Letters 265.1–270.1

Having read your letter and rejoiced at your welfare, I did not delay to answer what you wrote. And first I wondered how this Novatian can say that Peter was not baptized, when a little earlier you wrote that he said the apostles were baptized. Why he thinks that Peter was not baptized among the baptized apostles I do not know; and so I have sent you a copy of your letter, in case you do not have one, in which you may consider more carefully that I am answering what I found in your letter. For if the stenographer did not take it down or write it wrongly, I do not know what kind of heart a man has who says the apostles were baptized and denies that Peter was baptized.

As for the statement that Peter did penance, we must take care that he is not thought to have done it in the way those do it in the Church who are properly called penitents. And who could bear that we should think the first of the apostles should be numbered among such penitents? For he repented of having denied Christ, as his tears show; for it is written that he wept bitterly. For they had not yet been strengthened by the Lord's resurrection and by that coming of the Holy Spirit who appeared on the day of Pentecost, or by that inbreathing which the Lord showed after he rose from the dead, when he breathed on their faces, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Hence it can rightly be said that when Peter denied the Lord the apostles had not yet been baptized, not, however, with water, but with the Holy Spirit. For he said this to them after he rose and lived with them: “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom you are also going to receive not many days from now, at Pentecost.” Some manuscripts have, “but you will begin to be baptized with the Holy Spirit”; but whether “you will be baptized” or “you will begin to be baptized” is said makes no difference to the matter. For any manuscripts in which “you will baptize” or “you will begin to baptize” is found are faulty, and are very easily refuted from the Greek. But if we say they were not baptized with water, we must fear lest we err gravely about them and give men authority to despise baptism, which apostolic discipline itself commends as so far from being despised that the centurion Cornelius and those who were with him were baptized even after they had already received the Holy Spirit.

Just as for the righteous of old it was no sin if they were not circumcised, but after God commanded that Abraham and his descendants be circumcised, it was a grave sin if it was not done, so also, after the Lord Christ gave holy baptism in his Church as the sacrament of the New Testament in place of circumcision of the flesh, and said most plainly, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven,” we need no longer ask when each one was baptized; but whoever we read belong to the kingdom of heaven in the body of Christ, which is the Church, we must understand only as baptized; except perhaps those whom the strait of martyrdom overtook and who, refusing to deny Christ, were killed before they were baptized, for whom that suffering itself is counted as baptism. But can we say this of the apostles, who had so much time to be baptized that they even baptized others? Not everything that was done is found written; yet it is proved to have been done from other evidence. It is written when the apostle Paul was baptized, and it is not written when the other apostles were baptized; yet we must understand that they too were baptized, just as it is written when the peoples of the churches in Jerusalem and Samaria were baptized, but it is certainly not written when the other peoples of the Gentiles, to whom the apostles sent letters, were baptized, and yet we have not the least doubt that they too were baptized, because of that saying of the Lord: “Unless one is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Both things are written of the Lord: that he baptized more than John, and that he himself did not baptize but his disciples; so that we might understand that he baptized by the presence of his majesty, yet did not baptize with his own hands. For the sacrament of baptism was his, but the ministry of baptizing belonged to the disciples. So when John the evangelist says in his Gospel, “After this Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea, and there he stayed with them and baptized,” and a little later, speaking of him, says, “When Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples, he left the land of Judea and went again into Galilee,” then, when he went out from Jerusalem with his disciples into the land of Judea and stayed there with them, he baptized not by himself but through his disciples, whom we understand to have already been baptized, whether with John's baptism, as some think, or, which is more credible, with Christ's baptism. For he who did not shrink from the ministry of that memorable humility, when he washed their feet, would not have shrunk from the ministry of baptizing, so as to have baptized servants through whom he might baptize the rest. And when Peter asked him to wash not only his feet but also his hands and head, he answered: “He who has been washed needs only to wash his feet, but is wholly clean.” Here it is understood that Peter had already been baptized.

But how this man means what you put in your letter, that the apostles gave penance in place of baptism, is not clearly expressed. For if he says “in place of baptism” because sins are forgiven through penance, what he says has some reason in it. But such penance can be useful after baptism, if someone has sinned. Yet since he denies that a place for penance is given after baptism, when he says, as you wrote, that there is penance only before baptism, it is given to be understood that he said the apostles gave penance in place of baptism in this sense: that they gave it before baptism, and those to whom it was given were not afterwards baptized, because for them it took the place of baptism. I have never heard the Novatianists say this. So inquire carefully whether perhaps he belongs to some other error and pretends or thinks himself to be a Novatianist. Or, if the Novatianists say this too, I do not know; but this I do know, that whoever says it is utterly estranged from the rule of the Catholic faith and the teaching of Christ and the apostles.

For people do penance before baptism for their former sins, yet in such a way that they are also baptized, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter speaks to the Jews and says: “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins will be forgiven you.” People also do penance if after baptism they have sinned so as to deserve to be excommunicated and afterwards reconciled, as those do in all the churches who are properly called penitents. Of such penance the apostle Paul spoke, where he says: “Lest, when I come again, God humble me before you, and I mourn many of those who sinned before and did not repent of the uncleanness and licentiousness and sexual immorality they committed”; for he wrote this only to those who had already been baptized. We also have in the Acts of the Apostles Simon, already baptized, admonished by Peter, when he wished to buy with money that the Holy Spirit be given by the laying on of his hand, to repent of this grave sin.

There is also the almost daily penance of good and humble believers, in which we beat our breasts, saying, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” For we do not want those sins forgiven us which we do not doubt were forgiven in baptism, but surely those which creep in on human frailty, small but frequent, which, if gathered together against us, will weigh us down and crush us like some one great sin. For what difference does it make for shipwreck whether a ship is covered and overwhelmed by one great wave, or whether water creeping little by little into the hold and left and disregarded through negligence fills the ship and sinks it? For this reason fasts and alms and prayers keep watch, in which, when we say, “Forgive us, as we also forgive,” we show that we have something to be forgiven, and, humbling our souls in these words, we do not cease to do a kind of daily penance. I think I have answered what you wrote briefly but sufficiently; it remains that he not be contentious, for whose winning you thought such a letter should be obtained from me.

Your holy purpose and the chaste fear of the Lord, rooted in your heart and enduring forever and ever, stir up in no small way our care for you, not only in prayers to God but also in admonitions to you yourself. This I have done more than once in my letters to your mother, whom I must name with due honor. But since she deigned to write back to me that you wished first to receive a letter from me, and that then, if you needed anything from my ministry, which I know I owe as far as I can, in free service, to your venerable zeal and that of all such persons, you would not keep silent but would let me know by writing back, see, I have done what I learned you wished, though not from you, so as not to seem to shut the door of confidence on you unkindly. It remains that you yourself bring forward anything you think should be asked of me. For either I know what you will ask and will not refuse it; or I do not know it in such a way that I can be ignorant without any harm to faith and salvation, and about this too I will, if I can, make you secure by giving a reason; or certainly, if I do not know and yet it must be known, I will either obtain it from the Lord so as not to fail you (for often the duty of imparting is the merit of receiving), or I will so answer you that you may know at whose door we must knock for this very thing which we both alike do not know.

I have said this beforehand so that you may not hope for certain to hear whatever you ask of me, and, when that does not happen, think that I acted boldly rather than prudently in giving you the opportunity to ask anything you wish. For I have done this not as a perfect teacher but as one to be perfected together with those to be taught, my excellent lady, justly honorable daughter in Christ, to be welcomed. Indeed, even in the things I know in some fashion, I would rather you knew them than needed our knowledge. For we ought not to wish for others' ignorance in order to teach what we know; for it is much better that we all be taught by God, which will surely be perfected in that heavenly fatherland when what is promised is fulfilled in us, that a man shall not say to his neighbor, “Know the Lord,” for all shall know him, as it is written, from the least to the greatest of them. And in teaching we must most carefully guard against the vice of pride, which is not so in learning. Hence holy Scripture admonishes us, saying, “Let every man be quick to hear but slow to speak”; and he says in the psalm, “To my hearing you will give exultation and gladness,” and at once adds, “and the humbled bones will exult.” For he saw that humility is very easily kept in hearing, which is difficult in teaching, since the teacher must have the higher place, where it is laborious to prevent pride from creeping in.

Do you see in what danger we are, from whom it is expected that we not only be teachers but, though we are men, teach divine things? But the special consolation of our labors and dangers is when you so advance that you reach the point where you need no human teacher. Not only we (for what are we compared with him of whom I am about to speak?), not only we, then, but even that teacher of the Gentiles testifies that he was in this danger, when he says: “Lest I be lifted up by the greatness of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given me,” and the rest. Hence the Lord himself, the wonderful physician of this swelling, says: “Do not be called Rabbi by men; for you have one teacher, Christ.” Holding to this, the same teacher of the Gentiles says: “Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth.” He too remembered this who, among those born of women, humbled himself in all things the more the greater he was, declaring himself unworthy to carry Christ's sandals. For what else did he show when he said: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him and rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice”? This is that hearing which I mentioned a little before, set in the psalm: “To my hearing you will give exultation and gladness, and the humbled bones will exult.”

Know, then, that I rejoice in your faith and hope and love the more surely, solidly and soundly, the less you need to learn anything not only from me but from any human being at all. Yet, since when I was there, while you were held back by the modesty of your age, your good parents, who greatly love your good pursuits, deigned to tell me with what ardor of piety and true wisdom you were burning, and most kindly asked me not to deny you my small help in instructing you wherever it was needed, I thought I should admonish you by this letter, according to the options mentioned above, to ask what you wish, so that I may not be superfluous by trying to teach what you know; provided that you hold most firmly that, even if you are able to learn something wholesome through me, he will teach you who is the inner teacher of the inner man, who shows you in your heart that what is said is true, that neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth.

Although you have returned a reply, I have read Your Holiness's letter in such a way that I thought I owed it an answer. For you lamented the pilgrimage in which it falls to us not to rejoice perpetually with the saints, and you rightly preferred the longing for the heavenly fatherland, where we will no longer be divided by distance of lands but will rejoice always in the contemplation of the One. You are happy in thinking such things faithfully, happier in loving them, and so you will be happiest in attaining them. But even now consider more carefully in what respect we are more truly said to be absent: whether because we do not see each other's bodies, or because we do not give and receive signs of our minds, which is to converse. For I think that, even though separated in body in distant regions, if we could know each other's thoughts we would be more with each other than if we sat silent in one place looking at each other, bringing forth no signs of our inner feeling in words, showing our minds by no movements of the body. So you understand that each one is more present to himself than one is to another, because each is better known to himself than to another, not by looking at his own face, which, unless there is a mirror, he carries about and it is hidden, but by beholding his conscience, which he sees even with eyes closed. How great, then, is even our life, which is thought so great!

The well-known and well-proven devotion of Your Holiness in our Lord Jesus Christ has given me confidence to presume, even when absent, on what I am accustomed to rejoice in when present. I am always with you in spirit, not only because the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ never ceases to breathe with such sweetness, but also because you do not allow me, who serve you in the gospel, to suffer distress. For when our brother Fascius was being pressed by the tax collectors for a debt of seventeen solidi, to pay what he could not at present find the means to settle, he fled to the help of the holy church so as not to suffer bodily injury. The collectors, since they were obliged to set out and so could not grant a delay, burdened me with the gravest complaints, demanding that I either hand him over to them or provide for them to receive what they showed was owed them. And when I offered Fascius to speak to Your Holiness about his needs, he begged me, deterred by shame, not to do so. So, pressed by a greater necessity, I received seventeen solidi from our brother Macedonius, which I paid at once in his case, Fascius promising that by a fixed day he could come with the money to repay it, and agreeing that, if he could not come, his case should be put to your mercy, which you are accustomed to show brotherly to the brothers.

Now, then, since he is absent, it remains for you to come to the aid, not of him, whom no one presses in his absence, but of my promise, whose reputation is always present to you. For the day by which he had promised to come has now passed, and I do not know what to answer the man who entrusted his solidi to my good faith, except to do what I promised I would do. But since I was not reminded of this matter so as to speak about it on the day of Pentecost, when more of you were present, I ask you to deign to take this letter in place of my tongue present among you, God our Lord, in whom you have believed, admonishing and exhorting you in your hearts; he never departs from us who fear and honor his name, and in him we are always joined to you, though we seem to have gone away from you in body; he promises you a harvest of eternal life from this seed of good works, as the apostle says: “Let us not grow weary in doing good; for in due season we shall reap, unwearied. So then, while we have time, let us do good to all, but especially to those of the household of faith.” Since, then, he for whose need I ask you is of the household of faith, a Christian believer, our Catholic brother, do what the Lord commands; do it without sadness, without murmuring, and with joy and cheerfulness; for you entrust it to God, not to man, since he promises that you will lose nothing of what you do mercifully, but will receive it on that day with immortal interest. And since the apostle himself says, “But this I say: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,” you must understand that it is the time for us to acquire the gift of eternal life quickly and eagerly while we are still in this life; because, when the end of the world comes, it will be given only to those who bought it for themselves by faith before they could see it.

I have also written to the presbyters that, if anything is lacking after Your Holiness's collection, they should make it up from what the church has, provided that you offer cheerfully as you please; for whether it is given from yours or from the church's, all things are God's, and your devotion will be sweeter than the church's treasures, as the apostle says: “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit.” Gladden my heart, then, for I long to rejoice in your fruits; for you are God's trees, which he deigns to water with constant showers even through our ministry. May the Lord protect you from all evil both here and in the world to come, my dearly beloved and most longed-for lords and brothers.

So great is the solemnity to which Your Fraternity's affection invites me that my will would drag my poor body to you, were not weakness holding it back. I could come if it were not winter; I could disregard winter if I were young; for either the warmth of youth would bear the rigor of the season, or the warmth of summer would temper the chill of age. As it is, I cannot endure so long a journey in winter with the cold burden of years that I carry with me, my most blessed lord, holy and venerable brother and fellow priest. I return the greeting due to your merits; and I commend my health to your prayers, asking the Lord myself that the prosperity of peace may attend the dedication of so great a building.

When I came earlier to the city of Leges, I was very saddened that I could not find all of you there. For I found half of you and, so to speak, a part of your soul, dearest Severus, in whom I partly rejoiced; for I would have rejoiced perfectly if I had found all of you. So for the part in which I had found you I was glad, and for your part, which I could by no means see, I was in every way saddened. Therefore I said to my soul: “Why are you sad, and why do you disquiet me? Hope in God,” and he will make present the friend you love. So I trust in the Lord and hope that he will make me rejoice in seeing you. O, if love could be seen with the eyes! Surely you would see how great our love for you is. For either, equaling your love, it would bring you great joy, or, if it were greater, it would bring you great zeal to imitate it. Therefore, since I love you in the Lord, love the one who loves you, and urge others by church authority to love with you. As for what you ask in your letter, that I pray for you, I would rightly do so if I myself were free from sins, so as to be permitted to pray for others. And so I admonish you to send up constant prayers of your heart for me to the Lord, and, mindful of your profession, to set before your eyes that day on which the righteous will not fear evil tidings; and the righteous will not fear because he will not hear, “Go into the eternal fire,” but, “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom”; to which may he lead us who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.