem to choose out the vessels of gold and silver and to despise, cast away, and condemn those of wood and clay, when only on the day of the Lord will the vessels of wood be burned by the blaze of divine fire, and those of clay be broken by him to whom the rod of iron has been given.” Thus Cyprian, rebuking those who had broken away from unity as if to avoid the company of the wicked, showed that by the great house the apostle spoke of, where there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, he understood nothing but the church, where there are good and bad until at the end it is cleansed like a winnowed threshing floor. If this is so, in the church itself, that is, in the great house itself, there were vessels for dishonour whose word crept like a cancer. For when the apostle spoke of them he taught this: “And their word,” he says, “creeps like a cancer. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have strayed from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they overturn the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earthenware.” If then these too, whose word crept like a cancer, were in the great house as vessels for dishonour, by which great house Cyprian understands the unity of the church itself, did their cancer violate Christ’s baptism? So then, neither outside nor within can anyone who is on the devil’s side stain, either in himself or in anyone else, the sacrament that is Christ’s. So it is not the word that creeps like a cancer into the ears of the hearers that gives forgiveness of sins; but when baptism is given with the words of the gospel, with whatever perversity the one through whom it is given or the one to whom it is given may understand them, it is holy in itself because of him whose it is. And if someone receiving it through a perverse man does not receive the minister’s perversity but only the holiness of the mystery, being joined to the unity of the church in good faith and hope and love, he receives forgiveness of sins, not through words that creep like a cancer but through the gospel sacraments that flow from the heavenly fountain. But if the recipient himself is perverse, what is given does not profit the perverse man for salvation, and yet what is received remains holy in him and is not repeated for him if he is corrected.

So there is no partnership between righteousness and iniquity, not only the iniquity that is outside but also that which is within. For “the Lord knows those who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” There is no communion either between light and darkness, not only the darkness outside but also that within. For “he who hates his brother,” says John, “is in darkness even until now.” And certainly those hated Paul who, proclaiming Christ in envy and malice and dissension, thought to stir up affliction for him in his chains; yet the same Cyprian understands that they were within. Since then darkness cannot enlighten nor iniquity justify, as he also says, I ask how these men could baptize within the church itself; I ask how those vessels which the great house holds not for honour but for dishonour could, within that great house itself, administer what is holy for sanctifying men, unless because the holiness of the sacrament cannot be polluted even by the unclean, whether when it is given through them or when it is received by those who are not changed for the better in heart and life. Of these, placed within, he himself says: “renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds.”

There are, then, even within, enemies of God, men whose breasts the spirit of antichrist has occupied; and yet they perform spiritual and divine acts, which cannot profit them for salvation as long as they are such, nor can they stain them with their uncleanness. So his saying, that “nothing pertaining to the church’s saving grace is lawful for those who, scattering and attacking the church of Christ, are called adversaries by Christ himself and antichrists by his apostles,” is to be understood thus: that such men are found both outside and within; yet the separation of those within from the perfection and unity of that dove is known not only to God in some cases but to men in some cases too. Seeing openly their most wicked life and confirmed wickedness, and comparing it with the rules of the divine commandments, they understand to how many tares and how much chaff, whether placed outside or within, but to be separated most plainly at the end, the Lord will say, “Depart from me, you who work iniquity,” and, “Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.”

But no one’s conversion is to be despaired of, whether he is placed outside or within, as long as the patience of God leads him to repentance and visits their misdeeds with the rod and their sins with scourges. For in this way he does not scatter his mercy from them, if they too at some time have pity on their own soul, pleasing God. For just as the good man “who perseveres to the end will be saved,” so the wicked man, whether outside or within, who perseveres to the end will not be saved. Nor do we say that those baptized anywhere and in any way “obtain the grace of baptism,” if the grace of baptism is understood as that salvation which is conferred through the celebration of the sacrament; but many even within do not obtain this salvation, though it is plain that they have the sacrament, which is holy in itself. So the Lord rightly warns us in the gospel not to consent to those who persuade us to evil and walk under the name of Christ; but these are found both within and outside, since they do not go outside unless they were first wicked within. And certainly the apostle was speaking of the vessels placed in the great house when he said, “If anyone, then, cleanses himself from such things, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified, useful to the Lord, always prepared for every good work.” And how each one ought to cleanse himself from such things he showed a little above, saying, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity,” so that he may not hear at the end, with the chaff, whether that which flew from the threshing floor beforehand or that which is to be separated at the last, “Depart from me, you who work iniquity.” Hence it appears indeed, as Cyprian says, that “not whatever is flaunted in Christ’s name is at once to be accepted and taken up, but what is done in Christ’s truth.” But certainly “to seize estates by treacherous frauds, to increase their gains by multiplying interest,” to renounce the world “in words only,” is not done in Christ’s truth. And he himself, a fully competent witness, declares that all these things are done even within.

Now as for his arguing at length that those who blaspheme the Father of Christ cannot be baptized in Christ, since it is plain that they blaspheme through error (for one who comes to Christ’s baptism does not openly blaspheme the Father of Christ, but is convicted of blasphemy by thinking about the Father of Christ otherwise than the truth teaches), we have already shown enough that the error of anyone, whether giver or receiver, does not affect baptism consecrated with the words of the gospel, whether he thinks about the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit otherwise than heavenly teaching instils. For many carnal and natural men are baptized even within, since the apostle says plainly, “But the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God,” and says they are still natural after they have received baptism. And by carnal sense a soul given over to the bodily senses can only think carnally about God. Hence many, advancing after baptism, and especially those baptized as infants or children, the more their understanding is cleared and enlightened while the inner man is renewed day by day, laugh at, detest, and with confession reject their former opinions about God, which they held while deluded by their phantasms; yet they are not therefore thought not to have received baptism, nor are they said to have received a baptism such as their error was; but in them both the integrity of the sacrament is honoured and the vanity of the mind is corrected, even if it had grown hardened, confirmed and perhaps defended in many disputes. Therefore even the heretic who is clearly outside received the gospel baptism there; he did not, surely, receive a baptism like the error by which he is blinded. And so if, coming to his senses, he sees that what he held wrongly must be left behind, he need not at the same time leave behind the good he had received; nor, because his error must be disapproved, must Christ’s baptism in him be blown away. For from those who happen to be baptized within while holding false opinions about God it is already clear enough that the truth of the sacrament is to be distinguished from the error of one who believes wrongly, though both can be found in one man. And so when someone placed outside in some error has nevertheless been baptized with the true sacrament, when he is restored to the unity of the church, as true faith succeeds false, true baptism cannot in the same way succeed true baptism; for the same thing cannot succeed itself, since it cannot depart either. So heretics come to the Catholic Church in order that what is their evil may be corrected, not that what is God’s good may be repeated.

Someone says: “Then is there no difference if two men set in equal error and malice, without change of life and heart, are baptized, one outside and the other within?” I admit there is a difference. For the one baptized outside is worse, not in that he is baptized but in that he is outside (for division itself is an evil, neither none nor small); provided, however, that the one baptized within wished to be within not for some earthly or temporal advantage but because he preferred the unity of the church spread through the whole world to the cuttings of schisms; otherwise he too is to be counted among those outside. Let us then suppose two men in this way: one of them, for example, thinks about Christ what Photinus held and is baptized in his heresy outside the communion of the Catholic Church; the other thinks the same but is baptized in the Catholic Church, supposing it to be the Catholic faith. This man I do not yet call a heretic, unless, when the teaching of the Catholic faith is made plain to him, he prefers to resist and chooses what he held. Before this happens, it is plain that the one outside is worse. So in this man only the false opinion, but in that one also the division itself, must be corrected; but in neither is the truth of the sacrament to be repeated. But if someone thinks the same as they, and knows it to be a heresy separated from Catholic unity where this is taught and learned, yet for the sake of some worldly advantage wishes to be baptized in Catholic unity, or, baptized in it, will not leave it for this reason, he is not only to be held as separated, but as all the more wicked, the more he adds the deceit of pretence to the error of heresy and the division of unity. Therefore the more dangerous and crooked anyone’s depravity, the more urgently and laboriously it is to be corrected. Yet if he has anything entire, especially what is not his but God’s, it is not therefore, because of his depravity, to be thought nothing, or blamed in the same way, or attributed to his depravity and not to the generosity of him who gave even to the soul that committed fornication against him and went after her lovers his bread and his wine and his oil and other things, whether food or adornments, which she had neither from herself nor from her lovers, but from him who, having pity on her, wished everywhere to remind her to whom she should return.

“Can the power of baptism,” he says, “be greater or stronger than confession, than suffering, when one confesses Christ before men and is baptized in his own blood? And yet,” he says, “not even this baptism profits a heretic, even though, having confessed Christ, he was killed outside the church.” This is most true. For one killed outside the church is proved not to have had love, of which the apostle says, “And if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” But if suffering profits nothing because love is lacking, neither does it profit those whom Paul says, and Cyprian explains, live within in envy and malice without love; and yet they can both receive and hand on true baptism. “There is no salvation outside the church.” Who denies it? And therefore whatever things of the church itself are possessed outside the church do not avail for salvation. But it is one thing not to have, another not to have profitably. He who does not have must be baptized so that he may have; he who does not have profitably must be corrected so that he may have profitably. Nor is the water in the baptism of heretics adulterous, because neither is the creature itself which God made evil, nor are the words of the gospel to be blamed in any who err; but their error is to blame, in which the soul is adulterous, even if it has the adornment of the sacrament from its lawful husband. So baptism can be common to us and heretics, with whom the gospel too can be common, though their error is far from our faith, whether they think about the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit otherwise than the truth has it, or, cut off from unity, do not gather with Christ but scatter; because, if we are the Lord’s wheat, even within, with the greedy, with robbers, with drunkards and other such plagues, of whom it is said, “They will not possess the kingdom of God,” the sacrament of baptism can be common to us, and yet the vices by which they are separated from the kingdom of God are not common.

For the apostle does not say of heresies alone, “that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God.” Let it not be tiresome to note for a moment what he lists along with them. “The works of the flesh,” he says, “are manifest, which are fornications, uncleanness, debauchery, service of idols, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. Of these I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God.” Let us then suppose a heretic who is chaste, continent, not greedy, not serving idols, hospitable, ministering to the needy, no one’s enemy, not contentious, patient, quiet, jealous of no one, envying no one, sober, frugal: no one doubts that, for this alone, that he is a heretic, he will not possess the kingdom of God. Let us suppose another, a Catholic, who is a fornicator, unclean, debauched, greedy, or even more openly given to idols, a sorcerer, quarrelsome, contentious, jealous, hot-tempered, seditious, envious, a drunkard, a carouser: will he possess the kingdom of God for this alone, that he is a Catholic, while doing such things, of which the apostle concludes, “Of these I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God”? If we say this, we deceive ourselves; for God’s word does not deceive us, which is neither silent nor sparing nor misleads us with any flattery. That is why he says elsewhere too: “For know this, understanding that every fornicator or unclean or greedy person, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words.” So there is no reason to complain of God’s word. It says altogether, and openly and freely, that those who live wickedly do not belong to the kingdom of God.

So let us not flatter a Catholic hedged about with all these vices, nor dare to promise him, because he is a Catholic Christian, the impunity that divine Scripture does not promise. Nor, if he has any one of the things mentioned, ought we to promise him fellowship in that heavenly homeland. For to the Corinthians he lists them one by one, and with each one it is understood that they will not possess the kingdom of God. “Do not be deceived,” he says. “Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor the effeminate nor men who lie with males nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God.” He does not say, “Those who have all these vices together will not possess the kingdom of God,” but “neither these nor those,” so that with each you understand that none of them will possess the kingdom of God. So just as heretics will not possess the kingdom of God, so the greedy will not possess the kingdom of God. Nor is it to be doubted that the very penalties with which those who will not possess the kingdom of God are tormented differ according to the difference of crimes, some sharper than others, so that in the eternal fire itself there are unequal torments of punishment according to the unequal weights of sins. For not in vain did the Lord himself say, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom than for you on the day of judgment.” But for not possessing the kingdom of God, whichever of those vices you choose as milder is worth as much as several, or as one that you see to be graver. And since those will possess the kingdom of God whom that judge will set at his right hand, nothing will remain for those who do not deserve to be set at the right hand but to be at the left. No word remains for them to hear, like goats, from the shepherd’s mouth, except, “Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels,” though from that fire, as I said, different punishments may be allotted according to the difference of crimes.

But whether we ought to rank a Catholic of the worst morals above some heretic in whose life, apart from his being a heretic, men find nothing to blame, I do not dare to rush to judgment. But if anyone says, “Because he is a heretic, this cannot be all, without other things following; for he is carnal and natural, and so he must also be jealous and hot-tempered and envious and an enemy of the truth itself and in disagreement with it,” let him understand that of those other evils too, the one he has chosen as milder cannot be alone in anyone, for the same reason: because he is carnal and natural. Take drunkenness, which peoples have now grown used not only to name without horror but even to praise with merriment: can it be alone in anyone in whom it is found? For what drunkard is not also contentious and hot-tempered and envious and at odds with the soundness of the commandments and a bitter enemy of those who rebuke him? And it is hard for him not to be also a fornicator and adulterer. He can, however, not be a heretic; just as a heretic can be neither a drunkard nor an adulterer or fornicator nor debauched or a lover of money or a sorcerer, and can be none of all these at once. For not all the other vices follow on any one vice. So given two men, one a Catholic with all these vices, the other a heretic without those that can be absent in a heretic, though not both argue against the faith, yet both live against the faith, both are deceived by vain hope, both are at odds with spiritual love, and for this reason both are strangers to the body of that only dove: why do we recognize Christ’s sacrament in one of them and refuse to in the other, as if it were this man’s or that man’s, when it is the same in both, and belongs to none but God, and is good even in the worst men? And if of the men who have it one is worse than another, what they have is not therefore worse in the one than in the other; for neither, of two wicked Catholics, if one is worse than the other, does he bear a worse baptism; nor, if one of them is good and the other wicked, is baptism wicked in the wicked and good in the good, but good in both; just as the light of the sun or even of a lamp is certainly not worse in worse eyes than in better, but the same in both, though it either gladdens or pains them differently according to their difference.

As for the objection raised against Cyprian about catechumens, that if arrested in martyrdom and killed for Christ’s name they were crowned even without baptism, I do not well understand what it has to do with the matter, unless perhaps they were saying that heretics with Christ’s baptism could be admitted to his kingdom far more readily than catechumens were admitted, since he himself said, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” In this matter I do not hesitate to rank a Catholic catechumen burning with divine love above a baptized heretic. But even within the Catholic Church itself we rank a good catechumen above a wicked baptized man, and yet we do no injury to the sacrament of baptism, with which the one is not yet and the other is already imbued, nor do we think the catechumen’s sacrament is to be preferred to the sacrament of baptism, when we know some catechumen to be more faithful and better than some baptized man. For the centurion Cornelius, not yet baptized, was better than Simon, baptized. For the one was filled with the Holy Spirit even before baptism; the other was puffed up with an unclean spirit even after baptism. Yet if Cornelius, having already received the Holy Spirit, had refused to be baptized, he would have become guilty of despising so great a sacrament. But when he was baptized, he certainly did not receive a better sacrament than Simon; but the different merits of the men were distinguished under the equal holiness of the same sacrament. So the good or bad merit of a man neither increases nor diminishes the holiness of baptism. And just as a good catechumen lacks baptism for gaining the kingdom of heaven, so a wicked baptized man lacks true conversion. For he who said, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven,” also said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” For lest the righteousness of the catechumen be secure, it was said, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven”; again, lest iniquity be secure once baptism is received, it was said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” The one without the other is not enough; both together make one heir of that possession. So just as we ought not to disapprove a man’s righteousness that began before he was joined to the church, as Cornelius’s righteousness had begun before he was among the Christian people (for if it had been disapproved, the angel would not have said to him, “Your alms have been accepted and your prayers heard,” nor, if it had been enough for gaining the kingdom of heaven, would he have been told to send to Peter), so the gospel sacrament of baptism is not to be disapproved even if it was received outside the church. But since it does not profit for salvation unless the one who has the integrity of baptism is incorporated into the church with his own depravity corrected too, let us correct the error of heretics in such a way that we recognize what in them is not theirs but Christ’s.

That suffering sometimes fills the place of baptism, the same blessed Cyprian takes as no slight proof from that thief, to whom, though unbaptized, it was said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Considering this again and again, I find that not only suffering for Christ’s name can supply what was lacking from baptism, but also faith and conversion of heart, if perhaps help cannot be given to celebrate the mystery of baptism in a strait of time. For that thief was not crucified for Christ’s name but for the deserts of his crimes; nor did he suffer because he believed, but believed while he suffered. How much, then, even without the visible sacrament of baptism, what the apostle says avails, “With the heart one believes unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation,” was declared in that thief. But it is fulfilled invisibly when it is not contempt of religion but the moment of necessity that excludes the ministry of baptism. For it might seem far more superfluous in Cornelius and his friends than in that thief that they should also be dipped in water, since in them the gift of the Holy Spirit, which holy Scripture testifies others received only after baptism, had already shone out with a sure sign as well, suited to those times, when they spoke in tongues. Yet they were baptized, and in this deed the apostolic authority stands. To this extent no one, whatever the progress of the inner man, if perhaps before baptism he has advanced with devout heart to spiritual understanding, ought to despise the sacrament, which is applied bodily by the work of ministers, but through which God works the consecration of man spiritually. Nor do I think that the office of baptizing was given to John for any other reason, so that it was called John’s baptism, than that the Lord himself, who had given it, by not disdaining to receive the baptism of a servant, might dedicate the way of humility and declare most plainly by such a deed how highly his own baptism, with which he was to baptize, was to be valued. For as the most powerful physician of eternal salvation he saw that some would not lack the swelling of pride who, having so advanced in understanding of the truth and in commendable morals that they would not hesitate to put themselves above many baptized in life and teaching, would believe it superfluous for them to be baptized, since they felt they had reached that disposition of mind to which many baptized were still trying to climb.

What the sanctification of the sacrament, applied bodily, avails and does in a man is hard to say; yet that thief was not without it, since the will to receive it was not lacking, but the necessity of not receiving it was present. Yet unless it availed very much, the Lord would not have received a servant’s baptism. But since it is to be considered in itself, apart from the salvation of the man for whose perfecting it is applied, it shows well enough that it is entire even in the wicked and in those who renounce the world in words, not in deeds, though they cannot have salvation unless they are corrected. And just as in the thief, since it was lacking bodily through necessity, salvation was complete, because it was present spiritually through devotion, so too when the sacrament is present, if what was present in the thief is lacking through necessity, salvation is completed. This the whole church holds as handed down, when little infants are baptized, who certainly cannot yet believe with the heart unto righteousness and confess with the mouth unto salvation, as the thief could; indeed, crying and wailing while the mystery is celebrated over them, they drown out the mystical words themselves; and yet no Christian would say that they are baptized in vain.

And if anyone seeks divine authority in this matter, though what the whole church holds, and was not instituted by councils but has always been retained, is most rightly believed to have been handed down only by apostolic authority, yet we can truly judge what the sacrament of baptism avails in infants from the circumcision of the flesh which the former people received, which Abraham was justified before he received, just as Cornelius was enriched with the gift of the Holy Spirit before he was baptized. Yet the apostle says of Abraham himself, “He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith,” since he had already believed with the heart and it had been counted to him as righteousness. Why then was he commanded to circumcise every male infant thereafter on the eighth day, which could not yet believe with the heart so that it might be counted to it as righteousness, unless because the sacrament itself, in itself, availed much? This was shown by an angel in the case of Moses’ son: when he was being carried by his mother still uncircumcised, it was required, by a present and evident danger, that he be circumcised, and when it was done, destruction was averted. So just as in Abraham the righteousness of faith went before and circumcision, the seal of the righteousness of faith, was added, so in Cornelius spiritual sanctification in the gift of the Holy Spirit went before and the sacrament of regeneration in the washing of baptism was added. And just as in Isaac, who was circumcised on the eighth day of his birth, the seal of the righteousness of faith went before, and, since he imitated his father’s faith, the righteousness itself, whose seal had gone before in the infant, followed as he grew, so in baptized infants the sacrament of regeneration goes before, and if they hold Christian piety, conversion in the heart will also follow, whose mystery went before in the body. And just as in that thief the kindness of the Almighty completed what had been lacking from the sacrament of baptism, because it had been lacking not through pride or contempt but through necessity, so in infants who die baptized it is to be believed that the same grace of the Almighty completes what is lacking, since not from an impious will but from the deficiency of age they can neither believe with the heart unto righteousness nor confess with the mouth unto salvation. Therefore when others answer for them, so that the celebration of the sacrament may be completed for them, it certainly avails for their consecration, since they themselves cannot answer. But if another answers for one who can answer, it does not avail in the same way. By this rule it is said in the gospel, which moves everyone naturally when it is read: “He is of age, let him speak for himself.”

By all these things it is shown that the sacrament of baptism is one thing and conversion of heart another, but that a man’s salvation is completed by both. Nor, if one of these is lacking, ought we to think it follows that the other is lacking, since the one can be without the other in an infant, and the other could be without the one in the thief, God completing in either case what was lacking not by the will; but that when either of these is lacking by the will, a man is involved in guilt. And baptism can indeed be present where conversion of heart is lacking; conversion of heart can indeed be present when baptism has not been received, but not when baptism is despised. For in no way is it to be called conversion of heart to God when God’s sacrament is despised. Rightly, then, we rebuke, anathematize, detest, and abhor the perversity of heart of heretics; yet they do not therefore lack the gospel sacrament because they lack that through which it is profitable. Therefore, when they come to faith and truth and, doing penance, ask that their sins be forgiven them, we do not deceive and mislead them, when, corrected and reformed by us in that in which they are depraved and perverse, we train them for the kingdom of heaven by heavenly disciplines in such a way that we in no way violate what is entire in them, nor say, because of the man’s fault, that whatever of God is in the man is either nothing or faulty.

Only a few points now remain from the letter to Jubaianus. But since they speak both of the past custom of the church and of John’s baptism (which commonly raises no small question for people who pay too little attention to a plain matter, because those who had received John’s baptism were ordered by the apostle to be baptized in Christ), they must not be treated carelessly, and are to be put off to another volume, so that this one may not be of immoderate length.

That the Catholic Church now holds its ancient custom, when those coming from heretics or schismatics are not baptized again if they have received baptism consecrated with the words of the gospel, we use blessed Cyprian as witness. For he put the question to himself, certainly from the mouths of brothers, either seeking the truth or contending for the truth. For among his arguments by which he wished to show that heretics must be baptized again (which we have discussed sufficiently for the time in the previous books), he says: “But someone says: ‘What then will become of those who in the past, coming from heresy to the church, were admitted without baptism?’” Here the whole case of the Donatists, with whom we are in conflict on this question, is utterly shipwrecked. For if those who came from heretics and were received in this way truly did not have baptism, and their sins were upon them, when communion was held with such men, whether by those before Cyprian or by Cyprian himself, one of two things must be said: either the church had already perished then, stained by communion with such men, or the sins of others, even known ones, do no harm to anyone who remains in unity. But they cannot say the first, that the church perished then by the contagion of communion with those who, as Cyprian says, were admitted to it without baptism (otherwise they could not assert their own origin either, if the church perished then, since there are more than forty years between Cyprian’s passion and the burning of the divine books, from which these men, throwing out the smoke of their slanders, found the occasion for making a schism, as the list of consuls shows); it remains, then, that they admit that the unity of Christ is defiled by no such communion with the wicked, even known ones. And when they have admitted this, they will find no reason why they should contend that they had to separate themselves from the churches of the whole world, which we read alike were founded by the apostles; because those churches could not perish by mixture with any wicked men whatever, and these men, who would not have perished had they remained in unity with them, certainly perished in schism by separating themselves from them and breaking the bond of peace. For the sacrilege of schism stands out most plainly if there was no cause for separation. And it is plain that there was no cause for separation if the wicked, even known ones, do not stain the good in unity. And that the good are not stained in unity even by known wicked men we teach with Cyprian as witness, who says that in the past those coming from heresy to the church were admitted without baptism; whose abominable sacrileges, which were upon them, since they had not been forgiven by baptism, if they could not pollute and destroy the holiness of the church, it can perish by no contagion of the wicked. Therefore, if they agree that Cyprian spoke the truth, by his testimony they are convicted of the crime of schism; if they contend that Cyprian spoke falsely, let them not use his testimony on the question of baptism.

But now let us carry through what we have undertaken, to converse with blessed Cyprian, a man of peace. When he had raised against himself what he knew was said by the brothers, “What then will become of those who in the past, coming from heresy to the church, were admitted without baptism?”, he says, “The Lord is able by his mercy to grant pardon, and not to separate from the gifts of his church those who, admitted to the church in simplicity, have fallen asleep in the church.” He did well indeed to presume that the love of unity could cover a multitude of sins. But if they had baptism, and those who thought they should be baptized again did not think rightly, the love of unity covered that error, so long as it was not a diabolical departure but a human temptation, until, as the apostle says, the Lord should reveal to them whatever they thought otherwise. And therefore woe to these men, who, broken from unity by sacrilegious severance, rebaptize if baptism is both with us and with them, or, if it is only in the Catholic Church, do not even baptize. Whether, then, they rebaptize or do not baptize, they are not in the bond of peace, from which to apply a remedy to either wound of theirs. But if we admit people to the church without baptism, we are in the number of those whom Cyprian presumed could be pardoned for the sake of guarding unity. But if, as I think is now plain from what we have said in the previous books, the integrity of Christian baptism can exist even in the perversity of heretics, those who in those times rebaptized and yet did not withdraw from the framework of unity could attain to pardon by the same love of peace by which, as Cyprian testifies, even those admitted without baptism could not be separated from the gifts of the church. Further, if it is true that Christ’s baptism does not exist among heretics and schismatics, how much less would the sins of others harm those placed in unity, if even their own sins were loosed for those who came to unity and were admitted without baptism! For if, on Cyprian’s testimony, the bond of unity avails so much, how could those who would not withdraw from unity be harmed by the sins of others, if even the unbaptized who wished to come to it from heresy did not perish by their own sins?

And what Cyprian adds, saying, “Yet it does not follow that because there was error once, there must always be error, since it better befits the wise and those who fear God to obey gladly and without hesitation the truth once laid open and perceived, than to struggle obstinately and stubbornly for heretics against brothers and against priests,” he says most truly; and one who resists the plainest truth opposes himself rather than another. But through the many things we have now said, it is, I think, clearly apparent and certain that Christ’s baptism cannot be violated even by the perversity of heretics when it is given and received among them. But even if it is not yet certain, anyone who considers what has been said, while keeping it in mind, admits that it is at least still doubtful. So we are not resisting the plainest truth, but either contending for manifest truth, as I think, or at least, as those may think who believe this question not yet solved, still seeking the truth. And so, if the matter is otherwise than we say, we receive those baptized by heretics with the same simplicity with which those men received them whom Cyprian presumed could attain pardon because of unity. But if Christ’s baptism, as the many things already said indicate, can be entire even in a life or faith not entire, whether of those who seem to be within and yet do not belong to the members of that only dove, or of those who so do not belong to it that they are even openly outside, then those who repeated it in those times obtained the same pardon, because of the love of unity, which Cyprian believed those had obtained, because of such love, whom he thought had been admitted without baptism. So these men, who with no cause existing (since, as the same Cyprian shows, the wicked cannot harm the good in unity) cut themselves off from the love of that same unity, have lost all room for pardon; and since they would perish by the very crime of schism even if they did not rebaptize after the Catholic Church, of how great a punishment are they worthy, who either try to give to Catholics, who have it, what Cyprian asserts they themselves do not have, or, as the matter itself shows, accuse the Catholic Church of not having what they themselves too have!

But since now, as I had begun to say, we have undertaken to converse with Cyprian’s letters, I would not, I think, seem even to him, if he were present, “to struggle obstinately and stubbornly for heretics against brothers and against priests,” when he heard the many great things that move us to believe that, even among heretics perverted in their malicious error, Christ’s baptism can still be in itself most venerable and most holy. And since he himself testifies, and his testimony is of great weight for us, that they used to be admitted in this way in the past, let anyone who, moved by his words, does not doubt that heretics must be baptized again, count those who are not yet persuaded of this, because of the many great things said against it, as being like those in the past who admitted those baptized in heresy simply, with only their own error corrected, and could be saved with them through the bond of unity. But let anyone who understands, from the past custom of the church, from the later strength of a plenary council, from so many and such great testimonies of the holy Scriptures, and from Cyprian’s own many proofs and the clear reasons of truth, that Christ’s baptism consecrated with the words of the gospel is not made perverse by the perversity of any man, understand that those to whom something else seemed right at that time, with love preserved, could be saved by the same bond of unity. And by this it must at the same time be understood that those whom no tares, no chaff, could have stained in the fellowship of the church spread through the whole world, if they had wished to be wheat themselves, and who therefore broke away from that same bond of unity with no cause existing, whichever of those two is true, whether what Cyprian then thought or what the universality of the Catholic Church, from which he did not withdraw, has established, cannot be saved, set most openly outside in the manifest sacrilege of schism; and that all they have of the divine sacraments and of the generosity of the one lawful husband avails, while they are such, for their confusion rather than their salvation.

So even if heretics, having corrected their error, really wished to come to the church because they thought they did not have baptism unless they received it in the Catholic Church, not even so ought we to agree to repeating baptism; rather they should be taught that the integrity of baptism did not profit their perversity if they would not be corrected, and that the entire baptism was not violated by their perversity as long as they would not be corrected; and that because they wish to be corrected baptism does not become better in them, but they themselves depart from malice, and what was in them before for ruin begins now to profit for salvation. For learning this they will both desire salvation in Catholic unity and not think that what is Christ’s is theirs, and they will not mix the sacrament of truth, though placed in themselves, with their own error.

Besides, men so detest, by some hidden inspiration of God, anyone’s receiving again the baptism he had already received anywhere, that these heretics themselves blush when they argue about it; nearly all their laity who have grown old among them and have conceived a hot-headed obstinacy against the Catholic Church admit that this alone displeases them there; and many who wish to go over to them to obtain some worldly advantages or avoid disadvantages canvass with secret efforts to be granted this as a special and private favour, not to be rebaptized; and some who believe their other vain errors and false charges against the Catholic Church are held back by this one thing from wishing to join them, so as not to be forced to be rebaptized. Fearing this feeling, which wholly occupies the hearts of all men, these Donatists preferred to accept the baptism given among the Maximianists whom they condemned, and so to cut out their own tongues and stop their own mouths, rather than baptize again so many people of Musti and Assuras and other congregations whom they received with Felicianus and Praetextatus and others whom they had condemned and who were returning to them.

For when it is done rarely, in individual cases, across great stretches of place and time, the horror of the deed is not so much felt. But if those whom the said Maximianists had baptized over so long a time, either under pressing danger of death or at the Easter solemnities, were suddenly summoned together and told to be baptized again, because what they had received in the sacrilege of schism was nothing, there would indeed be said what the obstinacy of their error forced them to say, so that by some false shadow of consistency they might cover the stiffness and ice of their hardness against the warmth of truth. But since those people could not bear this, and those who were to do it could not stand what would be done to so many people, especially since the very men who had already baptized them in the party of Maximian would be rebaptizing them in the party of Primian, the baptism of the former was accepted and the pride of the latter was cut off. They would in no way have chosen this unless they had judged that men’s horror at repeated dipping opposed them more than reflection on their lost defence. I would not say this because we ought to be deterred by human feeling if truth compelled those coming from heretics to be baptized again; but because holy Cyprian says that heretics could be driven all the more to the necessity of coming if they were baptized again in the Catholic Church, I wished to recall how great a horror of this deed is lodged in nearly everyone’s mind; a horror which I would believe was poured in by God, so that the church might be protected by this very horror against whatever arguments the weak cannot sift.

When I look at Cyprian’s words themselves, I am reminded to say some things very necessary for settling a question of this kind. “For if they see it decided and settled,” he says, “by our judgment and sentence that the baptism with which they are baptized there is counted just and lawful, they will think that they possess the church too and the other gifts of the church justly and lawfully.” He does not say, “They will think that they possess the gifts of the church,” but “possess them justly and lawfully.” We, however, grant that they do not possess baptism justly and lawfully; but we cannot say that they do not possess it, since we recognize the Lord’s sacrament in the words of the gospel. They have, then, a lawful baptism, but they do not have it lawfully. For whoever has it both in Catholic unity and living worthily of it has it both as lawful and lawfully; but whoever has it either in the Catholic Church itself, like chaff mixed with wheat, or outside, like chaff carried off by the wind, has this baptism as lawful indeed, but not lawfully; for he has it as he uses it. And he does not use it lawfully who uses it against the law, as everyone does who, baptized, lives a lost life, whether within or without.

So just as the apostle said of the law, “The law is good, if one uses it lawfully,” so we can rightly say of baptism: baptism is good, if one uses it lawfully. And just as those who did not use the law lawfully did not then make the law not good or not exist at all, so whoever does not use baptism lawfully, whether because he lives in heresy or in very wicked morals, in no way makes baptism not good or not baptism at all. And so when he turns either to Catholic unity or to a life worthy of so great a sacrament, he does not begin to have another lawful baptism, but begins to have that very one lawfully. Nor does the forgiveness of sins, which cannot be revoked, follow baptism unless it is had not only as lawful but also lawfully. Yet if it is not had lawfully, and sins are either not forgiven or, forgiven, are rolled back, the sacrament of baptism in the baptized will not therefore be either evil or nothing. For just as Judas, to whom the Lord handed the morsel, gave the devil room in himself not by receiving something evil but by receiving it badly, so anyone who receives the Lord’s sacrament unworthily does not make it evil because he is evil, or make it that he received nothing because he does not receive it for salvation. For it was the body of the Lord and the blood of the Lord no less even for those to whom the apostle said, “He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself.” So let heretics seek in the Catholic Church not what they have but what they do not have, that is, “the end of the commandment,” without which many holy things can be had but cannot profit. “But the end of the commandment is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.” Let them hasten to the unity and truth of the Catholic Church, not to have the sacrament of the washing, if they have already been dipped in it, though in heresy, but to have it to their health.

Now we must see what is said about John’s baptism. For we read in the Acts of the Apostles that those who had already been baptized with John’s baptism were baptized by Paul for no other reason than that John’s baptism was not Christ’s baptism, but was granted to John by Christ, so as to be called properly John’s, as the same John says, “A man cannot receive anything unless it has been given him from heaven.” And lest he perhaps seem to have received it from God the Father in such a way as not to receive it from the Son, speaking of Christ himself he says likewise, “We have all received of his fullness.” John received this by the grace of a certain dispensation, not to last long, but as much as was enough to prepare the way for the Lord, whose forerunner he had to be. And the Lord, about to enter on that way humbly and to lead to exaltation those who humbly followed him, just as he washed his servants’ feet, so he willed to be dipped with a servant’s baptism. For just as he subjected himself to the feet of those he directed, so too to the office of John, which he himself had given, so that all might understand with what sacrilegious pride anyone would despise the baptism he ought to receive from the Lord, when the Lord himself had received what he himself had granted to a servant to give as his own; and so that, when John, than whom none has arisen greater among those born of women, bore such witness to Christ that he confessed himself unworthy to loose the strap of his sandal, Christ might both be found the humblest among men by receiving his baptism and be believed the most high God by removing the place of John’s baptism, the same being the teacher of humility and the giver of exaltation.

For we read in the divine Scriptures that to none of the prophets, to no man at all, was it granted to baptize in the water of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as was granted to John; so that by this wonderful grace, holding the hearts of the peoples in suspense on himself, he might prepare the way in them for him whom he proclaimed to be so much greater than himself. But the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses the church with such a baptism that, once it is received, no other is required; whereas John dipped beforehand with such a baptism that, once it was received, the Lord’s baptism was also necessary, not so that John’s should be repeated, but so that Christ’s baptism, for which John was preparing the way, might also be given to those who had received John’s. For if Christ’s humility had not been commended, there would have been no need of John’s baptism; again, if the end were in John, there would be no need of Christ’s baptism after John’s. But since “Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness for everyone who believes,” John showed to whom one should go, and once one has reached him one stays. So the same John proclaimed both the Lord’s exaltation, when he set him far above himself, and his humility, when he baptized him as if the lowest. But if John had baptized Christ alone, John would have been thought the minister of a better baptism, with which Christ alone was dipped, than Christ’s, with which Christians are dipped. And again, if all had to be baptized first with John’s baptism and then with Christ’s, Christ’s baptism would rightly seem less full and less perfect, not being sufficient for salvation. Therefore the Lord was both baptized with John’s baptism, to bend the proud necks of men to his own saving baptism, and was not dipped in that baptism alone, lest he should show it to be superior by the very fact that he alone had been worthy to be baptized with it; and he did not allow it to continue beyond, lest his own baptism, with which he baptizes, should seem to need another going before it.

I ask, then: if sins were forgiven by John’s baptism, what more could be granted through Christ’s baptism to those whom the apostle Paul wished to be baptized with Christ’s baptism after John’s? But if sins were not forgiven by John’s baptism, were those men in Cyprian’s times better than John, of whom he himself says that they “seized estates by treacherous frauds and increased their gains by multiplying interest,” yet through whose baptizing forgiveness of sins took place? Or was it because the unity of the church held them? What then? Was John not in unity, that friend of the bridegroom, preparer of the Lord’s way, and baptizer of the Lord himself? Who would be mad enough to say that? Therefore, though I believe that John baptized in the water of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in such a way that sins were forgiven to those he baptized in hope, but in reality in the Lord’s baptism (just as the resurrection which is awaited at the end has been accomplished in us in hope, as the apostle says, that “he raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places,” and the same says, “For in hope we have been saved”; for John himself too, though he says, “I baptize you in the water of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” on seeing the Lord says, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world”), yet, in case anyone contends that sins were forgiven even in John’s baptism, but that some fuller sanctification was conferred through Christ’s baptism on those whom Paul ordered to be baptized again, I do not argue combatively.

For what most concerns the present matter must be considered: whatever the case with John’s baptism, since it is plain that he belonged to the unity of Christ, what cause made it necessary for people to be baptized after holy John, and not necessary after greedy bishops? For no one denies that in the Lord’s field John was wheat and, if no more is possible, yielding a hundredfold; likewise no one doubts that greed, which is the service of idols, is counted among the chaff in the Lord’s harvest. Why then is there baptism after the wheat and no baptism after the chaff? If Paul baptized after John because he was better than John, why did not Cyprian too baptize after his usurer colleagues, than whom he was better beyond comparison? If Cyprian did not baptize after such colleagues because they were in unity with him, neither ought Paul to have baptized after John, since they were held in the same unity. Or do defrauders and robbers perhaps belong to the members of that only dove, and he does not belong, to whom the very power of the Lord Jesus Christ was shown by the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove? On the contrary, he belongs most intimately, while these, to be separated from the wheat either on the occasion of some offence or at the last winnowing, in no way belong; and yet there was baptism after him, and there is no baptism after them. What then is the cause, unless that the baptism Paul ordered them to receive was not the one given through John? And so, in the same unity of the church, Christ’s baptism, if given by a usurer baptizing, cannot be repeated; but those who received John’s baptism, even from John himself, had afterward to be baptized with Christ’s baptism.

So I too could, using the words of blessed Cyprian himself, turn the hearts of hearers to consider something wonderful, if I said: “That John, held greatest among the prophets, filled with divine grace while still in his mother’s womb, upheld by the spirit and power of Elijah, who was not an adversary of the Lord but his forerunner and herald, who not only foretold the Lord in words but also showed him to the eyes, who baptized Christ himself, through whom the rest are baptized,” was not counted worthy to baptize in such a way that those he had baptized should not be baptized after him; and will no one think anyone in the church should be baptized after the greedy, defrauders, robbers, and usurers? When I have cried this out to stir indignation, is it not answered me: “Why do you think this unworthy, as if either John were dishonoured or the greedy man honoured? But the baptism of him ought not to be repeated of whom the same John says, ‘This is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ For through whatever minister it is given, the baptism belongs to him of whom it was said, ‘This is he who baptizes.’ But neither was John’s own baptism repeated when the apostle Paul ordered those baptized by him to be baptized in Christ. For what they had not received from the friend of the bridegroom they had to receive from the bridegroom himself, of whom that friend had said, ‘This is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’”

For the Lord Jesus could, had he wished, have given the power of his baptism to some one or several of his chief servants whom he had already made his friends, to whom he says, “I will no longer call you servants but friends”; so that, just as Aaron was shown to be priest by the rod that blossomed, so in his church, where more and greater miracles have been done, ministers and stewards of the mysteries of more excellent holiness, who alone should baptize, might be shown by some sign. But if this had happened, though the baptism was assigned to them by the Lord, it would then be called theirs, as John’s baptism was. That is why Paul gives thanks to God that he had baptized none of those who, as if forgetting in whose name they had been baptized, were dividing themselves by the names of men. For since baptism given through a contemptible man is worth as much as baptism given through an apostle, it is recognized as belonging neither to this one nor to that one, but to Christ. John testifies that he learned this in the Lord himself through that form of a dove. For I do not plainly see in what other sense he could have said, “And I did not know him.” For if he did not know him at all, he would not have said to him when he came to his baptism, “I ought to be baptized by you.” What then does he mean by saying, “Because I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. And I did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me: He on whom you see the Spirit descending from heaven and remaining on him, he it is who baptizes in the Holy Spirit”? The dove had certainly descended on him after his baptism. But when he came to be baptized John had already said, “I ought to be baptized by you.” So he already knew him. What then does he mean, “I did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me: He on whom you see the Spirit descending from heaven and remaining on him, he it is who baptizes in the Holy Spirit,” since this happened after he was baptized, unless that in one respect he knew him and in another did not yet know him? He knew, namely, that he was the bridegroom, the Son of God, from whose fullness all would receive; but since he himself had so received the power of baptizing from his fullness that it was called John’s baptism, he did not know whether he would give it so to others too, or would rather so keep his own baptism that, through whomever it was given, a minister of more excellent grace or of lesser, a man bearing a hundredfold or sixty or thirty, wheat or chaff, it would be recognized as belonging to that one alone; and this he learned through the Spirit descending like a dove and remaining on him.

So we find the apostles saying “my glory,” though of course in the Lord, and “my ministry,” and “my understanding,” and “my gospel,” though of course imparted and given by the Lord; but “my baptism” none of them ever said. For the glory of all is not equal, nor do all minister equally, nor are all endowed with equal understanding; and in preaching the gospel one works better than another, and so one can be called more learned than another even in saving teaching; but one cannot be called more or less baptized than another, whether he is baptized by a lesser or a greater. Therefore, since the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleanness, debauchery, service of idols, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like: if it is said as something wonderful, “People were baptized after John and are not baptized after heretics,” why is it not said as something wonderful, “People were baptized after John and are not baptized after the envious,” since Cyprian himself testifies in his letter on jealousy and envy that the envious are on the devil’s side, and Cyprian himself shows from the apostle Paul, as we have already taught, that there were envious proclaimers of Christ in the church of Christ in the very times of the apostles?

That John’s baptism, then, was not the same as Christ’s baptism has, I think, been declared enough. And so no proof can be drawn from it that one must baptize after heretics because there was baptism after John; for John was not a heretic, and could have a baptism granted by Christ yet not properly Christ’s, while having Christ’s love; and a heretic can have Christ’s baptism and the devil’s perversity, just as another within can have Christ’s baptism and the devil’s envy.

“But,” it is said, “there must be baptism after a heretic all the more, since John was not a heretic and yet there was baptism after him.” In the same way, someone may say, there must be baptism all the more after a drunkard, since John was sober and yet there was baptism after him. And we shall have nothing to answer him except that Christ’s baptism was given to those baptized by John who did not have Christ’s baptism; but in those in whom Christ’s baptism is, by no perversities of theirs can it come about that Christ’s baptism is not in them.

So it is not that “a heretic could obtain the right of baptism for the reason that he baptized first,” but that he did not baptize with his own baptism; and though he did not have the right to baptize, yet what he gave is Christ’s and he who received it is Christ’s. For many things are given against right and yet are not therefore called either nothing or not given. For neither does one who renounces the world in words only and not in deeds receive baptism by right, and yet he receives it. For Cyprian records that such men were in the church in his time too, and we experience it and groan over it.

It is strange, however, how it can be said that “baptism and the church cannot at all be separated and divided from each other.” For if baptism remains inseparably in the baptized, how can the baptized be separated from the church and baptism not be? But it is plain that baptism remains inseparably in the baptized, since, into whatever depth of evils and whatever horrible abyss of sins the baptized falls, even to the ruin of apostasy, he does not lack baptism; and so it is not given back to him when he returns through repentance, since he is judged to have been unable to lack it. And who would doubt that a baptized person can be separated from the church? For from there all the heresies went out which deceive with the Christian name. Therefore, since it is plain that baptism is in the baptized, when the baptized is separated from the church, the baptism that is in him is certainly separated with him. And so not all who hold baptism hold the church too, just as not all who hold the church hold eternal life too. Or if we say that only those hold the church who keep the divine commandments, we grant that there are already many who hold baptism and do not hold the church.

So a heretic does not “seize baptism first,” since he took it from the church and could not lose it when he withdrew; we say he no longer has the church and yet grant that he has baptism. Nor does anyone yield the first place and give it to a heretic by saying that he took away with him what he would not give lawfully but would still give as lawful, and would no longer have lawfully but would still have as lawful. For the first place is only in holy conduct and a good life, to which belong all of whom, as members, that bride without spot or wrinkle consists, and that dove groaning among the wickedness of many crows; unless perhaps, since Esau lost the birthright through desire for a dish of lentils, defrauders, robbers, usurers, the envious, drunkards, and others of this kind, such as Cyprian groaned over in the church of his time, even in his letters, are to be thought to hold the first place. Therefore, either holding the church is not the same as holding the first place in divine things, or, if everyone who holds the church also holds the first place, all those wicked men do not hold the church, who yet seem to be within and are denied by none of us both to give and to have baptism. For who would say that they have the first place in divine things, unless one who has no taste of anything divine?

But now, having considered and treated everything, we have come to those peaceable words of Cyprian, that is, to the end of the letter, which do not satisfy me, though I read them and often go back over them, so great a delight of brotherly love breathes from them, so great a sweetness of love overflows. “We have written this back to you,” he says, “very briefly, dearest brother, according to our small ability, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to prevent each of the bishops from doing what he thinks, since he has the free power of his own judgment. We, for our part, do not quarrel over heretics with our colleagues and fellow bishops, with whom we keep divine concord and the Lord’s peace, especially since the apostle also says: ‘But if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor has the church of God.’ Love of heart, the honour of our college, the bond of faith, and the concord of the priesthood are kept by us patiently and gently. For this reason too we have written, as far as our small ability could, with the Lord’s permission and inspiration, a little book on the good of patience, which we have sent to you out of mutual love.”

In these words there are many things to consider, in which the brightness of Christian love shines out in this man, who loved the beauty of the Lord’s house and the place of the dwelling of his tabernacle: first, that he did not keep silent what he thought; next, that he expressed it so gently and peaceably; that he kept the church’s peace with those who thought otherwise; that he understood how great a health there is in the bond of unity; that he loved it so much and guarded it so soberly; that he saw and felt that even those who thought differently could do so with love preserved (for he would not have said that he kept divine concord and the Lord’s peace with the wicked; a good man can have peace toward the wicked, but cannot keep with them a peace which they themselves do not keep); finally, that, “prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to prevent each of the bishops from doing what he thinks, since he has the free power of his own judgment,” he gave even to us, such as we are, room to treat these matters peaceably with him. For he is present not only through his letters but also through that love itself which was strongest in him and could never die. Desiring, then, to cling to him and be joined to him, if I am not hindered by the unfitness of my sins, helped by his prayers I would learn, if I can, through his letters with how great peace and how great comfort the Lord governed his church through him; and, clothed through the feeling of his words with the heart of humility, if I think something truer with the whole world, I will not put my heart above his, not even in this point, that, though thinking otherwise, he was not torn away from the whole world. For a greater strength of virtue stood out in him, while this question still wavered undiscussed, in that, thinking otherwise than many colleagues, he kept such moderation as not to mutilate the holy fellowship of the church of God by any stain of schism, than if he had thought everything not only truly but also as they did, without this virtue. For I do not please him if I aim to put his talent, his power of speech, and the richness of his learning above the holy council of all nations, at which he was certainly present through the unity of the Spirit, especially as he is now placed in such light of truth, where he most surely sees what he sought here most peaceably. For from that richness he laughs at these words of ours, which seem eloquent, as childish rudiments. There he sees by what rule of piety he acted here, so that nothing in the church was dearer to him than unity. There too he beholds with unspeakable delight with what provident and most merciful dispensation the Lord, to cure our swelling pride, chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and arranged everything so wholesomely in the ranks of the members of his church that men should not say they had been chosen to help the gospel because of their talent or their letters (not yet knowing by whose gift they had them), and so be puffed up with a deadly pride. How Cyprian rejoices, how much more serenely he sees in that light for what great salvation of the human race it came about that something is found that can rightly be blamed even in the Christian and devout writings of orators, and is not found in the writings of fishermen! Fully secure about this joy of that holy soul, I in no way dare to think or say that my own writings are free of all error; nor against that opinion of his, in which he thought those coming from heretics should be received otherwise than they either were received in the past, as he himself testifies, or are received now, as the reasonable custom has been confirmed by a plenary council of the whole Christian world, do I set my own opinion, but that of the holy Catholic Church; which he so loved and loves, in which he bore such rich fruit with patience; of whose universality he was not himself the whole, but in whose universality he remained; whose root he never deserted, but in whose root, being fruitful, he was pruned by the heavenly husbandman so as to be more fruitful; for whose peace and salvation, lest the wheat should be rooted up with the tares, he both refuted with the freedom of truth and bore with the strength of love so many evils of men placed with him in unity.

From which the same man reminds us most abundantly that many who are dead in their offences and sins, though not belonging to the fellowship of Christ and to the members of that only dove, innocent and simple (which, if she alone baptized, they certainly would not baptize), yet in appearance are seen to be within and are baptized and baptize; and that in them, though dead, the baptism lives of him who does not die and over whom death no longer has dominion. Since, then, there are both dead men within, and not hidden ones (for Cyprian would not have said so much about hidden ones), who either do not belong or do not yet belong to that living dove, and dead men outside who more plainly either do not belong or do not yet belong to it, and it is true that no one can be made alive by one who is not himself alive, it is plain that those who are baptized within by such men, if they come with true conversion of heart, are made alive by him whose baptism it is; but if they renounce the world in words and not in deeds, such as Cyprian testifies were within too, they themselves are not made alive unless they are converted, and yet they have true baptism even if they are not converted. Hence it is equally plain that the dead outside, though they neither live nor give life, still have a living baptism, which will profit them for life if they are converted to peace.

So when those who then received people coming from heresies in the same baptism of Christ which they had received outside, as the church receives them now, said that they were following the old custom, it was said against them in vain that “among the ancients heresy and schism were still in their first beginnings, so that those who were there were people who had withdrawn from the church and had previously been baptized here; and these, when they returned to the church and did penance, there was then no need to baptize.” For as soon as each heresy arose and went out from the congregation of Catholic communion, it could baptize some who rushed to it, I do not say on another day, but on that very day. And so, if this was the old custom, that people were received in this way, which even those who argued against it could not deny, no one who pays a little closer attention can doubt that those too were received in this way who had been baptized outside in heresies.

But I do not see what reason there is that one who, seeking Christian salvation, happens to fall into the error of heretics and to be baptized among them is not yet called a straying sheep, while one who, in the Catholic Church itself, renounced the world in words only and not in deeds and received baptism in that falseness of heart is called a sheep already made. Or if even such a one does not become a sheep until he turns to God with a truthful heart, then, just as this man is not baptized when he becomes a sheep, if he was already baptized but was not yet a sheep, so too the one who comes from the heretics to become a sheep is not then to be baptized, if he was already baptized among them with the same baptism, though he was not yet a sheep. Therefore, since all the wicked even within, the greedy, the envious, drunkards, and those living against Christian discipline, can rightly be called liars and dark and dead and antichrists, do they nevertheless not baptize, because “nothing can be common to falsehood and truth, darkness and light, death and immortality, antichrist and Christ”?

So one who says that God’s sacrament, which is declared to be even in the perverse, is not made perverse by the perversity of any men relies not only on custom but also on the reason of truth. Certainly the apostle John says most plainly, “He who hates his brother is in darkness even until now,” and again, “He who hates his brother is a murderer.” Why then do such men baptize within, whom Cyprian himself records to have been in malicious envy? How does a murderer cleanse and sanctify water? How does darkness bless oil? But if God is present to his sacraments and words, through whomever they are administered, then God’s sacraments are right everywhere, and wicked men, whom they do not profit, are perverse everywhere.

And what sort of argument is it that a heretic is thought not to have baptism because he does not have the church? And certainly, when he is baptized, he is also questioned about the holy church. As if one who within renounces the world not in deeds but in words were not questioned about this in baptism! So just as his false answer does not cause what he receives not to be baptism, so the other’s false answer about the holy church does not cause what he receives not to be baptism. And just as the former, if afterward he truly fulfils what he had answered falsely, does not have his baptism repeated but his life corrected, so too the latter, if afterward he comes to the church about which, when questioned, he had answered falsely, because he thought he had it while he did not, is given the very church he did not have; what he had received is not repeated. But why God can sanctify oil at the words that come from the mouth of a murderer, and cannot on an altar that heretics have set up, I do not know; unless perhaps he whom a man’s heart, falsely converted within, does not hinder is hindered outside by wood falsely set up, so that he does not deign to be present to his sacraments, he who is hindered by no falsehoods of men. If then what is said in the gospel, “God does not hear a sinner,” avails so far that sacraments are not celebrated through a sinner, how does he hear a murderer praying, whether over the water of baptism, or over the oil, or over the eucharist, or over the heads of those on whom hands are laid? Yet all these things are done and are valid even through murderers, that is, through those who hate their brothers, even within the church itself. Since no one can give what he does not have, how does a murderer give the Holy Spirit? And yet he too baptizes within. So God gives the Holy Spirit even when such a man baptizes.

And as for his saying, “One who comes to the church must be baptized and renewed, so that he may be sanctified within by the holy,” what will he do if even within he falls in with the unholy? Or is a murderer perhaps holy? And if he is baptized in the church so that he may put away this very thing too, that “coming to God and seeking a priest he fell, by the deceit of error, upon a sacrilegious one,” where will he put it away afterward, if perhaps in the church itself, while seeking a man of God, he falls by the deceit of error upon a murderer? If “part of it cannot be void in a man and part prevail,” why can the sacrament be holy in a murderer and his heart not be holy? If whoever cannot give the Holy Spirit cannot baptize either, why does a murderer baptize within? Or how does a murderer have the Holy Spirit, since everyone who has the Holy Spirit is enlightened, but he who hates his brother is in darkness even until now? If, because there is one baptism and one Spirit, those who do not have one Spirit cannot have one baptism, why within do the innocent and the murderer have one baptism and not have the same Spirit? So then a heretic and a Catholic can have one baptism and not have one church, just as in the Catholic Church the innocent and the murderer can have one baptism and not have one Spirit; because just as there is one baptism, so there is one Spirit and one church. So it comes about that in each person what he has is to be acknowledged, and what he does not have is to be given him. If “nothing can be valid and firm with the Lord that is done by those whom the Lord calls his enemies and adversaries,” why is the baptism that murderers give firm? Or do we not call murderers enemies and adversaries of the Lord? But “he who hates his brother is a murderer.” How then did they baptize who hated Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus, and so hated Jesus too, who himself said to Saul, “Why do you persecute me?” when he was persecuting his servants, and at the end will himself say, “As you did not do it to one of the least of mine, you did not do it to me”? Therefore all who go out from us are not of us; but not all who are with us are of us; just as, when the threshing floor is threshed, whatever flies off from it is not wheat, but not everything that is there is wheat. And so John too says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.” Therefore God gives the sacrament of grace even through the wicked, but grace itself only through himself or through his saints. And so he works the forgiveness of sins either through himself or through the members of that dove to whom he says, “If you forgive anyone, they will be forgiven; if you retain anyone, they will be retained.” But baptism, which is the sacrament of the forgiveness of sins, since no one doubts that even murderers can have it, who are in darkness even until now because hatred of their brothers has not been shut out of their hearts (whether no sins were forgiven them, if they were baptized without their heart changed for the better, or the forgiven ones returned at once), we recognize to be holy in itself, because it is God’s, and not violated by the perversity of any, whether it is given or received by such men, whether within or without.

So we agree with Cyprian that heretics cannot give forgiveness, but that they can give baptism, which avails for the ruin of both givers and receivers, as men who use so great a gift of God badly; just as the malicious and envious, whom he too testifies are within, cannot give forgiveness of sins, while we all admit that they can give baptism. For if it was said of those who had sinned against us, “If you do not forgive men their sins, neither will your Father forgive you your sins,” how much more impossible is it that sins should be forgiven those who hate the brothers by whom they are loved and are baptized in that very hatred! Yet when they are afterward corrected, baptism is not given them again, but the very pardon they did not deserve to receive then is granted in true conversion. And so both what Cyprian wrote to Quintus, and what he wrote with his colleagues Liberalis, Caldonius, Junius, and the rest to Saturninus, Maximus, and others, if well considered, are in no way to be brought forward against the consensus of the whole Catholic Church, whose members they rejoiced to be and from which they neither cut themselves off nor allowed those who thought differently to be cut off, until at last, by the Lord’s will, through a plenary council, though after many years, what was more correct should shine out, not by instituting some novelty but by strengthening antiquity.

Cyprian also wrote to Pompeius on this same matter, where he plainly indicates that Stephen, who we have learned was then bishop of the Roman church, not only did not agree with him on these points but even wrote and gave instructions to the contrary. That Stephen certainly did not hold communion with heretics because he did not dare to reject Christ’s baptism, which he knew had remained entire in their perversity. For if those who think wrongly about God do not have baptism, it has, I think, been argued enough that this can happen within too. The apostles, indeed, gave no instruction on this; but the custom that was set against Cyprian must be believed to have taken its beginning from their tradition, as there are many things which the whole church holds and which are therefore rightly believed to have been commanded by the apostles, though they are not found written.

“But it is written of heretics that they are condemned by themselves.” What then? Were not those also condemned by themselves to whom it was said, “For in judging another you condemn yourself”? To them the apostle says, “You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal?” and so on. And such certainly were those who, being bishops and placed in Catholic unity with Cyprian himself, “seized estates by treacherous frauds,” while preaching to the people, no doubt, the words of the apostle who says, “Neither will robbers possess the kingdom of God.”

So I will not delay briefly to run through, by the same rules, the remaining statements of his letter written to Pompeius. That it is against God’s command that those coming from heretics are not baptized, if they have already received Christ’s baptism there: by what passage of the holy Scriptures is this shown? But it is plainly shown that many false Christians, though they do not have the same love as the saints, without which whatever holy things could be possessed profit nothing, still have baptism in common with the saints; and this has already been shown sufficiently and most abundantly. He said that the church and the Spirit and baptism cannot be separated from one another, and therefore he wants those who are separated from the church and from the Holy Spirit to be understood as separated from baptism too. If that is so, when anyone has received baptism in the Catholic Church, it remains in him as long as he himself remains in the church; but if he departs from it, he departs from baptism. That is not so. For it is not given back to him on his return because he did not lose it when he departed. And just as wicked sons do not have the Holy Spirit as beloved sons have him, and yet have baptism, so heretics do not have the church as Catholics have it, and yet have baptism. For “the holy Spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful,” yet baptism will not flee him. So just as baptism can exist even where the Holy Spirit withdraws himself, so baptism can exist where the church is not. As for the laying on of hands, if it were not applied to one coming from heresy, he would be judged as if outside all fault; but hands are laid on corrected heretics for the sake of the bond of love, which is the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, without which whatever other holy things are in a man do not avail for salvation.

As for the temple of God, and how “As many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ” is to be understood, I remember having discussed it enough. For the greedy are not the temple of God, since it is written, “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” and Cyprian took up Paul’s testimony that greed is idolatry. But men put on Christ sometimes as far as receiving the sacrament, sometimes as far as sanctification of life as well. The first can be common to good and bad; the second is proper to the good and devout. Therefore, if baptism cannot exist without the Spirit, then heretics too have the Spirit, but for ruin, not for salvation, as Saul had him (for demons are cast out through the name of Christ in the Holy Spirit, which that man too could do who was outside the church, of whom the disciples told the Lord), as the greedy have him, who yet are not the temple of God, since “what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” But if the greedy do not have the Spirit of God and yet have baptism, baptism can exist without the Spirit.

If heresy cannot beget sons to God through Christ because it is not Christ’s bride, neither can that crowd of the wicked placed within, because it too is not Christ’s bride. For Christ’s bride is described as without spot or wrinkle. So either not all the baptized are sons of God, or even one who is not the bride can beget sons of God. And just as it is asked whether one who received Christ’s baptism among heretics was spiritually born, so it can be asked whether one who received Christ’s baptism in the Catholic Church, not turned to God with a truthful heart, was spiritually born; and yet he did not therefore fail to receive baptism.

Now I do not wish to go back over what he poured out against Stephen when provoked, because there is no need. For the same things are said that have already been discussed enough, and it is better to pass over things that carried the danger of ruinous dissension. For Stephen had thought that those should even be excluded from communion who tried to overturn the ancient custom of receiving heretics; whereas Cyprian, moved by the difficulty of the question itself and endowed most richly with the holy heart of love, thought one should remain in unity with those who thought differently. So, though he was indignant with some heat, yet in a brotherly way, the peace of Christ still won in their hearts, so that in such a dispute no evil of schism arose between them. Nor have heresies and schisms grown more abundantly from this, that what is Christ’s in them is approved and what is theirs is disapproved. Rather, those who held this law of rebaptizing have been cut into more fragments.

Now when he says that a bishop must be teachable, and adds, “And he is teachable who is mild and gentle in patience for learning. For bishops ought not only to teach but also to learn, since he teaches better who grows daily and advances by learning better things,” by these words the holy man, endowed with devout love, shows well enough that we need not fear to read his letters in such a way that, if the church has afterward confirmed something found out by more numerous and longer inquiries, we do not hesitate; because, just as there were many things which the learned Cyprian could teach, so there was something which the teachable Cyprian could learn. And his advice to us to go back to the spring, that is, to apostolic tradition, and to direct the channel from there into our own times, is excellent and to be done without hesitation. It has been handed down to us, then, as he himself recalls, from the apostles that there is one God and one Christ and one hope and one faith and one church and one baptism. Since, then, we find that in the very times of the apostles there were some who did not have the one hope and had the one baptism, the truth is so led to us from that very spring that it appears to us that it can happen that, though there is one church as there is one hope and one baptism, those who do not have the one church still have the one baptism; just as in those times too it could happen that those had one baptism who did not have one hope. For how did those have one hope with the holy and righteous who said, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” saying that there was no resurrection of the dead? And yet they were among those to whom the same apostle says, “Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” For he writes to them most plainly, saying, “How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”

And that the church is described thus in the Song of Songs, “A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride, a fountain sealed, a well of living water, a paradise with fruit of apples,” I dare not understand except of the holy and righteous, not of the greedy, defrauders, robbers, usurers, drunkards, and the envious; and yet we learn and teach most abundantly from Cyprian’s own letters, as I have often recalled, that these had baptism in common with the righteous, with whom they certainly did not have love in common. For let someone tell me how they crept into the garden enclosed and the fountain sealed, who, Cyprian testifies, renounced the world in words only and not in deeds, and yet were within. For if they too are there, they too are Christ’s bride. Is she who is without spot or wrinkle really such, and is that beautiful dove disfigured by such a part of her members? Or are these the thorns in the midst of which she is like a lily, as it says in the same song? So in so far as she is a lily, in so far is she also a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed: namely, in those righteous who are Jews inwardly by circumcision of the heart (for “all the beauty of the king’s daughter is within”), in whom is the fixed number of the saints predestined before the foundation of the world. But that multitude of thorns lies outside, whether by hidden or by open separations, beyond the number. “I have announced,” he says, “and spoken: they are multiplied beyond number.” So the number of the righteous who are called according to his purpose, of whom it is said, “The Lord knows those who are his,” is itself the garden enclosed, the fountain sealed, the well of living water, the paradise with fruit of apples. Of this number some live spiritually and walk the more excellent way of love, and when they instruct a man overtaken in some fault in a spirit of gentleness, they look to themselves lest they too be tempted; and when perhaps they too are overtaken, the affection of love is somewhat checked in them, but not extinguished, and rising again and kindling, it is restored to its former course. For they know how to say, “My soul has slumbered for weariness; strengthen me in your words.” And when they think something otherwise, God will reveal that too to them as they remain in the fervour of love and do not break the bond of peace. Some, however, still carnal and natural, press on earnestly with their progress, and, so as to become fit for the food of the spiritual, are nourished with the milk of the holy mysteries; they avoid, in the fear of God, what is manifest even to popular judgment in wicked morals, and labour most watchfully to be less and less delighted by earthly and temporal things; they hold most firmly the rule of faith, carefully examined, and if they stray from it in anything, they are quickly corrected by Catholic authority, though in its words, by carnal sense, they still waver with various assaults of phantasms. There are also some of that number who still live wickedly, or even lie in heresies or in the superstitions of the Gentiles; and yet even there “the Lord knows those who are his.” For in that ineffable foreknowledge of God many who seem to be outside are within, and many who seem to be within are outside. Of all those, then, who, so to speak, are inwardly and secretly within, that garden enclosed, fountain sealed, well of living water, paradise with fruit of apples consists. The gifts granted to them by God are partly their own, such as in this time unwearying love and in the world to come eternal life, and partly shared with the wicked and perverse, such as all the rest, among which are also the sacrosanct mysteries.

From here, then, the consideration of that ark of which Noah was builder and pilot is put before us more easily and readily. For Peter says, “In the ark of Noah few, that is, eight souls of men, were saved through water; which baptism likewise saves you too, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience.” Therefore, if there appear to men, among those baptized in Catholic unity, people who renounce the world in words only and not in deeds, how do they belong to the mystery of this ark, in whom there is no appeal of a good conscience? Or how are they saved through water who, misusing holy baptism, though they seem to be within, persist to the end of life in wicked and lost ways? Or how were those not saved through water whom Cyprian himself records were in the past admitted to the church in simplicity with the baptism they had received in heresy? For the same unity of the ark saved them, in which no one was saved except through water. For he himself says, “The Lord is able by his mercy to grant pardon, and not to separate from the gifts of his church those who, admitted to the church in simplicity, have fallen asleep in the church.” If not through water, how in the ark? If not in the ark, how in the church? But if in the church, then certainly in the ark; and if in the ark, then certainly through water. So it can happen both that some baptized outside are, in God’s foreknowledge, more truly counted as baptized within, because there the water begins to profit them for salvation (for they cannot be said to have been saved in the ark otherwise than through water), and again that some who seemed to be baptized within are, by the same foreknowledge of God, more truly counted as baptized outside. For those who misuse baptism die through water, which then happened to no one but those who were outside the ark. Certainly it is plain that what is called within and outside in the church is to be thought of in the heart, not in the body, since all who are within in heart are saved in the unity of the ark through the same water through which all who are outside in heart, whether they are also outside in body or not, die as enemies of unity. So just as not another but the same water both saved those placed in the ark and destroyed those placed outside the ark, so not by another but by the same baptism both good Catholics are saved and wicked Catholics or heretics perish. But what most blessed Cyprian thinks of the Catholic Church, and how by his authority heretics are utterly crushed, though I have said much already, I have resolved to say separately, if it pleases the Lord, somewhat more fully and clearly, after I have first said what I think I owe about his council. This, God willing, I will undertake in the next volume.

It might perhaps already be enough that, with the reasons so often repeated and turned over and treated in manifold argument, with the proofs of the divine Scriptures added and so many testimonies of Cyprian himself in support, even the slower of heart now understand, as I think, that Christ’s baptism cannot be violated by any perversity of man, whether of giver or receiver. And in those times, when this question was being discussed against a useful custom in disputations by men who argued while keeping love and unity, it seemed to some, even distinguished men, bishops of Christ, among whom blessed Cyprian stood out especially, that Christ’s baptism could not exist among heretics or schismatics, for no other reason than that the sacrament was not distinguished from the effect or use of the sacrament; and since its effect and use, in deliverance from sins and uprightness of heart, was not found among heretics, the sacrament itself too was thought not to be there. But when they turned their eyes to the multitude of chaff within, since it appears that even those who are perverse within unity itself and live lost lives can neither give nor have forgiveness of sins (for it was said not to wicked but to good sons, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone’s, they will be retained”), and yet that they have, give, and receive the sacrament of baptism, it became clear enough to the pastors of the Catholic Church spread through the whole world, through whom the original custom was afterward confirmed by the authority of a plenary council, that even the sheep that strayed outside and had received the Lord’s mark outside from its deceitful plunderers, when it comes to the salvation of Christian unity, is corrected from error, freed from captivity, healed of its wound, but the Lord’s mark in it is recognized rather than rejected; since many, both wolves and wolves’ victims, impress that very mark, who seem indeed to be within, yet are proved by the fruits of their conduct, in which they persist to the end, not to belong to that sheep which is one even out of many; because, according to God’s foreknowledge, just as many sheep stray outside, so many wolves lie in wait inside. Among whom, however, the Lord knows those who are his, who hear no voice but the shepherd’s, even when he cries out through men like the Pharisees, of whom it was said, “Do what they say.”

For just as a spiritual man, having the end of the commandment, that is, love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned, can, because of the body which is still corrupted and weighs down the soul, see something less clearly and think otherwise, which God will reveal when he wills to one who remains in the same love, so in a carnal and perverse man something good and useful can be found which comes from elsewhere, not from himself. For as in a fruitful branch something is found that must be pruned so that it may bear more fruit, so on a barren and dry reed, or one tied up, a grape often hangs. And therefore, just as it is foolish to love the prunings of a fruitful branch, but one does well who does not reject sweet fruit wherever it hangs, so whoever, cut off from unity, rebaptizes because Cyprian thought that those coming from heretics must be baptized again turns away from what is to be praised in so great a man and follows what is to be amended, and does not even attain what he follows. For Cyprian, while with zeal for God he gravely detested those who separated themselves from unity, thought they were separated even from baptism itself; but these men, thinking it little crime that they themselves are separated from Christ’s unity, contend that his baptism is not there either and went out with them. So they are so far from Cyprian’s fruitfulness that they do not even equal his prunings.

Likewise, whoever, not having love and walking the lost ways of the worst morals, seems to be within while he is outside, and does not repeat Christ’s baptism even in heretics: it does nothing to help his barrenness that he is laden not with his own but with another’s fruit. But it can happen that someone is strong in the root of love and thinks most rightly in what Cyprian thought otherwise, and yet there are more fruitful things in Cyprian than in him, and more to be pruned in him than in Cyprian. So not only do we in no way compare wicked Catholics, but we do not easily make even good ones equal to blessed Cyprian, whom the devout mother church counts among the rare and few men of most excellent grace; though these recognize Christ’s baptism even among heretics, whereas he thought otherwise, so that through him, seeing something less and remaining most firmly in unity, it might be shown more plainly to heretics by what a sacrilegious crime the bond of peace is broken. For the blind Pharisees, though they sometimes said what ought to be done, were not to be compared with the apostle Peter, though he sometimes said what ought not to be done. And not only is their dryness not to be compared with his greenness, but neither is the fruit of others to be made equal to his abundance. For no one now compels the Gentiles to live like Jews, and yet no one in the church now, however much he has advanced, is to be compared with the apostleship of Peter. Therefore, rendering due reverence and paying worthy honour as far as I can to the peaceable bishop and glorious martyr Cyprian, I still dare to say that he thought otherwise about baptizing schismatics or heretics than the truth afterward brought out, not by my own judgment, but by that of the universal church, strengthened and confirmed by the authority of a plenary council; just as, venerating Peter, as he deserves, as the first of the apostles and most eminent of martyrs, I still dare to say that he did not act rightly in compelling the Gentiles to live like Jews. For this too I say not from my own judgment but from the saving teaching of the apostle Paul, held and kept throughout the whole church.

So, discussing Cyprian’s opinion, though placed far below Cyprian’s merits, I say that the sacrament of baptism can be had, given, and received by both good and bad; by the good profitably and to salvation, by the bad harmfully and to punishment; yet it is equally entire in both, and it makes no difference to its equal integrity in all how much worse is the one who has it among the bad, just as it makes no difference how much better is the one who has it among the good. And so it also makes no difference how much worse is the one who hands it on, just as it makes no difference how much better; and likewise no difference how much worse is the one who receives it, just as none how much better. For it is in itself equally holy both in those who are not equally righteous and in those who are not equally wicked.

That the wicked who are in no way changed for the better have, hand on, and receive baptism, we have, I think, shown sufficiently both from the canonical Scriptures and from Cyprian’s own letters. That they do not belong to the holy church of God, though they seem to be within, appears most plainly from this: they are greedy, robbers, usurers, envious, malicious, and the like, whereas that one dove is modest and chaste, the bride without spot or wrinkle, the garden enclosed, the fountain sealed, the paradise with fruit of apples, and the other things likewise said of her; which is understood only of the good, holy, and righteous, that is, not only according to the workings of God’s gifts common to good and bad, but also according to the inmost and surpassing love, of those who have the Holy Spirit, to whom the Lord says, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they will be forgiven him, and if you retain anyone’s, they will be retained.”

And so nothing fit is said why a wicked man who can have baptism cannot also hand it on, and, just as he has it harmfully, so also hand it on harmfully; not because he hands on something of that kind, nor because such a man hands it on, but because he hands it on to such a man. For when a wicked man hands it on to a good one, that is, to one changed by true conversion in the bond of unity, the giver’s wickedness is overcome between the good sacrament that is handed on and the good believer to whom it is handed on. And when sins are forgiven to one truly converted to God, they are forgiven by those to whom he is joined by that true conversion. For the same Holy Spirit forgives them who has been given to all the saints who cleave to him in love, whether they know one another bodily or not. Likewise, when anyone’s sins are retained, they are certainly retained by those from whom the one whose sins are retained separates himself by unlikeness of life and the turning away of a perverse heart, whether they know him bodily or not.

So all the wicked are separated spiritually from the good; but if they are also separated bodily by open dissension, they become worse. But, as has been said, it makes no difference to the holiness of baptism how much worse is the one who has it or how much worse the one to whom he hands it on. A separated man can hand it on, just as a separated man can have it, but as harmfully as he has it, so harmfully does he hand it on. But the one to whom he hands it on can receive it to his salvation, if he himself receives it not separated; as has happened to many who, with a Catholic mind and a heart not estranged from the unity of peace, under some necessity of pressing death fell upon some heretic and received from him Christ’s baptism without his perversity, and, whether they died or were delivered, in no way remained with those to whom they had never gone over in heart. But if he too receives it separated, he receives it the more harmfully the better is what he receives not well, and it avails the more for the destruction of the separated as it could avail more for the salvation of one joined. And so, if he is corrected from that perversity and turns from separation and comes to Catholic peace, his sins will be forgiven, because of the bond of love, under the same baptism he had received, under which his sins were retained because of the sacrilege of division; because it is always holy, both in a righteous man and in an unrighteous man, neither increased by anyone’s justice nor diminished by anyone’s wickedness.

Since this is so, what does it stand in the way of this now plain truth that many fellow bishops agreed with Cyprian in that opinion and brought forward their own agreeing opinions, except that the love of that man for Christ’s unity may be made known more and more? For if he had remained alone in thinking these things, with no one agreeing, he might seem to have cooled from the crime of schism because he found no companions in error. But with so many agreeing with him, his remaining in unity with the others who thought differently shows that he kept the most holy bond of Catholic universality not out of fear of being alone but out of love of peace. So it might indeed now seem superfluous to go over the individual opinions of the other bishops of that council too. But since the slower of heart do not think they have been answered if some point of anyone’s speech is answered not there but elsewhere, though it could also be applied there, it is much better that they be worn by much reading so as to be sharpened, than that they complain from too little understanding so as to be refuted.

First, then, we recall for consideration again Cyprian’s own inquiry, which shows a peaceable soul overflowing with abundant love, with which the council itself begins. “You have heard,” he says, “dearest colleagues, 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. 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. For none of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops or compels his colleagues to the necessity of obeying by tyrannical terror, since every bishop, 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. 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.”

We have, I think, already argued enough in the previous books, as far as we could, on behalf of the universal Catholic consensus and council, in whose unity these men remained as devout members, not only against the letter he wrote to Jubaianus, but also against the one he sent to Quintus, the one he wrote with some colleagues to some colleagues, and the one to Pompeius. So it now seems timely to consider also what the others judged one by one, with that freedom which he himself did not take from us when he said, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” That he did not say this so as to catch the silent thoughts of his colleagues, dragged out of hiding by such a guarantee, but because he truly loved peace and unity, is very easy to see from other similar passages where he writes to individuals, as to Jubaianus himself: “We have written this back to you,” he says, “very briefly, dearest brother, according to our small ability, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to prevent each of the bishops from doing what he thinks, since he has the free power of his own judgment.” And lest anyone who thought differently with this same free power should seem fit to be driven from the fellowship of the others, he goes on to say: “We, for our part, do not quarrel over heretics with our colleagues and fellow bishops, with whom we keep divine concord and the Lord’s peace.” And a little later: “Love of heart,” he says, “the honour of our college, the bond of faith, and the concord of the priesthood are kept by us patiently and gently.” So too in the letter he wrote to Magnus, when it was asked whether there was any difference between those dipped and those sprinkled in baptism: “In this matter,” he says, “our modesty and restraint prejudge no one, so as to prevent each from holding what he thinks and doing what he holds.” From these words of his it is plain enough that these matters were treated by them at a time when they were not yet drawn out clearly without ambiguity, but were still being sought, shut up, with great effort. We, then, holding now the custom of the universal church, strengthened by universal councils too, about recognizing everywhere the simple truth of baptism, and having received greater confidence also from Cyprian’s words, by which I would have been allowed even then to think differently with the right of communion preserved, preferring and praising unity such as blessed Cyprian and his colleagues who held that council with him kept with those who thought differently, driving back and overturning the seditious slanders of heretics and schismatics, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who says, speaking through his apostle, “bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” and through whom he also says, “If in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you,” we undertake to consider and treat the opinions of the holy bishops, keeping with them the bond of unity and peace, in holding which we imitate them as far as the Lord himself helps us.

Caecilius of Biltha said: “I know one baptism in the church alone, and none outside the church. It will be one here, where hope is true and faith sure. For so it is written: ‘One faith, one hope, one baptism’; not among heretics, where there is no hope and faith is false, where everything is done by lying, where a demoniac exorcizes, where he puts the sacramental questions whose mouth and words give off a cancer, where the unfaithful gives faith, the criminal grants pardon of sins, the antichrist baptizes in the name of Christ, one cursed by God blesses, the dead promises life, the unpeaceful gives peace, the blasphemer calls on God, the profane administers the priesthood, the sacrilegious sets up an altar. To all these is added this evil too, that a priest of the devil dares to celebrate the Eucharist. Or else let those who stand by them say that all these things are false about heretics. See to what sort of things the church is compelled to consent, and to hold communion without baptism and without pardon of sins! This thing, brothers, we ought to flee, and separate ourselves from so great a crime, and hold the one baptism that has been granted by God to the church alone.”

To this I answer: anyone even within who professes that he knows God but denies him in deeds (such as are the greedy and the envious, and those who, because of hatred of their brothers, are called murderers on the testimony not of me but of the holy apostle John) both has no hope, because he carries a bad conscience; and is faithless, because he does not do what he vowed to God; and a liar, because he professes falsehoods; and a demoniac, because he gives room in his heart to the devil and his angels; and his words work rottenness, since they corrupt good morals through evil conversations; and he is an unbeliever, since he laughs at what God threatens such men with; and a criminal, because he lives wickedly; and an antichrist, because his morals oppose Christ; and cursed by God, because holy Scripture everywhere curses such men; and dead, because he lacks the life of righteousness; and unpeaceful, because by contrary deeds he fights against God’s word; and a blasphemer, because through his lost deeds the Christian name is disparaged; and profane, because he is shut out spiritually from that inner sanctuary of God; and sacrilegious, because he corrupts the temple of God in himself by living badly; and a priest of the devil, because he serves fraud and greed, which is idolatry. And the apostle Paul and the bishop Cyprian testify that there are some such, indeed very many, even within. Why then do these baptize? Why are some also who renounce the world in words and not in deeds baptized unchanged from such morals, and not rebaptized when they are changed? Now as for his indignant saying, “See to what sort of things the church is compelled to consent, and to hold communion without baptism and without pardon of sins!”, he would certainly not have said it unless there were other bishops who were compelling others to these things. From which it is shown that those even then thought more truly who did not withdraw from the ancient custom, which was afterward confirmed by the universality of a council. And what is it that he adds, saying, “This thing, brothers, we ought to flee, and separate ourselves from so great a crime”? If he says this meaning that he will not do or approve these things, it is another matter; but if he means to condemn and segregate first those who think differently, he resists Cyprian’s words in which he says, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.”

To what Felix of Misgirpa said we say this: if there were no one true baptism except in the church, it would certainly not be in those who depart from unity. But it is in them; for they do not receive it again when they return, for no other reason than that they had not lost it when they withdrew. But as for his saying, “For what is done outside has no saving effect,” I agree and believe it to be altogether true. For it is one thing not to be there, another to have no saving effect. For to those who come to Catholic peace, the things that were in them outside, but did not profit, begin to profit.

And to Polycarp of Hadrumetum, since he said, “He who approves the baptism of heretics makes ours void,” we answer: if the baptism given through heretics is the heretics’, then the baptism given within by the greedy and by murderers is theirs. But if this is not theirs, neither is that the heretics’; and so, among whomever it is, it is Christ’s.

Novatus of Thamugadi said what he did, but brought nothing to show that he ought to have done what he did. For he named the testimony of the Scriptures and the decree of his colleagues, but brought nothing from them that we could consider.

Nemesianus of Thubunae set down many testimonies of the Scriptures, but he said much in favour of the Catholic opinion which we have undertaken to declare and commend; unless perhaps it is to be thought that one who trusts in the hope of temporal things does not trust in falsehoods, as do all the greedy and robbers and those who renounce the world not in deeds but in words, such as, Cyprian too testifies, both baptize and are baptized within. They too follow flying birds, because they do not grasp what they desire. And not only the heretic, but everyone who lives badly, forsakes the ways of his own vineyard and strays from the path of his own field and goes through trackless and dry places and a land appointed to thirst, and gathers with his hands what bears no fruit; because all righteousness is fruitful and all iniquity unfruitful. And those who drink strange water from a foreign spring are not only heretics, but all who live not according to what God teaches but according to what the devil teaches. For if he had been speaking of baptism, he would have said not, “and do not drink from a foreign spring,” but, “do not wash in a foreign spring.” Now as for what the Lord says, “Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,” I do not see at all how it helps him toward what he thinks. For it is one thing to say, “Everyone who will enter the kingdom of heaven is first reborn of water and the Spirit, because unless he is reborn of water and the Spirit he will not enter the kingdom of heaven,” which the Lord said and is true; and another to say, “Everyone who is born of water and the Spirit will enter the kingdom of heaven,” which is certainly false. For Simon the magician too had been born of water and the Spirit and yet did not enter the kingdom of heaven; so it can happen to heretics too. Or if no one is born of the Spirit except one changed by true conversion, all who renounce the world in words and not in deeds are certainly born not of the Spirit but of water alone; and yet, on Cyprian’s testimony, they are within. For one of two things must be granted: either those who renounce the world deceitfully are born of the Spirit, though to their ruin, not their salvation, and so heretics can be too; or, if what is written, “For the holy Spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful,” avails so far that those who renounce the world deceitfully are not born of the Spirit, then one can be baptized with water and not be born of the Spirit, and Nemesianus says in vain, “For neither can the Spirit work without water, nor water without the Spirit.” And it has been said often elsewhere how it can happen that those who do not have one church have one baptism in common, just as it can happen in the church itself within that those holy through righteousness and those unclean through greed do not have one Spirit and yet have one baptism. For so it was said, “one body,” that is, the church, as “one Spirit and one baptism.” The rest of what he said supports our assertion rather. For he set down a testimony from the gospel, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit, for God is Spirit, and he is born of God,” and inferred: “So all heretics and schismatics, whatever they do, it is all carnal, as the apostle says: ‘For the works of the flesh are plain, which are sexual immoralities, impurities’”; and the rest of what the apostle says there, where he also mentioned heresies, he went through: “that whoever does these things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Then he added and said: “So the apostle condemns, along with all the wicked, those also who cause division, that is, schismatics and heretics.” It is good that, listing the works of the flesh, among which are heresies, he found and said that the apostle condemns them all together. Let him ask holy Cyprian, then, and hear from him how many even within live according to the evil works of the flesh, which the apostle condemns along with heresies, and yet baptize and are baptized. Why then are heretics alone said to be unable to have baptism, which their companions in condemnation have?

Januarius of Lambaesis said: “According to the authority of the holy Scriptures I decree that all heretics are to be baptized and so admitted into the holy church.”

To him the answer is: according to the authority of the holy Scriptures, the Catholic council of the whole world decreed that Christ’s baptism is not to be rejected even when found among heretics. But if he had set down testimonies of the Scriptures, we would show either that they are not against us or even that they are for us, as we do with the one who follows him.

Lucius of Castra Galbae set down a testimony from the gospel, the Lord saying: “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, what is salted with it will be good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled by men.” As if we were saying that men themselves, thrown out, are of any use either for their own salvation or others’! But those too who seem to be within while being such are not only outside spiritually but will also be separated bodily at the end. For all such are good for nothing; yet the sacrament of baptism that is in them is not therefore nothing. For in those very ones who are thrown out, if they come to their senses and return, the salvation that had departed returns to them, but baptism, since it had not departed, does not return. And that saying of the Lord, “Go therefore and teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” did not permit any but the good to baptize, because he would not say to the wicked, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone’s, they will be retained.” How then do the wicked baptize within, who cannot forgive sins? How too do they baptize unchanged wicked men, whose sins are still upon them, as John says, “He who hates his brother is in darkness even until now”? But if their sins are forgiven when, though baptized by the wicked, they join themselves in inward love to the good and righteous through whom sins are forgiven in the church, so too with those who come from outside and join the same structure of Christ’s body by the inner bond of peace. Yet Christ’s baptism is to be recognized in both and rejected in neither, whether before they are converted, though it profits them nothing, or when they are converted, so that it profits. “Since by withdrawing from the church, which is one,” he says, “they have become tasteless and have been made its opponents, let it be done as it is written: ‘The houses of the opponents of the law need cleansing’; and consequently,” he says, “those who have been defiled by being baptized by opponents must first be cleansed and then at last baptized.” What then? Are not robbers and murderers opponents of the law that says, “You shall not kill, you shall not steal”? They need cleansing, then; who would deny it? And yet not only those who are baptized within by such men, but also such men themselves who are baptized unchanged, though they still need cleansing so as to be changed, are not baptized any more once they are changed. So great is the power in the sacrament of simple baptism that, while we admit that someone who has been baptized and still lives badly needs cleansing, we yet forbid him to be baptized again.

Crescens of Cirta said: “In so great an assembly of most holy fellow priests, the letters of our dearest Cyprian to Jubaianus and also to Stephen having been read, which contain in themselves so much of the most holy testimonies drawn from the divinely given Scriptures that rightly we all, united by the grace of God, ought to agree, I judge, therefore, that all heretics and schismatics who wish to come to the catholic church may not enter before they have first been exorcized and baptized; excepting of course those who had been baptized before in the catholic church: these, however, are to be reconciled to the church by the laying on of hands in penance.”

Here we are reminded again to ask why he said, “excepting of course those who had been baptized before in the catholic church.” Is it because they had not lost what they had received within? Then why could they not also hand on what they could have outside? Or is it handed on unlawfully outside? But neither is it lawfully had outside, and yet it is had; so it is given unlawfully outside, but still it is given. And what is granted to one returning who had received within is granted to one coming who had received outside, namely, that he may have lawfully within what he had unlawfully outside. But someone may perhaps ask what blessed Cyprian’s letter to Stephen, which is mentioned in this opinion, contains on this matter, since it is not mentioned at the opening of the council; I suppose because it was not thought necessary. For he said it too was read in this assembly of fellow priests, which I do not doubt at all was done, as I think, as usually happens, so that the bishops, now gathered, might also learn something together about the case contained in that letter. For it does not bear on the present question at all, and I wonder more why he wished to mention it than why mention of it was left out at the opening of the council. But if anyone thinks I did not wish to bring forward something in it necessary to the present case, let him read it and know that what I say is true; or if he finds otherwise, let him refute me. For that letter has nothing whatever on baptism given among heretics or schismatics, which is what we are treating now.

Nicomedes of Segermes said: “My opinion is this, that heretics coming to the church should be baptized, because outside, among sinners, they can obtain no remission of sins.”

To him the answer is: the opinion of the universal Catholic Church is this, that heretics who have already been baptized with Christ’s baptism, though in heresy, are not to be baptized when they come to the church. For if there is no remission of sins among sinners, neither do sinners within forgive sins, and yet those baptized by them are not rebaptized.

Monnulus of Girba said: “The truth of the catholic church, our mother, brothers, has both remained and remains with us, above all in the trinity of baptism, as our Lord says: ‘Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Since, then,” he says, “we know plainly that heretics have neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit, those who come to the church our mother ought truly to be born again and baptized, so that the cancer they had, and the wrath of condemnation, and the taint of error may be sanctified by the holy and heavenly washing.”

To him we answer that all who are baptized with baptism consecrated by the words of the gospel have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the sacrament only; but that in heart and life not even those have them who live lost and accursed lives within.

Secundinus of Cedias said: “Since our Lord Christ says, ‘He who is not with me is against me,’ and the apostle John calls those who go out from the church antichrists, without doubt the enemies of Christ and those who have been named antichrists cannot minister the grace of saving baptism. And therefore I judge that those who flee to the church from the snares of heretics are to be baptized by us, who by his favour have been called friends of God.”

To him the answer is: all are adversaries of Christ to whom, when they say, “Lord, in your name we have done many mighty works,” and the other things said there, he will say at the end, “I do not know you; depart from me, all you who work iniquity.” All this chaff, if it persists in malice to the last, whether some of it flies outside before the winnowing or seems to be within, is destined for the fire. If, then, heretics coming to the church must be baptized so that they may be baptized by friends of God, are those greedy men, robbers, murderers friends of God, or are those they have baptized to be baptized again?

Felix of Bagai said: “As ‘a blind man leading a blind man,’ they ‘will fall together into the pit’; just so a heretic baptizing a heretic, they will fall together into death.”

This is true, but what he adds is not therefore true: “And therefore,” he says, “a heretic must be baptized and given life, lest we, the living, hold communion with the dead.” Were not those dead who said, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”? (They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.) Those, then, who were corrupted by their evil conversations and followed them, did they not fall together with them into the pit? And yet among them were those to whom the apostle was writing as already baptized, nor would they, if they were corrected, have been baptized again. Does not the same apostle say, “To be minded according to the flesh is death”? And certainly the greedy, defrauders, and robbers, among whom Cyprian himself groaned, were minded according to the flesh. What harm then did the dead do him while he lived in unity, or who would say that the baptism of Christ which such men had or gave was violated by their iniquities?

Pollianus of Milevis said: “It is right that a heretic be baptized in the holy church.”

Nothing indeed could be said more briefly; but I think this too is brief: it is right that Christ’s baptism not be blown upon in Christ’s church.

Theogenes of Hippo Regius said: “According to the sacrament of God’s heavenly grace which we have received, we believe in the one baptism which is in the holy church.”

This could be my opinion too; for it is so balanced that it has nothing against the truth. For we too believe in the one baptism which is in the holy church. But if he had said, “which is in the holy church alone,” the answer would have to be as to the others. But now, since it is said thus, “we believe in the one baptism which is in the holy church,” so that it is said to be in the holy church, but its being elsewhere too is not denied, whatever he may have thought, there is no need to argue against these words. For if I were asked point by point whether there is one baptism, I would answer that there is one. Then, if I were asked whether it is in the holy church, I would answer that it is. Third, if it were asked whether I believe in this baptism, I would answer that I do; and so I would answer that I believe in the one baptism which is in the holy church. But if it were asked whether it is in the holy church alone and not among heretics or schismatics, I would answer, with the whole church, that I do not believe so. But since he did not put this in his opinion, I think it improper for me to add words to him to argue against, which I did not find there. So too, if he said, “The water of the river Euphrates, which is in paradise, is one,” he would certainly speak the truth. But if he were asked whether this water is in paradise alone, and said that it is, he would speak falsely. For it is also outside paradise, in the lands into which it flows from that spring. But who is so rash as to say that he would have answered what is false, when perhaps he could have answered what is true? Therefore the words of this opinion ought not to be contradicted, since they in no way stand in the way of the truth.

Dativus of Vada said: “As far as it lies with us, we do not hold communion with a heretic unless he has been baptized in the church and has received remission of sins.”

If you want him baptized because he has not received remission of sins, then if you find someone within who was baptized while holding hatred against his brother (since the Lord cannot lie who says, “If you do not forgive, it will not be forgiven you”), will you order him, once corrected, to be baptized again? Certainly not. So neither the heretic. We must not pass over, of course, why he did not say briefly, “We do not hold communion with a heretic,” but added, “as far as it lies with us.” For he saw that many agreed with this opinion, from whose fellowship, however, these men could not separate themselves without violating unity, and he added, “as far as it lies with us,” showing indeed that he did not willingly hold communion with those whom he thought did not have baptism, but that everything is to be borne for the good of peace and unity. This the others did too, who thought that these men were not acting rightly, and held what the truth, more fully declared afterward, taught, and what the older custom, confirmed by a later council, urged more strongly; yet, while they thought differently with love preserved, they bore with one another with anxious devotion, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, until God should reveal to one side or the other whatever they thought otherwise. Let those hear this by whom unity is attacked by means of this council, through which council it is declared how much unity is to be loved.

Successus of Abbir Germaniciana said: “Either nothing is permitted to heretics or everything is. If they can baptize, they can also give the Holy Spirit; but if they cannot give the Holy Spirit, because they do not have the Holy Spirit, neither can they baptize spiritually. Therefore we judge that heretics are to be baptized.”

To him one can answer in almost as many words: “Either nothing is permitted to murderers or everything is. If they can baptize, they can also give the Holy Spirit; but if they cannot give the Holy Spirit, because they do not have the Holy Spirit, neither can they baptize spiritually. Therefore we judge that those baptized by murderers, or murderers baptized and not changed for the better, are to be baptized when they have corrected themselves.” But this is not true. For he who hates his brother is a murderer, and Cyprian knew such men within, who certainly baptized. So such things are said in vain about baptizing heretics.

Fortunatus of Thuccabori said: “Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, the Son of God the Father and Creator, built his church upon Peter, not upon heresy, and gave the power of baptizing to bishops, not to heretics. Therefore those who are outside the church and, standing against Christ, scatter his sheep and flock, cannot baptize outside.”

To this he added “outside,” so that he cannot be answered so briefly. For he too could be answered in almost as many words, thus: “Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, the Son of God the Father and Creator, founded his church upon Peter, not upon iniquity, and gave the power of baptizing to bishops, not to the wicked. Therefore those who do not belong to the rock, on which those build who hear the words of God and do them, but who, living against Christ by hearing his words and not doing them, and so building on sand, corrupt his sheep and flock by the example of lost morals, cannot baptize.” Could this not be said plausibly? And yet it is false. For the wicked do baptize, since those robbers whom Cyprian rebuked, placed in unity with him, were wicked. “But that is why,” he says, “he added ‘outside.’” Why then can these men not baptize outside? Is it because they are worse by the very fact that they are outside? But it makes no difference to the integrity of baptism how much worse is the one who hands it on. For the difference between bad and worse is not as great as that between good and bad; and yet when a bad man baptizes he gives nothing other than a good man gives; so too when a worse man baptizes he gives nothing other than one less bad. Or perhaps it belongs not to the man’s merit but to the sacrament of baptism itself that it cannot be given outside? If that were so, it could not be had outside either, and anyone would have to be baptized as often as he withdrew from the church and returned to it again.

Now if we ask more carefully what “outside” is, especially since he himself mentioned Peter, on whom the church is built, are not those in the church who are on the rock, and those who are not on the rock not in the church either? So let us see whether those who hear Christ’s words and do not do them set up their building on the rock. The Lord himself contradicts them, saying: “Whoever hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house on the rock,” and a little later: “Whoever hears these words of mine and does not do them, I will liken him to a foolish man who builds his house on sand.” If then the church is on the rock, those who are on sand, being outside the rock, are surely outside the church. Let us remember, then, how many Cyprian mentions as placed within who build on sand, that is, hear Christ’s words and do not do them, and so, being on sand, are proved to be outside the rock, which is outside the church; and yet, as long as they are such and are not yet, or never, changed for the better, they baptize and are baptized, and the baptism they have remains entire in them though they are destined for damnation.

Nor can it be said here: “Who does all the words of the Lord written in that gospel sermon, at the close of which he says that those who hear these words and do them build on the rock, and those who hear and do not do them build on sand?” For even if not everything is fulfilled by some, yet in the same sermon he set down a remedy, saying, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” And after the Lord’s Prayer, recorded and written down in that same sermon, he says: “For I tell you, if you forgive men their sins, your Father will also forgive you your sins; but if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you.” Hence John too says that love covers a multitude of sins; which those certainly did not have, and so built on sand, of whom the same Cyprian says that within, even in apostolic times, they lived in malicious envy without love. And so they seemed indeed to be within, but were outside, because they were not on that rock by which the church is signified.

Sedatus of Thuburbo said: “As much as water sanctified in the church by the priest’s prayer washes away sins, so much does water infected, as by a cancer, with heretical speech heap up sins. Therefore we must strive with all peaceable strength that no one infected and dipped in heretical error refuse to receive the one true baptism of the church; whoever has not been baptized with it will become a stranger to the kingdom of heaven.”

To him the answer is: if water is not sanctified when one who prays pours out some words of error through lack of skill, many, not only bad but even good brothers in the church itself, do not sanctify water. For the prayers of many are corrected daily, if they are recited to the more learned, and many things are found in them against the Catholic faith. If it is shown that some were baptized when those prayers had been said over the water, will they be ordered to be baptized again? Why not? Because often the devotion of the one praying outweighs the fault of the prayer, and because those fixed words of the gospel, without which baptism cannot be consecrated, have such force that through them whatever faulty things are said in the prayer against the rule of faith are made void, just as a demon is driven out by Christ’s name. Now certainly a heretic, if he brings a faulty prayer, does not have the good affection of love by which that lack of skill could be outweighed; and so anyone in the Catholic Church itself who is envious and malicious, such as Cyprian rebukes there, is like him, if he too, as often happens, brings some prayer in which he speaks against the rule of faith. For many rush upon prayers composed not only by unskilled talkers but even by heretics, and, through simple ignorance not able to judge them, use them, thinking that they are good; yet what is perverse in them does not make void what is right there, but rather is made void by it; just as in a man of good hope and commendable faith, but still a man, if he thinks something otherwise, what he thinks rightly is not made void by it, until God reveals to him that too which he thinks otherwise. But if he himself is wicked and perverse, if he says a sound prayer, in no part opposed to the Catholic faith, he is not therefore upright because it is upright; and if he brings a prayer perverse in some points, God is present to his gospel words, without which Christ’s baptism cannot be consecrated, and he himself sanctifies his sacrament, so that for the man, whether before he is baptized, or when he is baptized, or afterward at some time when truly converted to him, it avails for salvation, which would avail for ruin if he were not converted. Besides, who does not know that it is not Christ’s baptism if the gospel words of which the creed consists are lacking there? But heretics who do not baptize at all are more easily found than ones who do not baptize with those words. And so we say that not every baptism (for men are said to be baptized in many sacrilegious rites of idols), but Christ’s baptism, that is, the one consecrated with the gospel words, is everywhere the same and is not violated by any men or any perversity.

Certainly in this opinion too we must not carelessly pass over what he put in, saying, “Therefore we must strive with all peaceable strength that no one infected with heretical error,” and so on. For he had in view those words of blessed Cyprian, who said, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” See how much the love of unity and peace avails in good sons of the church, that those whom they called sacrilegious and profane, admitted, as they thought, without baptism, if they could not correct them as they thought right, they chose rather to bear than to break that holy bond on their account, lest the wheat be rooted up together with the tares; allowing, as far as lay in them, as in that most famous judgment of Solomon, the child’s body to be nursed by the false mother rather than be cut in two. This both those did who thought more truly about the sacrament of baptism, and these to whom God, in reward for so great a love, would reveal whatever they thought otherwise.

Privatianus of Sufetula said: “Let him who says that heretics have the power of baptizing first say who founded heresy. For if heresy is from God, it can also have divine indulgence; but if it is not from God, how can it either have the grace of God or confer it on anyone?”

To him the answer in as many words is: “Let him who says that the malicious and envious have the power of baptizing first say who founded malice and envy. For if malice and envy are from God, they can also have divine indulgence; but if they are not from God, how can they either have the grace of God or confer it on anyone?” But just as these things, said in the same way, are most plainly false, so are those which these were said to refute. For the malicious and envious do baptize, as Cyprian himself grants, since he testifies that they are even within. So heretics too can baptize, because baptism is Christ’s sacrament, but envy and heresy are works of the devil; and whoever has them does not thereby bring it about that, if he has Christ’s sacrament, it too is counted among the works of the devil.

Privatus of Sufes said: “He who approves the baptism of heretics, what else does he do but hold communion with heretics?”

To him the answer is: the baptism we approve in heretics is not the heretics’ baptism, just as the baptism we approve in the greedy, the treacherous, defrauders, robbers, and the envious is not theirs. For all these are wicked, but Christ is righteous, whose sacrament they do not, as far as it concerns him, violate in themselves by their wickedness. Otherwise another might say, “He who approves the baptism of the wicked, what else does he do but hold communion with the wicked?” If anyone threw this at the Catholic Church itself, he would be answered as this man has now been answered.

Hortensianus of Lares said: “Let the presumptuous or the supporters of heretics see to it: we claim for the church the one baptism, which we know exists only in the church. Or how can those baptize anyone in the name of Christ whom Christ himself calls his adversaries?”

To him we answer in a similar strain of words: “Let the presumptuous or the supporters of the wicked see to it: the one baptism, which we know belongs only to the church, we call back to the church wherever it is found, when we can. Or how can those baptize anyone in the name of Christ whom Christ himself calls his adversaries?” For to all the wicked he says, “I do not know you; depart from me, you who work iniquity”; and yet when they baptize, it is not they who baptize, but he of whom John says, “He it is who baptizes.”

Cassius of Macomades said: “Since there cannot be two baptisms, he who grants baptism to heretics takes it away from himself. I judge, therefore, that wretched and wasting heretics are to be baptized when they begin to come to the church, and, washed with the sacred and divine washing and enlightened in the light of life, received into the church, made not enemies but peaceable, not strangers but members of the household of the Lord’s faith, not adulterers but sons of God, not sons of error but of salvation; except those who, having been faithful members of the church, were tripped up and had passed over to the darkness of heresy: these are to be restored by the laying on of hands.”

Another might say: “Since there cannot be two baptisms of Christ, he who grants baptism to the wicked takes it away from himself.” But these men would resist this with us and say: “We grant baptism to the wicked, which is in them not from themselves, as iniquity is, but from Christ, whose is righteousness and whose sacrament is not wicked even among the wicked.” What, then, they would say with us about the wicked, let them say to themselves about heretics. And so what follows should rather have been said thus: “I judge, therefore, that wretched and wasting heretics are not to be baptized when they begin to come to the church, if they already have Christ’s baptism, but corrected from their perversity!” For it can also be said of the wicked, of whom heretics are a part: “I judge, therefore, that wretched and wasting wicked men, if they have already been baptized, are not to be baptized when they begin to come to the church,” that is, to that rock, outside which are all who hear Christ’s words and do not do them, “but, already washed with the sacred and divine washing, and now enlightened in the light of life, made not enemies but peaceable” (for the wicked have no peace), “not strangers but members of the household of the Lord’s faith” (for it was said to the wicked, “How have you turned into the bitterness of a strange vine?”), “not adulterers but sons of God” (for the wicked are sons of the devil), “not sons of error but of salvation” (for iniquity does not save), “to be received into the church,” that is, into that rock, into that dove, into that garden enclosed and fountain sealed, which is recognized only in the wheat, not in the chaff, whether the chaff is separated far off by the wind or seems mixed with the grain until the last winnowing. So Cassius added in vain, “except those who, having been faithful members of the church, were tripped up and had passed over to the darkness of heresy.” For if they too had lost baptism by withdrawing from the church, let it be given back to them as well; but if they had not lost it, let what was given through them be recognized.

Another Januarius, of Vicus Caesaris, said: “If error does not yield to truth, much more does truth not consent to error. And therefore we stand by the church over which we preside, so that, claiming its baptism for it alone, we baptize those whom the church has not baptized.”

The answer is: those whom the church baptizes, that rock certainly baptizes, outside which are all who hear Christ’s words and do not do them. Let all, then, be baptized who were baptized by such men. But if this is not done, then, as in these, so in heretics Christ’s baptism must be recognized and approved, their wickedness and perversity being condemned or corrected.

Another Secundinus, of Carpi, said: “Are heretics Christians or not? If they are Christians, why are they not in the church of God? If they are not Christians, let them become Christians. Or what does the Lord’s saying mean: ‘He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters’? Hence it is plain that upon strange sons and the offspring of antichrist the Holy Spirit cannot descend merely by the laying on of hands, since it is plain that heretics do not have baptism.”

To him the answer is: Are the wicked Christians or not? If they are Christians, why are they not on that rock on which the church is built? (For they hear Christ’s words and do not do them.) If they are not Christians, let them become Christians. Or what does the Lord’s saying mean: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters”? For those scatter his sheep who lead them by depraved imitation to the ruin of their own morals. Hence it is plain that upon strange sons, as all the wicked are called, and the offspring of antichrist, as all are who oppose Christ, the Holy Spirit cannot descend merely by the laying on of hands, if true conversion of heart is not present; since it is plain that the wicked, as long as they are wicked, can indeed have baptism, but cannot have the salvation of which baptism is the sacrament. For let us see whether heretics are described in that psalm where it is said of strange sons: “Lord, deliver me from the hand of strange sons, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity; whose sons are like young plants, well established; their daughters adorned like the likeness of a temple; their storehouses full, overflowing from this to that; their sheep fruitful, multiplying in their goings out; their oxen fat. There is no breach in the wall, nor going out, nor outcry in their streets. They have called blessed the people that has these things: blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.” If then these are strange sons, who place blessedness in temporal things and the abundance of earthly happiness and despise the divine precepts, let us see whether they are not the very ones of whom Cyprian speaks thus, taking them on himself as well, to show that he is speaking of those with whom he shared the sacraments: “since we do not keep the way of the Lord,” he says, “nor observe the heavenly commands given us for salvation. Our Lord did the will of the Father, and we do not do the will of God, being eager for property and gain, pursuing pride,” and so on. But if these could have and hand on baptism, why is it denied that it can exist in strange sons? Yet he exhorts them, by keeping the heavenly commands sent to them through the only Son, to be worthy to be his brothers and sons of God.

Victoricus of Thabraca said: “If heretics may baptize and give remission of sins, why do we defame them and call them heretics?”

What if another said: “If the wicked may baptize and give remission of sins, why do we defame them and call them wicked?” What would be answered to him about the wicked, let that be answered to this man about heretics: namely, that the baptism with which they baptize is not theirs, and that it does not follow that whoever has Christ’s baptism is secure about the remission of sins too, if he has it only in the sacrament and has not been converted by true confession of heart, so that he might be forgiven by forgiving.

Another Felix, of Uthina, said: “No one doubts, most holy fellow priests, that human presumption does not have as much power as the adorable and venerable majesty of our Lord Christ. Mindful, therefore, of the danger, we ought not only to observe this but also to confirm it by all of us: that all heretics who run to the bosom of mother church be baptized, so that the heretical mind, polluted by long corruption, may be cleansed by the sanctification of the washing and reshaped for the better.”

Perhaps this man, who gave the cleansing of long corruption as the reason why heretics should be baptized, would spare those who, falling into some heresy, had been there a short time and, quickly corrected, had moved from there to the Catholic Church. Then, too, he paid too little attention to the fact that it can equally be said that all the wicked who run to that rock by which the church is signified should be baptized, so that the wicked mind, which built outside the rock on sand by hearing Christ’s words and not doing them, may be cleansed by the sanctification of the washing and reshaped for the better; and yet this is not done, if they have already been baptized, even if it is proved that they were such when they were baptized, that is, that they renounced the world in words and not in deeds.

Quietus of Buruc said: “We who live by faith ought to obey with believing observance what was foretold for our instruction. For it is written in Solomon: ‘He who is baptized by a dead man, what does his washing profit him?’ This is certainly said of those who are dipped by heretics and of those who dip them. For if those who are baptized among them obtain eternal life through remission of sins, why do they come to the church? But if nothing of salvation is received from a dead man, and for that reason, having recognized their former error, they return to the truth with repentance, they must be sanctified by the one life-giving baptism which is in the catholic church.”

What it is to be baptized by a dead man we have already said elsewhere, without prejudice to a more careful consideration of the same scripture. But I ask why they want heretics alone to be understood as dead, when the apostle Paul said generally of sin, “The wages of sin is death,” and again, “To be minded according to the flesh is death.” And since he calls the widow who lives in pleasures dead, how are those not dead who renounce the world in words and not in deeds? What then does the washing profit one who is baptized by these, except that he too, if he is such, has the washing indeed but it does not profit him for salvation? But if the one by whom he is baptized is such, and this man turns to God with an undeceitful heart, he is not baptized by that dead man but by that living one of whom it is said, “He it is who baptizes,” whoever acts bodily in baptizing. And to what he says of heretics, “For if those who are baptized among them obtain eternal life through remission of sins, why do they come to the church?”, the answer is: they come for this reason, that, even if they have received Christ’s baptism as far as the celebration of the sacrament, they still do not obtain eternal life except through the love of unity; just as neither did those malicious and envious men, whose sins would not be forgiven even if they held hatred against those from whom they suffered injury, since the truth said, “If you do not forgive, neither will your Father forgive you”; how much more when they hated those to whom they returned evil for good! Yet these, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds, if they were afterward corrected, would not be baptized again, but would be sanctified by the one life-giving baptism. That baptism is indeed in the Catholic Church, but not in it alone, just as it is not in the saints alone, who are built on the rock and of whom that only dove is made up.

Castus of Sicca said: “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.”

If he had proved that those who thought differently, and held what the whole world afterward, confirmed by a Christian council, established, followed custom in such a way as to despise the truth, we ought to dread these words; but since that custom is found to have been both propagated from the truth and strengthened by the truth, we fear nothing in this opinion. And yet, if those men were envious and malicious toward the brothers or ungrateful toward God, see with what sort of men they held communion; see what sort of men, thinking differently, they did not, as Cyprian had said beforehand, remove from the right of communion; see by whom they were not polluted in preserving unity; see how much the bond of peace is to be loved; see what those should consider who slander us about the council of earlier bishops, whose love they do not imitate and by whose example, considered, they are rightly condemned. If it was the custom, as this opinion bears witness, that heretics coming to the church were received with the baptism they had, either this was rightly done, or the wicked do not stain the good in unity. If it was rightly done, why do they accuse the whole world because people are received so? But if the wicked do not stain the good in unity, how do they excuse themselves from the crime of sacrilegious separation?

Eucratius of Thenae said: “Our Lord and God Jesus Christ, teaching the apostles with his own mouth, fully set out our faith and the grace of baptism and the rule of the church’s law, saying: ‘Go, teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ So the false and wicked baptism of heretics must be driven off by us and refuted with every protest, from whose mouth comes poison, not life, not heavenly grace but blasphemy of the Trinity. And therefore it is plain that heretics coming to the church must be baptized with whole and catholic baptism, so that, purified from their blasphemous presumption, they may be reshaped by the glory of the Holy Spirit.”

Plainly, if it is not baptism consecrated in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, let it be counted the heretics’ and refuted by us with every protest as wicked; but if we recognize this name in it, we do better to distinguish the words of the gospel from the error of heretics, and to approve what is sound in them and correct what is faulty.

Libosus of Vaga said: “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, so that even if in the past someone did not baptize heretics in the church, he may now begin to baptize them.”

Here he did not try to show at all how it is the truth, to which he says custom must yield. Yet he helps us more against those who have divided themselves from unity by admitting that that was the custom than by judging that it ought to yield to a truth he does not show. For that is the custom which, if it admitted the sacrilegious to Christ’s altar without the cleansing of baptism and polluted none of the good in unity, then whoever separated themselves in vain from that same unity, in which they could be polluted by the contagion of no wicked men, committed the manifest sacrilege of schism. But if all perished, polluted through that custom, from what cave do these men come out, without original truth and with the craftiness of slander? But if the custom by which heretics were received thus was right, let them give up their madness, confess their error, and come to the Catholic Church, not to be dipped again in the sacrament of baptism, but to be healed of the wound of their severance.

Leucius of Theveste said: “I judge that heretics, blasphemous and wicked, who with various words pluck apart the holy and adorable words of the Scriptures, are to be abhorred, and therefore are to be exorcized and baptized.”

I too judge that they are to be abhorred, but not therefore to be exorcized and baptized. For what I abhor is their own invention, but what I revere is Christ’s sacrament.

Eugenius of Ammaedara said: “I too judge this same thing, that heretics are to be baptized.”

To him the answer is: but the church does not judge this, to which God has now revealed, even by a plenary council, what some of you then still thought otherwise; and since love was kept intact in you, you remained in unity.

Likewise another Felix, of Bamaccora, said: “I too, following the authority of the divine Scriptures, judge that heretics are to be baptized, and also those who claim that they were baptized by schismatics. For if, according to Christ’s provision, our fountain is private, let all the adversaries of our church understand that it cannot belong to another. Nor can he who is the shepherd of one flock give saving water to two peoples. And therefore it is plain that neither heretics nor schismatics receive anything heavenly, since they dare to receive it from sinful men who are strangers to the church. When there is no room for the giver, it certainly profits not the receiver either.”

To him the answer is that the divine Scriptures nowhere command that heretics baptized among heretics be baptized again, but show in many places that all who are not on the rock and do not belong to the members of that dove are strangers to the church, and yet they baptize and are baptized and have the sacrament of salvation without salvation. As for our fountain, which is like the fountain of paradise, enough has already been said about its flowing, like that one, outside paradise too; and that he who is the shepherd of one flock cannot give saving water to two peoples, that is, his own and a strange one, I grant and agree. But because it is not saving for strangers, is it therefore not itself? For the water of the flood was saving for those placed within the ark, but deadly outside the ark; yet it was the same. And many strangers, that is, the envious, whom Cyprian says are on the devil’s side and shows from the Scriptures, seem to be within, and yet if they were not outside the ark they would not die through the water. For baptism kills such men when they use it badly, just as to those of whom the apostle speaks the good fragrance of Christ was unto death. Why then do neither schismatics nor heretics receive anything heavenly, as thorns or tares receive the rain, as those who were outside the ark did receive the water coming from the windows of heaven, but to their ruin, not their salvation? And so what he put last, “When there is no room for the giver, it certainly profits not the receiver either,” I do not labour to refute, since we too say that it does not profit those who receive it, when they receive it in heresy, consenting to the heretics. And so they come to Catholic peace and truth, not to receive baptism, but so that what they had received may begin to profit them.

Likewise another Januarius, of Muzula, said: “I am surprised that, though all confess that baptism is one, not all understand the unity of that same baptism. For the church and heresy are two different things. If heretics have baptism, we do not; but if we have it, heretics cannot have it. And there is no doubt that the church alone possesses the baptism of Christ, since it alone possesses both the grace and the truth of Christ.”

Another could say likewise, and likewise say what is not true: “I am surprised that, though all confess that baptism is one, not all understand the unity of that same baptism. For righteousness and iniquity are two different things. If the wicked have baptism, the righteous do not; but if the righteous have it, the wicked cannot have it. And there is no doubt that the righteous alone possess the baptism of Christ, since they alone possess both the grace and the truth of Christ.” This is certainly false, as they too admit. For those envious men, who are on the devil’s side and were placed within, as Cyprian says, and well known to the apostle Paul, had baptism and did not belong to the members of that dove which is safe on the rock.

Adelphius of Thasvalte said: “Without cause do some attack the truth with a false and spiteful word, saying that we rebaptize, since the church does not rebaptize heretics but baptizes them.”

On the contrary, it is now that the church does not rebaptize, because it baptizes only those who have not been baptized; and that earlier custom the truth, more carefully examined, has confirmed by a later council as well.

Demetrius of Leptis Minor said: “We keep one baptism, because we claim for the catholic church alone what is its own. But those who say that heretics baptize truly and lawfully are the ones who make not two but many baptisms. For since heresies are many, baptisms too would be counted according to their number.”

To him the answer is: if so, then let as many baptisms be counted as there are works of the flesh, of which the apostle says, “that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God”; among which heresies too are counted. And so many of those works are tolerated within, as in the chaff, and yet there is one baptism for all, which is violated by no work of iniquity.

Vincentius of Thibaris said: “We know that heretics are worse than heathens. If, converted, they wish to come to God, they certainly have the rule of truth which the Lord commanded the apostles by divine precept, saying: ‘Go, lay on hands in my name, cast out demons.’ And in another place: ‘Go and teach the nations, dipping them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ So first through the laying on of hands in exorcism, secondly through the regeneration of baptism, they can then come to the promise of Christ; otherwise it ought not to be done.”

By what rule he says that heretics are worse than heathens I do not know, since the Lord says, “If he does not listen even to the church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector.” Or is the heretic worse even than such a man? I do not resist. Yet it does not follow that, because the man himself is worse than a heathen, that is, a Gentile and pagan, Christ’s sacrament too, if he has it, is mixed with his vices and morals and perishes, corrupted by that mixture. For those who leave the church and become not only followers but even founders of heresies, if they leave already baptized, though by this rule they are worse than heathens, still have baptism; for if they return corrected, they do not receive what, if they had lost it, they would certainly receive. So it can happen that someone is worse than a heathen, and yet Christ’s sacrament not only is in him, but is no worse in him than in a holy and righteous man. For although, as far as the man is concerned, he did not keep it but violated it in mind and will, yet as far as the sacrament itself is concerned, it remained entire and inviolate even with the one who despised and rejected it. Were not the Sodomites heathens, that is, Gentiles? So the Jews were worse, to whom the Lord says, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you,” and to whom the prophet says, “You have justified Sodom,” that is, in comparison with you Sodom has been made righteous. Were the divine sacraments among the Jews therefore such as they themselves were, sacraments which the Lord himself too received, and to the celebration of which he sent the lepers he had cleansed, and at which the angel stood by Zechariah as he ministered and announced that he had been heard as he sacrificed in the temple? These same sacraments were both in the good men of that time and in the wicked, worse than heathens, since they were ranked above the Sodomites in wickedness; and yet those sacraments were entire and divine in both.

For even with the Gentiles themselves, if they could have anything divine and right in their teachings, our saints did not reject it, though because of their superstitions, idolatry, pride, and other lost morals they were to be detested and, unless they were corrected, punished by divine judgment. For the apostle Paul too, speaking of God among the Athenians, cited the testimony that some of them had said something of the kind; which, if they came to Christ, would certainly be recognized in them, not rejected. And holy Cyprian uses such witnesses against these same heathens. For speaking of the magi he says: “Yet the chief of these, Ostanes, both denies that the form of the true God can be seen and says that true angels stand beside his throne. In this Plato also agrees by the same reasoning, and, keeping one God, calls the others angels or demons. Hermes Trismegistus too speaks of one God and confesses him incomprehensible and beyond estimation.” If, then, these men had come to receive Christian salvation, they would certainly not have been told, “You have this evil,” or “You have this falsely,” but it would rightly have been said: “This, though entire and true, would profit you nothing unless you came to the grace of Christ.” If, then, something divine can be found even in the heathens themselves and rightly approved, though salvation must still be given them by Christ, we ought not be so moved, even if heretics are worse, as to wish to correct what is their own evil in them and refuse to recognize what is Christ’s good in them. But we will undertake the treatment of the remaining opinions of this council from another beginning.

Let us not be tiresome to our readers if we discuss the same things in various ways and often. For although the holy Catholic Church in all nations is fortified by the authority of ancient custom and of a plenary council against the things that cast some darkness on this question of baptism, whether the same baptism that is in the Catholic Church can exist among heretics or schismatics too, yet, since men not to be despised, and above all Cyprian, once thought otherwise within unity itself, those who are far removed from his love try to use his authority against us. Therefore we are compelled, by the opportunity of treating and considering everything we have found on this matter in his council and letters, to turn this same question over somewhat longer, as if in our hands, and to show how much more truly it has pleased the universality of the Catholic Church that heretics or schismatics who have already received Christ’s baptism where they come from should be admitted with it into Catholic communion, corrected from their error and rooted and grounded in love; so that, as concerns the sacrament of baptism, it is not that what was lacking is supplied, but that what was present profits. And blessed Cyprian, indeed, now that the body which is corrupted no longer weighs down his soul, nor the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that muses on many things, sees the truth more serenely, which he was counted worthy to attain through love. So let him help us by his prayers, as we labour in the mortality of this flesh as in a dark cloud, so that by the Lord’s gift we may imitate his good things as far as we can. But if he thought something otherwise and persuaded some brothers and colleagues of it, which he now sees by the revelation of him whom he loved, let us, far unequal to his merits, yet following, in our weakness, the authority of the Catholic Church, of which he is an outstanding and most dear member, untie the knots against heretics or schismatics. These, cut off from the unity he held, withering from the love in which he flourished, slipped from the humility in which he stood, he disapproves and condemns all the more, the more he knows that they wish to scrutinize what he wrote in order to lay traps, and refuse to imitate what he did in order to make peace; like those who call themselves Christian Nazarenes and circumcise carnal foreskins after the Jewish manner, heretics born from that error from which Peter, straying, was called back by Paul, and who persist in it to this day. So just as they remained cut off from the church in their perversity, while Peter was crowned with the glory of martyrdom in the primacy of the apostles, so these, while Cyprian, through the abundance of his love, has been taken up into the lot of the saints by the glory of his passion, recognize themselves as exiles from unity, and set up against the homeland of unity, for the sake of their slanders, a citizen of unity. So now let us look at the remaining opinions of that council in the same way.

Marcus of Mactaris said: “It is not surprising if heretics, the enemies and assailants of the truth, claim for themselves something belonging to another’s power and favour. What is surprising is that some of our own, betrayers of the truth, support heretics and oppose Christians. Therefore we have decreed that heretics are to be baptized.”

To him we answer: rather, it is more surprising and to be proclaimed with great praise that these men so loved unity that, persevering in unity with those whom they thought betrayers of the truth, they did not fear to be polluted by them. For when he had said, “What is surprising is that some of our own, betrayers of the truth, support heretics and oppose Christians,” he seemed about to say, “Therefore we decree that we must not hold communion with them.” He did not say this, but said, “Therefore we decree that heretics are to be baptized,” keeping what the peaceable Cyprian had laid down beforehand, saying, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” Since, then, the Donatists slander us and call us traitors, if some Jew or pagan appeared who, having read this council, called both us and them betrayers of unity by their own rules, I should like to know how we would have to plead our common case in order to refute and wash away so grave a charge. They call those traitors whom they could neither convict at that time nor can show now, and they themselves are rather shown to be in the same crime. But what is that to us? What shall we say, certainly, about these betrayers? For if we are called traitors, however falsely, because they charge that we succeeded traitors in the same communion, we have all succeeded those betrayers, since the party of Donatus had not yet divided itself from unity in the times of blessed Cyprian. For it was after more than forty years had passed since his passion that the handing over of the books took place, from which men began to be called traitors. If then we are traitors because we arose from traitors, as they suppose or invent, both of us derive our origin from those betrayers. For it cannot be said that these men did not hold communion with them, when he calls them “our own,” as the council says, which they themselves bring forward most of all. “Some of our own,” he says, “betrayers of the truth, support heretics.” Added to this is the testimony of Cyprian, showing well enough that he remained in communion with them, by saying, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” For they were the ones who thought differently, whom this man calls betrayers, because, namely, they supported heretics by receiving them into the church without baptism. That this was the custom, that they should be received so, Cyprian himself shows in many places, and some bishops in this council. From which it appears that, if heretics do not have baptism, the church of Christ of those times was full of betrayers, who supported them by receiving them so. Let a common case, then, be pleaded against the charge of betrayal, which they cannot deny, and there our case will be pleaded against the charge of handing over the books, which they could not prove. But let us plead as if they had proved it. What we would both answer to those who throw at us the betrayal of our forefathers, that we will answer these men who throw at us the handing over by our forefathers. For if we are dead through the handing over by our forefathers, from whom these men divided themselves, then through the betrayal of the forefathers who were parents both of us and of them, both we and they are dead. But since they say they live, they believe that that betrayal does not concern them; then neither does that handing over concern us. And that betrayal, according to them, is certain; but according to us neither the earlier betrayal is real, since we say that heretics too can have Christ’s baptism, nor the later handing over, since in that case they themselves were defeated. So these men have no reason to separate themselves from us by the abominable crime of schism; for if our forefathers were not traitors, as we say, there is nothing that concerns us at all; but if they were traitors, as they say, it concerns us no more than those betrayers concern either us or them. And so, since no crime of ours comes from the iniquity of our forefathers, their crime from their own schism is certain.

Sattius of Sicilibba said: “If sins are forgiven heretics in their own baptism, they come to the church without cause. For since on the day of judgment it is sins that are punished, heretics have nothing to fear from the judgment of Christ if they have obtained remission of sins.”

This too could be our opinion; let its author see in what spirit it was said. But in its words it is so measured that I am not reluctant to agree with it and subscribe to it in the sense in which I too hold that heretics can indeed have Christ’s baptism, but not have remission of sins. For he does not say, “If heretics baptize or are baptized,” but, “If sins are forgiven heretics in their own baptism, they come to the church without cause.” For let us put in place of heretics those whom Cyprian knew to be in the church, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds: in as many words we too can say this opinion most truly: “If sins are forgiven to the falsely converted in their baptism, they are afterward brought to true conversion without cause. For since on the day of judgment it is sins that are punished, those who renounced the world in words only and not in deeds have nothing to fear from the judgment of Christ if they have obtained remission of sins.” But this reasoning is completed by a connection such that we add, saying: “But they ought to fear Christ’s judgment and at some time be converted with a truthful heart; and when they have done this, they certainly need not be baptized again.” So they could receive baptism and not receive remission of sins, or, their sins forgiven, be at once burdened again. So too, then, with heretics.

Victor of Gorduba said: “Since sins are forgiven only in the baptism of the church, he who admits a heretic to communion without baptism acts against reason in both respects: he does not cleanse heretics, and he defiles Christians.”

To him we answer that the church’s baptism exists among heretics too, though they themselves are not in the church, just as the water of paradise is in the land of Egypt, though that land is not in paradise. So we do not admit heretics to communion without baptism; and because they come corrected from their perversity, we receive not their sins but Christ’s sacraments. About remission of sins, we say here what we said above. As for what he put last, saying, “He acts against reason in both respects: he does not cleanse heretics, and he defiles Christians,” Cyprian himself, with his colleagues who agreed with him, first and foremost rejected it. For he did not believe he was defiled when he decided that communion must be held with such men for the sake of the bond of peace, saying, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” Or if heretics defile when they are admitted to communion without being baptized, the whole church was defiled through that custom which is so often mentioned here. And just as these men call us traitors because of our forefathers, in whom, when they made the charge, they could prove nothing of the kind, if each becomes what the one he has held communion with is, then all became heretics at that time. But since anyone who says this is mad, what this man says is false: “He who admits a heretic to communion without baptism does not cleanse heretics and defiles Christians.” Or if this is true, then they were not admitted without baptism, but had Christ’s baptism, though given and received among heretics, who according to that custom, which these men admit, were admitted so; and therefore they are rightly admitted so now too.

Aurelius of Utica said: “Since the apostle says that we must not share in the sins of others, what else does he do but share in the sins of others who holds communion with heretics without the church’s baptism? And therefore I judge that heretics are to be baptized, so that they may receive remission of sins, and so be admitted to communion.”

Then Cyprian too, and all these men, shared in the sins of others, since they remained in communion with such men, when they removed no one who thought differently from the right of communion. Where then is the church? Next, to say nothing of heretics, since the words of this opinion can also be said of other sinners, such as Cyprian saw, groaned over, rebuked, and bore in the church with him, where is the church, which by these words is thought to have perished even then by the contagion of sins? But if, as the firmest truth holds, the church remained and remains, the sharing in sins that the apostle forbids is to be understood only as consent. And let heretics be baptized again to receive remission of sins, if the perverse and envious are baptized again, who, when they renounced the world in words and not in deeds, could receive baptism but did not obtain remission of sins, since the Lord says, “If you do not forgive, neither will your Father forgive you.”

Iambus of Germaniciana said: “Those who approve the baptism of heretics disapprove ours, so that they deny that those who were, I will not say washed, but soiled outside the church ought to be baptized in the church.”

To him the answer is that none of us approves the baptism of heretics, but Christ’s, though in heretics, as in chaff outside, just as in other wicked men, as in chaff inside. For if those baptized outside the church are not washed but soiled, then surely those baptized outside the rock on which the church is built are not washed but soiled. But all who hear Christ’s words and do not do them are outside that same rock. Or if they are indeed washed by baptism but remain soiled by their iniquities, from which they would not be changed for the better, so too are heretics.

Lucianus of Rucuma said: “It is written: ‘And God saw the light, that it was good, and divided between the light and the darkness.’ If light and darkness can agree, then we and heretics can have something in common. Therefore I judge that heretics are to be baptized.”

To him the answer is: if light and darkness can agree, the righteous and unrighteous can have something in common. Let him judge, then, that those unrighteous men whom Cyprian rebuked in the church itself are to be baptized again; or, if those who renounce the world in words and not in deeds are not unrighteous, let him say so who can.

Pelagianus of Luperciana said: “It is written: ‘Either God is God, or Baal is God.’ So now too, either the church is the church, or heresy is the church. But if heresy is not the church, how can the church’s baptism be among heretics?”

To him we can answer thus: either paradise is paradise or Egypt is paradise. But if Egypt is not paradise, how can the water of paradise be in Egypt? But we shall be told, “It reached there too by flowing out.” So then baptism reaches the heretics. Likewise we say: either the rock is the church or the sand is the church. But since the sand is not the church, how can baptism exist among those who build on sand by hearing Christ’s words and not doing them? And yet it exists; so then among heretics too.

Iader of Midili said: “We know that there is only one baptism, in the catholic church, and therefore we ought not to admit a heretic unless he has been baptized among us, lest he think he was baptized outside the catholic church.”

To him the answer is that if this were said of those wicked men who are outside the rock, it would certainly be said falsely; so then of heretics too.

Likewise Felix of Marazana said: “One faith, one baptism; but of the catholic church, to which alone it is permitted to baptize.”

To him the answer is: what if another said, “One faith, one baptism, but of the righteous only, to whom alone it is permitted to baptize”? As these words would be refuted, so let this opinion be refuted. Or do the unrighteous too, not changed even in baptism itself, while they renounce the world in words only and not in deeds, belong to the members of the church? Let them see whether it is that rock, whether it is the dove, whether it is the bride without spot or wrinkle.

Paul of Obba said: “It does not move me if someone does not uphold the faith and truth of the church, since the apostle says: ‘For what if some of them have fallen away from the faith? Has their unbelief made void the faithfulness of God? By no means. For God is true, but every man a liar.’ But if God is true, how can the truth of baptism be among heretics, among whom God is not?”

To him the answer is: What? Is God among the greedy? And yet baptism is. So too among heretics. For those among whom God is are the temple of God; and what agreement has the temple of God with idols? Now Paul holds that greed is idolatry, Cyprian agrees, and the same Cyprian lives among colleagues who are robbers and yet baptizers, with great reward for his endurance.

Pomponius of Dionysiana said: “It is plain that heretics cannot baptize and give remission of sins, since they do not have the power to loose or bind anything on earth.”

The answer is: neither do murderers have this power, that is, those who hate their brothers. For it was not said to such men, “If you forgive anyone’s sins they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone’s, they will be retained”; and yet they baptize, and both Paul tolerates them and Cyprian acknowledges them in the same communion of baptism.

Venantius of Thinisa said: “If a husband, setting out abroad, had entrusted his wife to a friend to guard, the friend would keep her, entrusted to him, with all the care he could, so that her chastity and holiness might not be defiled by anyone. Christ, our Lord and God, setting out to the Father, entrusted his bride to us. Are we guarding her uncorrupted and inviolate, or are we betraying her integrity and chastity to adulterers and corrupters? For he who makes the church’s baptism common with heretics betrays the bride of Christ to adulterers.”

We answer: What? Those who, when they are baptized, turn to God with their lips and not their heart, do they not carry an adulterous mind? Are they not lovers of the world, who renounced it not in deeds but in words, and therefore corrupt good morals by evil conversations, saying, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”? Did not the apostle’s word keep watch against these too, where he said, “But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ”? When, then, Cyprian had Christ’s baptism in common with such men, was he therefore betraying Christ’s bride to adulterers, and not rather recognizing the bridegroom’s necklace even on an adulteress?

Ahymmus of Ausuaga said: “We have received one baptism, and we practice it. But he who says that heretics may baptize makes two baptisms.”

To him the answer is: why does not he too make two baptisms who says that the unrighteous baptize? For though the righteous and unrighteous are contrary to each other, the baptism given by the righteous, such as Paul was, or even such as Cyprian was, is not contrary to the baptism given by those unrighteous men who hated Paul, whom Cyprian understands as not heretics but bad Catholics. And though the continence that was in Cyprian and the greed that was in Cyprian’s colleagues are contrary to each other, the baptism Cyprian gave was not contrary to the baptism they gave, but one and the same, because he baptizes of whom it was said, “He it is who baptizes.”

Saturninus of Victoriana said: “If heretics may baptize, those who do unlawful things are excused and defended; and I do not see why either Christ called them his adversaries or the apostle called them antichrists.”

To him the answer is: we say it is not permitted for heretics to baptize in the same way that we say it is not permitted for defrauders to baptize. For the Lord says, not to a heretic only, but to a sinner: “Why do you recount my statutes and take my covenant in your mouth?” To him he certainly said, “If you saw a thief, you ran along with him.” How much worse, then, were those who did not run along with thieves but themselves seized estates by treacherous frauds! But Cyprian did not run along with them, though he tolerated them in the Catholic crop, lest the wheat be rooted up with them. And yet the baptism they gave was the very same, because it was not theirs but Christ’s. So, just as these men, though Christ’s baptism is recognized in them, are still not excused and defended in doing unlawful things, and Christ rightly calls them his adversaries, since if they persist in such things they will hear, “Depart from me, you who work iniquity” (and so they are called antichrists, because they are contrary to Christ while they live against what he commands), so too with heretics.

Another Saturninus, of Thucca, said: “The heathen, though they worship idols, yet know and confess the supreme God, the Father and Creator. Against him Marcion blasphemes; and some are not ashamed to approve Marcion’s baptism. How do such priests either keep or uphold the priesthood of God, who do not baptize the enemies of God and so hold communion with them?”

No doubt when such things are said the measure is exceeded and it is not considered that they too held communion with such men, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion” if he thought differently. But this man has in this very opinion of his something to warn him, if he noticed that in each person what is wrong is to be corrected and what is right approved, since he says: “The heathen, though they worship idols, yet know and confess the supreme God, the Father and Creator.” If, then, such a heathen came to him, would he wish to correct and change in him his confessing and knowing God the Father and Creator? No, he would amend in him the idolatry, which was the evil he had, and hand on the Christian sacraments which he did not have; and if he knew something right he would approve it in him, if he found something perverse he would amend it, if something was lacking he would give it. So too in a Marcionite heretic he would recognize the integrity of baptism, correct his perversity, teach Catholic truth.

Marcellus of Zama said: “Since sins are forgiven only in the baptism of the church, he who does not baptize a heretic holds communion with a sinner.”

What? Does not one who holds communion with a man who does this hold communion with a sinner? And what else were all of them doing, judging no one and not removing from the right of communion one who thought differently? Where then is the church? Or do these things not harm those who are patient and tolerate the tares lest the wheat be rooted up? Let these men learn, then, who have committed the sacrilege of schism by separating themselves in vain from the whole world. Why do they have Cyprian’s opinion in their mouths, who do not have Cyprian’s patience in their hearts? But Marcellus is answered from what was said above about baptism and the remission of sins: how baptism can be in a man, though the remission of sins is not in him.

Irenaeus of Ululi said: “If the church does not baptize a heretic on the ground that he is said to be already baptized, heresy is the greater.”

In this way it can be said: if the church does not baptize a greedy man on the ground that he is said to be already baptized, greed is the greater. But this is false; so then is the other.

Donatus of Cibaliana said: “I know one church and its one baptism. If there is anyone who says that the grace of baptism is among heretics, he must first show and prove that the church is there.”

To him the answer is: if by the grace of baptism you mean what baptism is, it is among heretics; but if baptism is the sacrament of grace, and grace itself is the abolition of sins, the grace of baptism is not among heretics. For there is one baptism and one church just as there is one hope. So just as good and bad, not having one hope, can still have one baptism, so those who do not share the church can share baptism.

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.”

This opinion can be ours too, and so it happened in this question of baptism. For when the truth was later revealed more clearly, error yielded to truth, when that most wholesome custom was confirmed by the authority of a plenary council as well. It is good, however, that they so often remembered that even Peter, the first of the apostles, could think otherwise than the truth required. All of us who love Cyprian believe that this happened to Cyprian too, without any insult to him, since it is not right to love him with greater love than Peter.

Julian of Telepte said: “It is written: ‘No one can receive anything unless it has been given him from heaven.’ If heresy is from heaven, it can also give baptism.”

Let him hear another saying: “If greed is from heaven, it can give baptism.” And yet the greedy give it; so too then heretics.

Faustus of Timida Regia said: “Let those who act as patrons of heretics not flatter themselves. He who intercedes for heretics against the church’s baptism makes them Christians and us heretics.”

To him the answer is: if anyone says that one who, when he received baptism, did not receive remission of sins because he held hatred of his brother in his heart, is not to be baptized again when he puts that hatred from his heart, does he intercede for murderers against the church’s baptism, or make them righteous and us murderers? Let him understand this, then, of heretics too.

Geminius of Furni said: “Some of our colleagues can prefer heretics to themselves; they cannot to us. And therefore we hold what we have once decreed, that we baptize heretics who come to us.”

Here too he most plainly admits that some of his colleagues thought differently. From this the love of unity is confirmed again and again, since they were not separated from one another by any schism until God should reveal to one side or the other whatever they thought otherwise. But the answer to him is that his colleagues did not prefer heretics to themselves, but recognized Christ’s baptism in heretics too, as it is recognized in the greedy, defrauders, robbers, and murderers.

Rogatianus of Nova said: “Christ founded the church, the devil heresy. How can the synagogue of Satan have the baptism of Christ?”

To him the answer is: because Christ founded the devout and the devil the envious, can the part that is proved to be the devil’s in the envious therefore not have Christ’s baptism?

Therapius of Bulla said: “He who concedes and betrays the church’s baptism to heretics, what else has he shown himself but a Judas to the bride of Christ?”

O great conviction of the schismatics, who have separated themselves by abominable sacrilege from the inheritance of Christ spread through the whole world, if Cyprian held communion with such men as Judas the traitor was, and yet was not stained by them! Or if he was stained, then all became Judases at that time; so all are Judases now too; or if they are not, then the crimes of predecessors do not concern their successors, even though propagated from the same communion. Why then do they throw at us traitors whom they have not convicted, and do not throw at themselves the Judas with whom Cyprian and his colleagues held communion? See the council in which they usually glory! We, indeed, say that one who approves Christ’s baptism even in heretics no more betrays the church’s baptism to heretics than one who approves Christ’s baptism even in murderers betrays the church’s baptism to murderers. But since these men try to prescribe to us from this council what we ought to think, let them first agree with it themselves. See, those who said that heretics, though baptized in heresy, ought not to be baptized again were compared to Judas the traitor. But with such men Cyprian held communion, who said, “judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” That such men were in the church even before is shown by that opinion where he says, “But someone says: ‘What then will become of those who in the past were admitted to the church without baptism?’” That such was the custom of the church those who held this council themselves often recall. If, then, whoever does this has shown himself nothing else but a Judas to the bride of Christ, as this opinion pronounced, and Judas, as the gospel teaches, was a traitor, then all who were saying these things then held communion with traitors; and before they said them, all had become traitors through that custom which the church then kept. So all of us, that is, both we and they, because we have been propagated from that unity, are traitors. But we are defended in two ways: both because we do not agree with this council, where this was pronounced, while keeping the right of unity, as Cyprian himself said beforehand; and because we hold that the wicked do no harm to the good in Catholic unity, until at the end the chaff is separated from the wheat. But these men, since they both bring forward this council as if in their favour and contend that the good perish by communion with the wicked as by contagion, cannot find how to say either that the earlier Christians from whom they are propagated were not traitors, since they are convicted by this council, or that the crimes of predecessors do not concern them, since they throw our forefathers at us.

Likewise another Lucius, of Membressa, said: “It is written: ‘God does not hear a sinner.’ How can one who is a sinner be heard in baptism?”

We answer: How is the greedy man heard, and the robber, the usurer, and the murderer? Or are these not sinners? Yet Cyprian rebukes and tolerates them in the Catholic Church.

Likewise another 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.”

To him the answer is: you do not show the truth; you admit the custom. So we would rightly hold the custom, confirmed by a later plenary council, even if the truth were still hidden, which we believe has now been made manifest.

Another Saturninus, of Avitinae, said: “If antichrist can give anyone the grace of Christ, then heretics, who have been called antichrists, can also baptize.”

What if another said: “If a murderer can give anyone the grace of Christ, then those who hate their brothers, who have been called murderers, can also baptize”? He would seem to speak the truth, and yet they can; so too then heretics.

Quintus of Aggya said: “He who has something can give something. But what can heretics give, who, it is agreed, have nothing?”

To him the answer is: if he who has something can give something, it is plain that heretics can give baptism, since when they withdraw from the church they have the sacrament of the washing which they had received there. For on returning they do not receive it again, because they had not lost it when they withdrew.

Another Julian, of Marcelliana, said: “If a man can serve two masters, God and mammon, then baptism too can serve two, the Christian and the heretic.”

Rather, if it can serve the continent and the greedy, the sober and the drunkard, the devout and the murderer, why not the Christian and the heretic too? It does not indeed serve them, but is ministered to them or by them, for salvation to those who use it well and for judgment to those who use it badly.

Tenax of Horrea Caeliae said: “Baptism is one, but it is the church’s. Where the church is not, baptism cannot be there.”

To him we answer: why then can it be where there is not rock but sand, since the church is on rock, not on sand?

Another Victor, of Assuras, said: “It is written that God is one, and Christ is one, and the church is one, and baptism is one. How can anyone be baptized there, where there is neither God nor Christ nor church?”

How then can it be on that sand where neither the church is, since it is on the rock, nor God and Christ, since the temple of God and of Christ is not there?

Donatulus of Capsa said: “I too have always held this, that heretics, who have obtained nothing outside, should be baptized when they are converted to the church.”

To this the answer is: they have obtained nothing outside, indeed, but for salvation, not for the sacrament. For salvation is proper to the good, but the sacraments are common to good and bad.

Verulus of Rusicade said: “A heretic cannot give what he does not have; much more has a schismatic lost what he had.”

We have already shown that they have it, since they do not lose it when they withdraw; for they do not receive it again when they return. So if they seemed unable to give it because they were thought not to have it, let it now be understood that they can give it, because they are understood to have it.

Pudentianus of Cuicul said: “The newness of my episcopate, dearest brothers, made me wait to hear what my elders would judge. For it is plain that heresies neither have nor can do anything. And so, if any come from them, it has been most justly decreed that they be baptized.”

As, then, the answer has been given to those earlier ones whose judgment he was waiting for, so let the answer be understood to have been given to him too.

Peter of Hippo Diarrhytus said: “Since there is one baptism in the catholic church, it is plain that one cannot be baptized outside the church. And therefore I judge that those who have been dipped in heresy or in schism must be baptized when they come to the church.”

Baptism is one in the Catholic Church in such a way that, when some go out from it, it does not become two in those who go out, but the same one remains. So what is recognized in those who return should also be recognized in those who received from those who withdrew what they did not lose when they withdrew.

Likewise another Lucius, of Ausafa, said: “According to the prompting of my mind and of the Holy Spirit, since there is one God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and one Christ, and one hope, one Spirit, one church, baptism too ought to be one. And therefore I say that whatever has been set in motion or done among heretics ought to be annulled, and that those who come from there are to be baptized in the church.”

Let the baptism given by those who hear God’s words and do not do them be annulled, then, when they begin to move from iniquity to righteousness, that is, from the sand to the rock. But if this is not done, because in them too what was Christ’s was not violated by their iniquities, let this be understood of heretics too. For they do not have the same hope, as long as they are on the sand, as those on the rock; yet the same baptism is in both, though it is said that, as there is one hope, so there is one baptism.

Felix of Gurgites said: “I judge that, according to the precepts of the holy Scriptures, those baptized unlawfully by heretics outside the church should, if they wish to take refuge in the church, obtain the grace of baptism where it is lawfully given.”

The answer is: rather let them begin to have lawfully, for salvation, what they had unlawfully, for ruin; since under the same baptism a man is justified, when he turns to God with a truthful heart, under which he was judged when, on receiving it, he had renounced the world in words only and not in deeds.

Pusillus of Lamasba said: “I believe that saving baptism exists only in the catholic church. Whatever is apart from the catholic church is a pretence.”

It is indeed true that saving baptism exists only in the Catholic Church. For baptism itself can exist outside the Catholic Church too, but it is not saving there, because it does not work salvation there; just as that good fragrance of Christ is certainly not saving in those who perish, through their fault, not its own. And whatever is outside the Catholic Church is a pretence, but in so far as it is not catholic. But something catholic can exist outside the Catholic Church, just as the name of Christ could exist outside the congregation of Christ, the name in which that man drove out demons who did not follow with the disciples. For pretence can exist even in the Catholic Church, namely in those who renounce the world in words and not in deeds; and yet the Catholic Church is not a pretence. So, just as there is in the Catholic Church what is not catholic, so something catholic can exist outside the Catholic Church.

Salvianus of Gazaufala said: “It is agreed that heretics have nothing, and therefore they come to us so that they may receive what they did not have.”

We answer: then those who founded heresies are not heretics, since they withdrew from the church and certainly had what they received there. But if it is absurd to say that those are not heretics through whom others become heretics, it can happen that a heretic has something by misusing which he perishes.

Honoratus of Thucca said: “Since Christ is the truth, we ought to follow truth rather than custom, so that we may sanctify with the church’s baptism the heretics who come to us precisely because they could receive nothing outside.”

He too is a witness to the custom, in which he helps us greatly, whatever else he seems to say against us. But heretics do not come to us because they received nothing outside, but so that what they received may begin to be useful to them; for outside this can in no way happen.

Victor of Octavu said: “As you yourselves know, I was appointed bishop not long ago, and therefore I was waiting for the counsel of my predecessors. So this is what I think: that whoever come from heresy should without doubt be baptized.”

Let what was answered to those he was waiting for be taken as answered to him too.

Clarus of Mascula said: “The judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ is plain, when he sent his apostles and granted to them alone the power given to him by the Father; we have succeeded them, governing the Lord’s church with the same power and baptizing the faith of believers. And therefore heretics, who have outside neither the power nor the church of Christ, can baptize no one with his baptism.”

Have impious murderers too succeeded the apostles? Why then do they baptize? Is it because they are not outside? But they are outside the rock, to which the Lord gave the keys and on which he said he would build his church.

Secundianus of Thambeae said: “We ought not to deceive heretics by our presumption, lest, not having been baptized in the church of our Lord Jesus Christ and so not having obtained remission of sins, they should blame us when the day of judgment comes, because through us they were not baptized and did not obtain the indulgence of divine grace. For this reason, since there is one church and one baptism, when they are converted to us, let them obtain together with the church the church’s baptism as well.”

Rather, transferred to the rock and joined to the dove, let them receive the remission of sins which they could not have outside the rock and outside the dove, whether openly outside like heretics or as if within like lost Catholics. Yet it is plain that these have and give baptism without remission of sins, since such people also receive from them, people who, unchanged for the better, honour God with their lips while their heart is far from him. Yet baptism is one in the same way that the dove is one, since those who are not in the dove can nevertheless have baptism in common.

Likewise another Aurelius, of Chullabi, said: “The apostle John wrote in his letter: ‘If anyone comes to you and does not have the teaching of Christ, do not admit him into your house and do not say “Greetings” to him. For he who says “Greetings” to him shares in his evil deeds.’ How can such people be rashly admitted into the house of God who are forbidden to be admitted into our private house? Or how can we hold communion with them without the church’s baptism, when if we merely say ‘Greetings’ to them we share in their evil deeds?”

There is no need to discuss this testimony of John at length, since it has nothing at all to do with the question of baptism that we are now treating. For he says, “If anyone comes to you and does not have the teaching of Christ.” But heretics, leaving the teaching of their error, are turned to the teaching of Christ, so as to be incorporated into the church and begin to belong to that dove whose sacrament they had. And so what of hers they did not have is given them, namely peace and love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned; but what of hers they had is recognized and received without any insult, as God recognizes his gifts in the adulteress even when she follows her lovers; for when her fornication is corrected and she turns to chastity, it is not those gifts that are blamed, but she herself who is amended. And as Cyprian could defend himself, if this testimony of John were thrown at him, when he held communion with such men, so let those defend themselves against whom it is said. For, as I said, it has nothing at all to do with this question. For John says that “Greetings” is not to be said to men of a strange teaching; but the apostle Paul says more forcefully, “If anyone who is called a brother among you is greedy or a drunkard,” and so on, “with such a one not even to eat.” And yet Cyprian shared not a private table but God’s altar with colleagues who were usurers, treacherous, defrauders, and robbers. How this is defended has already been said enough in other books.

Litteus of Gemellae said: “If a blind man leads a blind man, both fall into the pit. Since, then, it is agreed that heretics, being blind, cannot enlighten anyone, their baptism is not valid.”

Nor do we say that it avails for salvation as long as they are heretics, just as it does not for those murderers as long as they hate their brothers. For they too are in darkness, and if anyone follows them, they fall together into the pit; and yet they do not therefore either not have or not hand on baptism.

Natalis of Oea said: “I, who am present, and Pompeius of Sabratha, and also Dioga of Leptis Magna, who commissioned me, being absent in body but present in spirit, judge as our colleagues also do, that heretics cannot have communion with us unless they have been baptized with the church’s baptism.”

I believe he means the communion that belongs to the fellowship of the dove. For in sharing the sacraments they certainly held communion with them, judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thought differently. But however he meant it, these words need not be much refuted. For certainly let a heretic not hold communion unless baptized with the church’s baptism. But it is agreed that the baptism consecrated with the words of the gospel is the church’s even among heretics, just as the gospel itself is the church’s and does not belong to their perversity, but certainly keeps its own holiness.

Junius of Neapolis said: “I do not depart from what we once judged, that we baptize heretics who come to the church.”

Since he brought no reason or testimony of the Scriptures, he need not detain us long.

Cyprian of Carthage said: “My opinion is most fully set out in the letter written to Jubaianus our colleague: that heretics, who by the testimony of the Gospel and the apostles are called adversaries of Christ and antichrists, are to be baptized with the one baptism of the church when they come to the church, so that from adversaries they may become friends, and from antichrists Christians.”

What else is there to discuss here, when we have treated with all the care we could the very letter to Jubaianus which he mentioned? And let us remember that what he said here can be said of all the wicked, whom he himself testifies are in the Catholic Church too, and none of us doubts that they have and give baptism. For those come to the church who pass from the devil’s side to Christ, build on the rock, are incorporated into the dove, and are fortified in the garden enclosed and the fountain sealed, where not all are who live against Christ’s precepts, wherever they may seem to be. For in the letter he wrote to Magnus, dealing with this very matter, he reminded us clearly and openly in what fellowship the church is to be understood. For speaking of a certain man he says: “he becomes a stranger and profane, an enemy of the Lord’s peace and of the Lord’s unity, not dwelling in the house of God, that is, in the church of Christ, in which none dwell but those of one heart and one mind.” What, then, are we to say here? Let those who wish to prescribe to us from Cyprian pay a little attention. For if none dwell in the church of Christ but those of one heart and one mind, then without doubt those did not dwell in the church of Christ, though they seemed to be within, who proclaimed Christ through envy and strife, without love, whom he himself understands not as heretics or schismatics mentioned by the apostle Paul, but as false brothers living with him within. These certainly ought not to have baptized, since they did not dwell in the church, in which, he himself says, none dwell but those of one mind and one heart; unless perhaps someone is so far from the truth as to say that the envious and malicious and contentious without love were of one heart and one mind. And yet they baptized, and their detestable perversity did not in any respect diminish or violate the sacrament of Christ which was handled and dispensed through them.

It is well worth treating the whole passage in that same letter to Magnus, which he composed thus: “not dwelling,” he says, “in the house of God, that is, in the church of Christ, in which none dwell but those of one heart and one mind, as the Holy Spirit speaks in the Psalms and says: ‘God, who makes those of one mind to dwell in a house.’ Indeed, the Lord’s sacrifices themselves declare Christian unanimity, bound to itself by firm and inseparable love. For when the Lord calls his body bread, gathered together from the union of many grains, he indicates our people, whom he bore, as united; and when he calls his blood wine, pressed from many clusters and grapes and brought together into one, he likewise signifies our flock joined by the mingling of a multitude made one.” These words of blessed Cyprian show that he both understood and loved the beauty of God’s house, which house he affirmed and taught, by the testimony of prophecy and the signification of the sacraments, to consist of those of one mind and one heart; in which those envious men, malicious and without love, certainly were not, who nevertheless baptized. From which it appears that Christ’s sacrament can both be in, and be given by, those who are not in the church of Christ, in which, Cyprian himself testifies, none dwell but those of one mind and one heart. Nor can it even be said that they can baptize then only while they are hidden, since they were not hidden from the apostle Paul, whom that most truthful witness marks in his letter, and says he rejoices because they too proclaimed Christ. For of them he says: “Whether in pretence or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice.”

Having considered all these things, I think I say not rashly that some are in the house of God in such a way that they themselves are also that same house of God which is said to be built on the rock, which is called the only dove, which is the beautiful bride without spot or wrinkle, and the garden enclosed, the fountain sealed, the well of living water, the paradise with fruit of apples; which house has also received the keys and the power of loosing and binding. If anyone despises this house when it rebukes and corrects him, “let him be to you,” he says, “as a heathen and a tax collector.” Of this house it is said, “Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house and the place where your glory dwells,” and, “who makes those of one mind dwell in a house,” and, “I rejoiced at those who said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord,” and, “Blessed are those who dwell in your house; for ever and ever they will praise you,” and countless such things. This house is also called the wheat bearing fruit thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold with patience. This house is in the vessels of gold and silver, in precious stones and incorruptible wood. To this house it is said, “bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” and, “For the temple of God is holy, which you are.” For it is in the good faithful and the holy servants of God, scattered everywhere and bound together by spiritual unity in the same communion of the sacraments, whether they know one another by face or not. But others, I say, are in the house in such a way that they do not belong to the structure of the house nor to the fellowship of fruitful and peaceable righteousness, but as chaff is said to be among the grain. For we cannot deny that these too are in the house, since the apostle says, “But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold or silver, but also of wood and of earthenware, and some for honour, some for dishonour.” From this countless number, not only does a crowd arise within, pressing on the heart of the few, few in comparison with so great a multitude, who are holy, but also, the nets being broken, heresies and schisms arise in those who are now to be called rather from the house than in the house, of whom it is said, “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” For they are more separated, being separated even bodily, than those who live carnally and naturally within and are separated spiritually.

Of all these kinds, no one doubts that those first ones, who are in the house of God in such a way that they themselves are the house of God, whether already spiritual or still little ones nourished with milk but advancing with earnest heart toward the spiritual state, both have baptism profitably and hand it on profitably to those who imitate them. As for the deceitful, whom the Holy Spirit flees, though the givers, as far as lies in them, hand it on profitably, they receive it unprofitably, not imitating those through whom they receive it. But those who are in the great house as vessels for dishonour both have baptism unprofitably and hand it on unprofitably to those who imitate them. Those, however, receive from them profitably who are joined not to them in heart and morals but to the holy house. And those more separated, who are not so much in the house as from the house, neither have it at all profitably, nor is it received from them profitably, unless perhaps the necessity of receiving presses and the mind of the receiver does not withdraw from the bond of unity; yet they both have it, though they have it unprofitably, and it is received from them, even when it is unprofitable to those who receive it. For it to become profitable, one must withdraw from heresy or schism and cleave to that house. This not only heretics and schismatics must do, but also those who are in the house through communion of the sacraments in such a way that they are outside the house through difference of morals. For so the sacrament begins to be profitable to them too, which otherwise is unprofitable.

It is also commonly asked whether what is received from one who has not received it is to be approved, if perhaps he learned by some curiosity how it is to be given; and whether it makes no difference in what spirit the one to whom it is given receives it, with pretence or without pretence; if with pretence, whether deceiving, as in the church or in what is thought to be the church, or joking, as in a mime; and which is more wicked, to receive deceitfully in the church, or in heresy or schism without deceit, that is, with an unfeigned mind; and whether deceitfully in heresy, or in a mime with faith, if someone in the course of the performance is moved by sudden piety. Though if we compare such a man even with one who receives deceitfully in the Catholic Church itself, it is strange if there is doubt which is to be preferred to which. For what good the truthful mind of the giver does to one who receives deceitfully I do not see. But let us suppose someone giving deceitfully too: when both giver and receiver act deceitfully in Catholic unity itself, is this baptism rather to be accepted, or that given in a mime, if there is someone who receives it in faith, suddenly moved? Or, as far as the men themselves are concerned, is there a very great difference between one believing in a mime and one mocking in the church, but as to the integrity of the sacrament itself, no difference? For if it makes no difference to the integrity of the sacrament in the Catholic Church itself whether some do it deceitfully or truthfully, since both do the same thing, I do not see why it makes a difference outside, when the one receiving is not cloaked in pretence but changed by religion. Or do the other truthful people among whom it is done avail more to confirm the sacrament than the deceitful by whom and in whom it is done avail to make it void? And yet, if it is afterward discovered, no one repeats it, but the pretence is either punished by excommunication or healed by penance.

But it is safe for us not to go forward with any rashness of judgment on things which have not been begun in any regional Catholic council nor settled in any plenary one, but to assert with the confidence of a secure voice what has been strengthened by the consent of the universal church under the government of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Yet if someone pressed me, placed perhaps in a council where the question of such things was being discussed, with no such men speaking before me whose opinions I would prefer to follow, to say what I myself thought, then, if I were disposed as I was when I dictated these things, I would in no way hesitate to say that those have baptism who, anywhere and from anyone, have received it consecrated with the words of the gospel, without pretence on their part and with some faith; though it would not profit them for spiritual salvation if they lacked the love by which they would be grafted into the Catholic Church; for “if I have faith,” he says, “so that I move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Just as, by the past decrees of our forefathers, I do not doubt that those too have baptism who, though they receive it deceitfully, still receive it in the church, or where the church is thought to be by those in whose fellowship it is received, of whom it was said, “They went out from us.” But where there was neither any fellowship of believers of this kind nor did the one who received it there so believe, but everything was done in play, as a mime and a joke, whether the baptism so given should be approved, I would judge that the divine judgment should be implored through the oracle of some revelation, by harmonious prayer and earnest groans of suppliant devotion; and I would humbly wait for those who would give their opinions after me, lest they bring something already examined and known. How much more, then, must I now be taken to have said this without prejudice to a more careful inquiry or to greater authority!

But now, as I think, it is time to bring these books on the question of baptism to their due end. In them the Lord our God has shown us, through the peaceable bishop Cyprian and those who agreed with him, how much Catholic unity is to be loved, so that in what they thought otherwise, until God should reveal that too, they preferred to tolerate those who thought differently rather than separate themselves from them by an abominable schism. In them the mouths of the Donatists are altogether shut, even if we say nothing of the Maximianists. For if the wicked defile the good in unity, then not even Cyprian himself found any church to join. But if the wicked do not stain the good in unity, the sacrilegious Donatist puts forward no cause for separation. And if so many others who do the works of the flesh, those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God, have and hand on baptism, then heretics too, who are counted among those works, have it and hand it on; because they did not lose it by withdrawing, they could also hand it on while remaining so; but such men hand it on to such men as fruitlessly and unprofitably as those others, their equals in that they will not possess the kingdom of God. And just as, when those are corrected, baptism does not begin to be present where it was lacking, but to profit where it was present, so too with heretics. Hence Cyprian and those who thought with him could not prescribe to the Catholic Church, which they would not cut off. That they thought otherwise does not frighten us, since with them we venerate Peter too; that they did not withdraw from unity gladdens us, since with them we are built on the rock.