Letters 70.1–73.11

Cyprian, Liberalis, Caldonius, Junius, Primus, Caecilius, Polycarp, Nicomedes, Felix, Marrutius, Successus, Lucianus, Honoratus, Fortunatus, Victor, Donatus, Lucius, Herculanus, Pomponius, Demetrius, Quintus, Saturninus, Marcus, another Saturninus, another Donatus, Rogatianus, Sedatus, Tertullus, Hortensianus, and also another Saturninus and Sattius, to their brothers Januarius, Saturninus, Maximus, Victor, another Victor, Cassius, Proculus, Modianus, Cittinus, Gargilius, Eutychianus, another Gargilius, another Saturninus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, Antonianus, Rogatianus, and Honoratus, greeting. While we were together in council, dearest brothers, we read the letter you wrote about those who seem to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics, whether on coming to the catholic church, which is one, they ought to be baptized. On this matter, although you yourselves there hold the truth and firmness of the catholic rule, yet because out of our common love you have thought we should be consulted, we put forward no new opinion, but join with you in equal agreement in one long since established by our predecessors and observed by us: we judge, namely, and hold for certain that no one can be baptized outside, beyond the church, since there is one baptism appointed in the holy church, and it is written, the Lord saying: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water”; and again divine Scripture warns and says: “Keep yourself from strange water, and do not drink from a strange fountain.” The water must first be cleansed and sanctified by the priest, so that it may wash away by its baptism the sins of the one who is baptized, because the Lord says through Ezekiel: “And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols; and I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you.” But how can one cleanse and sanctify the water who is himself unclean and with whom the Holy Spirit is not? For the Lord says in Numbers: “And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean.” Or how can one who baptizes give another remission of sins who cannot himself put away his own sins outside the church?

But the very question asked in baptism is also a witness to the truth. For when we say, “Do you believe in eternal life and the remission of sins through the holy church?” we understand that remission of sins is given only in the church, and that among heretics, where there is no church, sins are not forgiven. So those who champion heretics must either change the question or vindicate the truth, unless they grant a church also to those whom they claim have baptism. The one who has been baptized must also be anointed, so that, having received the chrism, that is, the anointing, he may be God's anointed and have in himself the grace of Christ. Further, it is from the Eucharist that the baptized are anointed with the oil sanctified on the altar. But one who has had neither altar nor church could not sanctify the creature of oil. Hence there can be no spiritual anointing among heretics either, since it is established that among them oil cannot be sanctified nor the Eucharist celebrated at all. We ought to know and remember that it is written: “Let not the oil of a sinner anoint my head.” The Holy Spirit gave this warning beforehand in the Psalms, so that no one, straying off the track and wandering from the way of truth, should be anointed among heretics and the adversaries of Christ. And what prayer can a sacrilegious and sinful priest make for the one baptized, since it is written: “God does not hear a sinner; but whoever worships God and does his will, him he hears”? Who can give what he does not himself have? Or how can one who has himself lost the Holy Spirit perform spiritual acts? And therefore one who comes to the church untaught must be baptized and renewed, so that he may be sanctified within by the holy, because it is written: “Be holy, for I also am holy, says the Lord”; so that one who was led astray into error and dipped outside may, in the true baptism of the church, 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.

Besides, to approve the baptism of heretics and schismatics is to agree that they have baptized. For part of it cannot be void there and part prevail. If he could baptize, he could also give the Holy Spirit. But if he cannot give the Holy Spirit, because, placed outside, he is not with the Holy Spirit, neither can he baptize the one who comes, since there is one baptism and one Holy Spirit and one church, founded by Christ our Lord upon Peter as the origin and principle of unity. So it follows that, since everything among them is void and false, nothing of what they have done ought to be approved by us. For what can be valid and firm with the Lord that is done by those whom the Lord calls his enemies and adversaries, laying it down in his gospel: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters”? And the blessed apostle John too, keeping the Lord's commands and precepts, set down in his letter: “You have heard that antichrist is coming; but now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.” Hence we too ought to gather and consider whether those who are the Lord's adversaries and have been called antichrists can give the grace of Christ. Therefore we who are with the Lord and hold the Lord's unity and, by his condescension, administer his priesthood in the church, ought to repudiate and reject and hold as profane whatever his adversaries and antichrists do; and to those who, coming from error and perversity, acknowledge the true faith of the one church, we ought to give in every respect the sacraments of divine grace, the truth of unity and faith. We pray, dearest brothers, that you may always be well.

Cyprian to his brother Quintus, greeting. Lucianus, our fellow presbyter, has reported to me, dearest brother, that you wished us to let you know what we think about those who seem to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics. So that you may know what many fellow bishops, with the fellow presbyters who were present, recently resolved on this matter in council, I have sent you a copy of that letter. For I do not know by what presumption some of our colleagues are led to think that those who have been dipped among heretics ought not to be baptized when they come to us, because, they say, there is one baptism. That one baptism, of course, is in the catholic church, because the church is one and there can be no baptism apart from the church. For since there cannot be two baptisms, if heretics truly baptize, they themselves have baptism. And whoever grants them this patronage by his authority yields to them and agrees that the enemy and adversary of Christ should seem to have the power of washing, purifying, and sanctifying a person. But we say that those who come from there are not rebaptized among us but baptized. For they do not receive anything there, where there is nothing; but they come to us so that they may receive here, where there is all grace and truth, because grace and truth are one. Further, some of our colleagues prefer to give honor to heretics rather than agree with us; and while, by insisting on the one baptism, they refuse to baptize those who come, they thus either make two baptisms themselves, by saying there is baptism among heretics too, or, what is more serious, they strive to set the filthy and profane dipping of heretics before and above the true, only, and lawful baptism of the catholic church, not considering that it is written: “He who is baptized by a dead man, what does his washing profit him?” It is clear that those who are not in the church of Christ are counted among the dead, and that one who does not himself live cannot give life to another, since the church is one, which, having obtained the grace of eternal life, both lives forever and gives life to the people of God.

And they say that in this they follow ancient custom, since 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. We too observe this today: those who are known to have been baptized here and to have gone over from us to the heretics, if afterwards, having recognized their sin and put away their error, they return to the truth and to the mother, it is enough to lay a hand on them in penance, so that the shepherd may receive into his fold this sheep, driven off and straying, because it had already been a sheep. But if one who comes from the heretics was not previously baptized in the church but comes wholly a stranger and profane, he must be baptized so that he may become a sheep, because there is one water in the holy church that makes sheep. And therefore, since nothing can be common to falsehood and truth, darkness and light, death and immortality, antichrist and Christ, we ought in every respect to hold the unity of the catholic church and yield in nothing to the enemies of faith and truth.

One must not lay down the law from custom, but prevail by reason. 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. Paul too, looking to this and faithfully caring for concord and peace, set it down in his letter, saying: “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 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. For we are not defeated when better things are offered us, but instructed, above all in what concerns the unity of the church and the truth of our hope and faith: that we, priests of God and leaders of his church by his condescension, should know that remission of sins can be given only in the church, and that the adversaries of Christ can claim nothing for themselves concerning his grace.

This indeed 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. And so that you may know what kind of letter we wrote on this matter, we have sent a copy of it, out of our common love, for the information both of yourself and of our fellow bishops who are there. I pray, dearest brother, that you may always be well.

Cyprian and the others to their brother Stephen, greeting. To settle certain matters and refine them by the examination of common counsel, we found it necessary, dearest brother, to assemble and hold a council, with many priests coming together into one; in it many things were brought forward and carried through. But above all we had to write to you and confer with your gravity and wisdom about what especially concerns both priestly authority and the unity and at the same time the dignity of the catholic church, which comes from the ordering of divine appointment: namely, that those who have been dipped outside, beyond the church, and stained among heretics and schismatics with the blot of profane water, when they come to us and to the church, which is one, ought to be baptized, since it is too little to lay a hand on them to receive the Holy Spirit unless they also receive the church's baptism. For only then can they be fully sanctified and be sons of God, if they are born of both sacraments, since it is written: “Unless one has been born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” For we find in the Acts of the Apostles that this was kept by the apostles and preserved in the truth of saving faith: when in the house of Cornelius the centurion the Holy Spirit had come down on the gentiles who were there, fervent with the warmth of faith and believing in the Lord with their whole heart, and, filled with him, they were blessing God in various tongues, nevertheless the blessed apostle Peter, mindful of the divine command and of the gospel, ordered that those same people, who had already been filled with the Holy Spirit, be baptized, so that nothing might seem omitted by which the apostolic teaching should fail to keep in every respect the law of the divine command and of the gospel. That what heretics use is not baptism, and that nothing among those who oppose Christ can profit by the grace of Christ, was recently set out carefully in the letter written on this matter to Quintus, our colleague in Mauretania, and also in the letter our colleagues wrote earlier to the fellow bishops presiding in Numidia; I have attached copies of both letters.

We plainly add and join to this, dearest brother, by common consent and authority, that if any presbyters or deacons were either first ordained in the catholic church and afterwards stood faithless and rebellious against the church, or were promoted among heretics by a profane ordination from false bishops and antichrists against the arrangement of Christ, and attempted to offer false and sacrilegious sacrifices outside against the one divine altar, these too are to be received on this condition when they return: that they communicate as laymen, and consider it enough that they are admitted to peace who were enemies of peace; and that on returning they ought not to keep among us the same weapons of ordination and honor with which they rebelled against us. For the priests and ministers who serve the altar and the sacrifices must be whole and spotless, since the Lord God speaks in Leviticus and says: “A man in whom there is a blemish and a defect shall not come near to offer gifts to God”; and he commands the same in Exodus and says: “And let the priests who come near to the Lord God be sanctified, lest perhaps the Lord forsake them”; and again: “And when they come near to minister at the altar of the holy place, they shall not bring guilt on themselves, lest they die.” But what greater guilt can there be, or what uglier blemish, than to have stood against Christ, to have scattered his church, which he prepared and founded with his blood, to have fought, forgetful of the gospel's peace and love, with the fury of hostile discord against the people of God, which is of one heart and one mind? Even if they themselves later return to the church, they cannot restore and call back with them those who, led astray by them and overtaken by death outside, perished outside the church without communion and peace, whose souls will be required on the day of judgment at the hands of those who were the authors and leaders of their ruin. And therefore it is enough that pardon be given to such people on their return; but faithlessness ought not to be promoted in the house of faith. For what do we keep for the good and innocent who do not withdraw from the church, if we honor those who withdrew from us and stood against the church?

We have brought these things to your attention, dearest brother, both for our common honor and out of simple love, believing that what is both devout and true will please you too, because of the truth of your religion and faith. For the rest, we know that some are unwilling to lay aside what they have once imbibed and do not easily change their position, but, while keeping the bond of peace and concord among colleagues, retain certain practices of their own that they have once adopted. In this matter we neither do violence to anyone nor lay down a law, since each leader has in the administration of the church the free choice of his own will, and will give account of his action to the Lord. We pray, dearest brother, that you may always be well.

Cyprian to his brother Jubaianus, greeting. You have written to me, dearest brother, wishing to be told my mind, what we think about the baptism of heretics, who, placed outside and set beyond the church, claim for themselves a thing that is neither within their right nor within their power. We cannot count it either valid or lawful, since it is established that among them it is unlawful. And since we have already expressed in our letters what we think on this matter, to be brief I have sent you a copy of those letters: what we decreed in council when a good many of us were present, and also what I afterwards wrote back to our colleague Quintus when he asked about the same matter. And now too, when we had come together, bishops both of the province of Africa and of Numidia, seventy-one in number, we confirmed this same thing again by our judgment, deciding that there is one baptism, that which is appointed in the catholic church, and that therefore whoever come from adulterous and profane water, to be washed and sanctified by the truth of the saving water, are not rebaptized by us but baptized.

Nor are we moved, dearest brother, by what you included in your letter, that the Novatianists rebaptize those whom they lure away from us, since what the enemies of the church do is no concern of ours at all, so long as we ourselves hold the honor of our power and the firmness of reason and truth. For Novatian, like the apes, which though they are not human imitate human things, wants to claim for himself the authority and truth of the catholic church, though he is not himself in the church, and indeed has further stood as a rebel and enemy against the church. For knowing that baptism is one, he claims this one baptism for himself, so as to say that the church is with him and to make us heretics. But we who hold the head and root of the one church know for certain and trust that nothing is lawful for him outside the church, and that the baptism which is one is with us, where he too was previously baptized, when he held both the principle and the truth of divine unity. But if Novatian thinks that those baptized in the church must be rebaptized outside, beyond the church, he ought to have begun with himself, so that he might first be rebaptized with an outside and heretical baptism, since he holds that after the church, or rather against the church, people must be baptized outside. But what sort of reasoning is it that, because Novatian dares to do this, we should think it must not be done? What then? Because Novatian also usurps the honor of the priestly chair, must we therefore renounce our chair? And because Novatian strives, against what is right, to set up an altar and offer sacrifices, must we cease from altar and sacrifices, lest we seem to celebrate the same and like things as he? It is utterly empty and foolish that, because Novatian outside the church claims for himself an image of the truth, the church should abandon the truth.

With us, moreover, it is no new or sudden thing that we judge those who come from heretics to the church must be baptized, since it is now many years and a long time since very many bishops, coming together under Agrippinus, a man of good memory, decreed this; 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. For it is not hard for a teacher to instill what is true and lawful in one who, having condemned heretical perversity and discovered the truth of the church, comes for this purpose, to learn, and learns for this purpose, to live. Let us only not give heretics the dull complacency that comes from our patronage and consent, and they gladly and readily obey the truth.

Now since I found written in the letter of which you sent me a copy that one should not ask who baptized, since the one who was baptized could receive remission of sins according to what he believed, I did not think this passage should be passed over, especially since I noticed that the same letter also mentions Marcion, saying that even those who come from him need not be baptized, because they seem already to have been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. We ought therefore to consider the faith of those who believe outside, whether according to that same faith they can obtain any grace. For if we and the heretics have one faith, we can also have one grace. If the Patripassians, Anthropians, Valentinians, Apelleans, Ophites, Marcionites, and the other plagues and swords and poisons of the heretics for overturning the truth confess with us the same Father, the same Son, the same Holy Spirit, the same church, then there can be one baptism there too, if there is also one faith.

And not to take long running through all the heresies and reviewing the follies or madnesses of each, since it is no pleasure to speak of what one shudders or is ashamed to know, let us for the present examine Marcion alone, who is mentioned in the letter you sent us, whether the case for his baptism can stand. For the Lord after the resurrection, sending his disciples, instructs and teaches them how they ought to baptize, saying: “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, teach all nations, dipping them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He intimates the Trinity, in whose sacrament the nations were to be dipped. Does Marcion hold this Trinity? Does he affirm the same God the Father, the Creator, as we do? Does he know the same Son, Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, who as the Word was made flesh, who bore our sins, who conquered death by dying, who first began in himself the resurrection of the flesh and showed his disciples that he had risen in that same flesh? Far different is the faith with Marcion, and with the other heretics too. Indeed, with them there is nothing but faithlessness and blasphemy and contention hostile to soundness and truth. How then can one who is baptized among them be thought to have obtained remission of sins and the grace of divine indulgence through his faith, when he has not had the truth of the faith itself? For if, as some think, anyone could receive something outside, beyond the church, according to his faith, he surely received what he believed. But believing what is false, he could not receive what is true; rather he received adulterous and profane things according to what he believed.

This matter of profane and adulterous baptism the prophet Jeremiah touches on keenly, saying: “Why do those who grieve me prevail? My wound is firm; from where shall I be healed? While it is being made, it has become to me like lying water that has no faithfulness.” The Holy Spirit through the prophet mentions lying water that has no faith. What is this lying and faithless water? Surely that which falsely feigns the image of baptism and cheats the grace of faith with a shadowy pretense. But if anyone outside could be baptized and obtain remission of sins according to a perverse faith, he could according to the same faith obtain the Holy Spirit too, and there is no need for a hand to be laid on him when he comes, so that he may obtain the Holy Spirit and be sealed. For either he could obtain both by his faith outside, or he who had been outside received neither.

It is clear, moreover, where and through whom the remission of sins can be given, which is given, namely, in baptism. For the Lord first gave that power to Peter, on whom he built the church and from whom he instituted and showed the origin of unity, that whatever he loosed should be loosed. And after the resurrection too he speaks to the apostles, saying: “As the Father has sent me, 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.” From this we understand that only the leaders in the church, grounded on the law of the gospel and the Lord's ordination, may baptize and give remission of sins, and that outside nothing can be either bound or loosed, where there is no one who can either bind or loose.

Nor do we put this forward, dearest brother, without the authority of divine Scripture, when we say that all things have been arranged by God by a fixed law and proper ordination, and that no one can usurp against the bishops and priests anything that is not within his right and power. For Korah and Dathan and Abiram tried to usurp for themselves the license to sacrifice against Moses and Aaron the priest, and yet they did not go unpunished for what they unlawfully dared. And the sons of Aaron, who put strange fire on the altar, were at once destroyed in the sight of the indignant Lord. That punishment awaits those who bring strange water to a false baptism, so that the divine judgment may avenge and punish heretics for doing against the church what is lawful for the church alone.

As for some saying that on those who had been baptized in Samaria, when the apostles Peter and John came, a hand was only laid on them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit, but they were not rebaptized, we see, dearest brother, that this passage does not bear on the present case at all. For those who had believed in Samaria had believed with a true faith, and had been baptized within the church, which is one and to which alone it is permitted to give the grace of baptism and to loose sins, by Philip the deacon, whom those same apostles had sent. And therefore, since they had obtained lawful church baptism, they ought not to be baptized further; only what was lacking was done by Peter and John, that prayer being made for them and a hand laid on them, the Holy Spirit should be invoked and poured out upon them. This is done among us now too: those baptized in the church are presented to the leaders of the church, and through our prayer and the laying on of hands they obtain the Holy Spirit and are perfected with the Lord's seal.

There is no reason, then, dearest brother, for us to think we must yield to heretics, or to think that baptism, which was given only to the one and only church, should be betrayed. It is the part of a good soldier to defend his commander's camp against rebels and enemies; it is the part of a glorious general to keep the standards entrusted to him. It is written: “The Lord your God is a jealous God.” We who have received the Spirit of God ought to have zeal for the divine faith, the zeal by which Phinehas pleased God and, winning his favor, calmed the wrath of the indignant God when the people were perishing. Why do we credit as received what is adulterous and alien and hostile to divine unity, we who know only one Christ and his one church? The church, set forth in the likeness of paradise, has enclosed within its walls fruit-bearing trees, and of these whatever does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. These trees it waters with four rivers, that is, with the four gospels, by which it bestows the grace of baptism in a saving and heavenly flood. Can one who is not within the church water from the church's fountains? Can one impart to anyone the wholesome and saving drinks of paradise who, perverse and self-condemned and banished outside the fountains of paradise, has withered and failed in the dryness of eternal thirst?

The Lord cries out that whoever thirsts should come and drink from the rivers of living water that flowed from his belly. Where is the one who thirsts to come? To the heretics, where there is no fountain and river of life-giving water at all, or to the church, which is one and was founded by the Lord's voice upon one, who also received its keys? It is she alone who holds and possesses all the power of her bridegroom and lord. In her we preside; for her honor and unity we fight; her grace and her glory alike we defend with faithful devotion. By divine permission we water the thirsting people of God; we guard the boundaries of the life-giving fountains. If we hold the right of our possession, if we acknowledge the sacrament of unity, why do we stand as betrayers of the truth, why as traitors to unity? The faithful, saving, and holy water of the church cannot be corrupted and adulterated, as the church herself is uncorrupted, chaste, and modest. If heretics are devoted to the church and established in the church, they can use both her baptism and her other saving goods. But if they are not in the church, and indeed act against the church, how can they baptize with the church's baptism?