Letters 74.1–75.9

Cyprian to his brother Pompeius, greeting. Although we have fully covered what needs to be said about baptizing heretics in the letters of which we sent you copies, dearest brother, yet since you wished to be informed what our brother Stephen wrote back to me in answer to our letter, I have sent you a copy of his reply. When you have read it you will note more and more his error, who tries to maintain the cause of heretics against Christians and against the church of God. For among the other things he wrote without forethought, either arrogant or irrelevant or self-contradictory, he also added this, saying: “If, then, any come to you from any heresy whatever, let nothing be innovated except what has been handed down, that a hand be laid on them for penance, since the heretics themselves, properly speaking, do not baptize those who come to them from one another, but only admit them to communion.”

He forbade that one coming from any heresy whatever be baptized in the church; that is, he judged the baptisms of all heretics to be just and lawful. And since the various heresies have various baptisms and different sins, he, by sharing in the baptism of all, has heaped up the offenses of all together into his own bosom. And he commanded that nothing be innovated except what has been handed down, as if he innovates who, holding unity, claims the one baptism for the one church, and not rather he who, forgetful of unity, usurps the lies and contagion of a profane dipping. “Let nothing be innovated,” he says, “except what has been handed down.” Where does that tradition come from? Does it come down from the authority of the Lord and the gospel, or does it come from the commands and letters of the apostles? For God testifies and forewarns that what is written is to be done, saying to Joshua son of Nun: “The book of this law shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do all that is written in it.” Likewise the Lord, sending his apostles, commands that the nations be baptized and taught to observe all that he commanded. If, then, it is commanded in the gospel, or contained in the letters or Acts of the apostles, that those coming from any heresy whatever are not to be baptized but only to have a hand laid on them for penance, let this divine and holy tradition be observed. But if everywhere heretics are called nothing but adversaries and antichrists, if they are declared to be avoided as perverted and self-condemned, how is it that those should seem not to be condemned by us whom the apostolic testimony shows to be self-condemned? So no one ought to slander the apostles as though they approved the baptisms of heretics or admitted them to communion without the church's baptism, since the apostles wrote such things about heretics, and that when the fiercer plagues of heresy had not yet broken out, and Marcion of Pontus had not yet emerged from Pontus. His teacher Cerdo came to Rome under Hyginus, who was the ninth bishop in the city; Marcion followed him, added increases to the crime, began to blaspheme more shamelessly and violently than the rest against God the Father, the Creator, and armed heretical fury, rebelling against the church, more wickedly and heavily with sacrilegious weapons.

But if it is clear that more and worse heresies arose later, and if in former times it was nowhere at all commanded or written that only a hand should be laid on a heretic for penance and that he should thus be admitted to communion, and if there is only one baptism, which is with us and within and granted by divine favor to the church alone, what obstinacy is this, or what presumption, to put human tradition before divine appointment, and not to notice that God is indignant and angry whenever human tradition loosens and passes over the divine precepts? As he cries out through the prophet Isaiah and says: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far removed from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men.” Likewise the Lord in the gospel, rebuking and reproaching them in the same way, lays it down and says: “You reject the commandment of God so that you may establish your tradition.” Mindful of this precept, the blessed apostle Paul too warns and instructs, saying: “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with his teaching, he is puffed up in stupidity and knows nothing: withdraw from such a one.”

A splendid and lawful tradition indeed is put forward by the teaching of our brother Stephen, one that offers us fitting authority! For in the same place in his letter he added and appended: “since the heretics themselves, properly speaking, do not baptize those who come to them from one another, but only admit them to communion.” To such depth of evil has the church of God and bride of Christ sunk, that she follows the example of heretics; that, for celebrating the heavenly sacraments, light borrows its discipline from darkness, and Christians do what antichrists do! What blindness of mind is this, what perversity, to refuse to recognize the unity of faith that comes from God the Father and from the tradition of Jesus Christ our Lord and God? For if the church is not among heretics because it is one and cannot be divided, and if the Holy Spirit is not there because he is one and cannot be among the profane and outsiders, then surely baptism too, which consists in that same unity, cannot be among heretics, because it can be separated neither from the church nor from the Holy Spirit.

Or if they attribute the effect of baptism to the majesty of the name, so that those baptized in the name of Jesus Christ anywhere and in any way are judged renewed and sanctified, why is not a hand also laid there on the baptized person in the name of the same Christ to receive the Holy Spirit? Why does not the same majesty of the same name prevail in the laying on of hands, which they contend prevailed in the sanctification of baptism? For if one born outside the church can become a temple of God, why can the Holy Spirit not also be poured on the temple? For one who, his sins put off in baptism, has been sanctified and spiritually reformed into a new man, has been made fit to receive the Holy Spirit, since the apostle says: “As many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.” One who can put on Christ when baptized among heretics can much more receive the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent. Otherwise the one sent will be greater than the sender, so that one baptized outside begins to have put on Christ indeed but to have been unable to receive the Holy Spirit, as if Christ could be put on without the Spirit, or the Spirit be separated from Christ. It is foolish, too, that, since the second birth, by which we are born in Christ through the washing of regeneration, is spiritual, they say that one can be spiritually born among heretics, where they deny the Spirit is. For water alone cannot cleanse sins and sanctify a person unless it also has the Holy Spirit. Therefore they must either grant that the Spirit too is there where they say baptism is, or else there is no baptism where the Spirit is not, because baptism cannot exist without the Spirit.

But what sort of thing is it to assert and contend that those can be sons of God who were not born in the church? For that it is baptism in which the old man dies and the new is born, the blessed apostle makes plain and proves, saying: “He saved us through the washing of regeneration.” But if regeneration is in the washing, that is, in baptism, how can heresy, which is not the bride of Christ, beget sons to God through Christ? For it is the church alone which, joined and united to Christ, spiritually begets sons, as the same apostle says again: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her with the washing of water.” If, then, she is the beloved and the bride who alone is sanctified by Christ and alone cleansed by his washing, it is clear that heresy, which is not the bride of Christ and cannot be cleansed or sanctified by his washing, cannot beget sons to God.

Further, one is not born through the laying on of hands when he receives the Holy Spirit, but in baptism, so that, already born, he may receive the Spirit, as was done with the first man, Adam. God first formed him, then breathed into his face the breath of life. For the Spirit cannot be received unless there first exists one to receive it. But since the birth of Christians is in baptism, and the begetting and sanctification of baptism is with the bride of Christ alone, who can spiritually bear and beget sons to God, where and of whom and to whom has he been born who is not a son of the church? For one to be able to have God as Father, let him first have the church as mother. But though no heresy at all, nor indeed any schism, can have outside the sanctification of saving baptism, the hard obstinacy of our brother Stephen has broken out so far that he contends that sons are born to God even from the baptism of Marcion, and likewise of Valentinus and Apelles and the others who blaspheme against God the Father, and says that remission of sins is given there in the name of Jesus Christ where blasphemy is uttered against the Father and the Lord God of Christ.

At this point, dearest brother, we must consider, for the sake of the faith and religion of the priestly office we hold, whether a priest of God can render a satisfactory account on the day of judgment who asserts and approves and credits the baptisms of blasphemers, when the Lord threatens and says: “And now this command is for you, O priests: if you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord almighty, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing.” Does he give honor to God who shares in communion with the baptism of Marcion? Does he give honor to God who judges that remission of sins is given among those who blaspheme against God? Does he give honor to God who maintains that sons of God are born outside from an adulteress and a harlot? Does he give honor to God who, not holding the unity and truth that come from the divine law, champions heresies against the church? Does he give honor to God who, a friend of heretics and an enemy of Christians, thinks that the priests of God who defend the truth of Christ and the unity of the church should be excluded from communion? If honor is given to God in this way, if the fear of God and discipline are kept in this way by his worshipers and priests, let us throw away our arms, let us surrender to captivity, let us hand over to the devil the ordering of the gospel, the arrangement of Christ, the majesty of God; let the oaths of divine military service be dissolved, the standards of the heavenly camp be surrendered; let the church give in and yield to heretics, light to darkness, faith to faithlessness, hope to despair, reason to error, immortality to death, love to hatred, truth to falsehood, Christ to antichrist! Deservedly, then, do schisms and heresies arise day by day and grow up more often and more abundantly, so that, sprouting with snaky locks, they spew out the poison of their venom against the church of God with greater strength, while by the advocacy of certain people both authority and firmness are given them, while their baptism is defended, while faith, while truth is betrayed, while what is done outside against the church is championed inside, in the church itself.

But if there is among us, most beloved brother, the fear of God, if the constancy of faith prevails, if we keep the precepts of Christ, if we guard the uncorrupted and inviolate holiness of his bride, if the words of the Lord cling to our minds and hearts when he says, “When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?”, then as faithful soldiers of God who serve God with faith and sincere religion, let us keep with faithful courage the camp divinely entrusted to us. Nor ought custom, which had crept in among some, to prevent truth from prevailing and conquering. For custom without truth is the antiquity of error. Therefore let us leave error and follow truth, knowing that in Esdras too truth conquered, as it is written: “Truth endures and grows strong forever, and lives and prevails for ever and ever. With her there is no respect of persons or distinctions, but she does what is just; nor is there anything unjust in her judgment; and hers is the strength and the kingdom and the majesty and the power of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth.” This truth Christ showed us when he says in his gospel: “I am the truth.” Therefore, if we are in Christ and have Christ in us, and if we abide in the truth and the truth abides in us, let us hold what is true.

It comes from a zeal for presumption and stubbornness that someone would rather defend his own perverse and false views than agree to another's right and true ones. Foreseeing this, the blessed apostle Paul writes to Timothy and warns that a bishop ought to be not quarrelsome or contentious, but gentle and teachable. 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. The same apostle Paul also teaches and forewarns this very thing, that if something better has been revealed to another who sits by, the first should be silent. For devout and simple minds there is a short way both to lay aside error and to find and bring out the truth. For if we return to the head and source of divine tradition, human error ceases, and when the reason of the heavenly sacraments has been seen, whatever lay hidden and obscure under the gloom and cloud of darkness is opened into the light of truth. So, if a channel bringing water, which before flowed copiously and abundantly, suddenly fails, does one not go to the spring to learn the cause of the failure there, whether the veins have dried up and the water has run dry at the head, or whether, flowing from there whole and full, it has stopped midway; so that, if it has come about through the fault of a broken or leaking channel that the water did not flow continuously and steadily, the channel may be repaired and strengthened, and the water collected may be delivered for the use and drink of the city with the same abundance and wholeness with which it proceeds from the spring? This the priests of God who keep the divine precepts must do now too: if in anything the truth has wavered and faltered, let us return both to the Lord's origin and to the gospel and apostolic tradition, and let the principle of our action arise from where both the order and the origin arose.

For it has been handed down to us that there is one God and one Christ and one hope and one faith and one church and one baptism, appointed only in the one church; and whoever departs from it must be found with the heretics; and in championing them against the church, he attacks the sacrament of divine tradition. We see the sacrament of this unity expressed also in the Song of Songs, in the person of Christ, who says: “A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride, a fountain sealed, a well of living water, a paradise with fruit of apples.” But if his church is a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed, how can one who is not in the church enter that garden or drink from its fountain? Likewise Peter himself, showing and defending unity, commanded and warned that we can be saved only through the one baptism of the one church: “In the ark of Noah,” he says, “few, that is, eight souls of men were saved through water; which baptism will likewise save you also.” By this brief and spiritual summary the sacrament of unity is made plain. For as in that baptism of the world, in which the ancient iniquity was purged, one who was not in the ark of Noah could not be saved through water, so now one cannot be thought saved through baptism who has not been baptized in the church, which was founded by the Lord's unity after the sacrament of the one ark.

So it is observed and held by us, dearest brother, after the truth has been examined and seen, that all who are converted to the church from any heresy whatever are baptized with the one and lawful baptism of the church, except those who had been baptized in the church before and had then gone over to the heretics. For these, when they return, having done penance, must be received by the laying on of hands alone and restored by the shepherd to the fold from which they had strayed. I pray, dearest brother, that you may always be well.

Firmilian to Cyprian, his brother in the Lord, greeting. We have received through our dearest Rogatianus, the deacon sent by you, the letter you wrote to us, most beloved brother, and we gave the greatest thanks to God for it, that it has come about that we who are separated from one another in body are so united in spirit, as if we were not only holding one region but living together in the very same house. And this is fitting to say, because the spiritual house of God is also one. “For in the last days,” he says, “the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God above the tops of the mountains.” Those who come together in it are united with joy, as in the psalm too this is asked of the Lord, to dwell in the house of God all the days of life. Hence in another place too it is made plain that among the saints there is a great love of the will to come together into one: “See,” he says, “how good and delightful it is that brothers dwell in unity.”

For union and peace and concord give the greatest delight not only to faithful people who know the truth but also to the heavenly angels themselves, for whom, the divine word says, there is joy over one sinner who repents and returns to the bond of unity. This surely would not be said of angels, whose life is in heaven, unless they too, who rejoice in our union, were united with us; just as, on the contrary, they are surely saddened when they see the divided minds and split wills of some, as though they did not together call on one and the same God, but, separated and divided from one another, could no longer have even conversation or common speech. Except that in this we can give thanks to Stephen, that through his inhumanity it has now come about that we have gained proof of your faith and wisdom. But if we have received this favor of a benefit because of Stephen, it does not follow that Stephen has done something worthy of favor and thanks. For neither can Judas, by his faithlessness and the betrayal he wickedly carried out against the Savior, be thought worthy, as though he himself had provided the cause of such great goods, that through him the world and the people of the gentiles were set free by the Lord's passion.

But let what Stephen has done be passed over for the present, lest, while we recall his audacity and insolence, we bring on ourselves a longer sorrow over things he has wickedly done. But learning of you that you have settled the matter now in question according to the rule of truth and the wisdom of Christ, we exulted with great joy and gave thanks to God, that we found in brothers placed so far away such unanimity of faith and truth with us. For the grace of God is able to join and bind with the bond of love and unity even things that seem divided by a long stretch of lands, as of old too divine power joined in the bond of unanimity Ezekiel and Daniel, later in age, with Job and Noah, who were among the first, though separated by an interval of time … so that, although they were parted by long ages, they nevertheless thought the same by the same divine inspiration. This we observe now in you too: that you, separated from us by very distant regions, have proved yourselves joined with us in mind and spirit. All this comes about through divine unity. For since the Lord who dwells in us is one and the same, he joins and binds his own everywhere with the bond of unity. Hence the sound of those who were sent by the Lord, running swiftly in the spirit of unity, went out into all the earth; just as, on the contrary, it profits nothing for some to be near and joined to one another in body if they differ in mind and spirit, since souls that have divided themselves from the unity of God cannot be united at all. “For behold,” he says, “those who remove themselves far from you shall perish.” But such people, withdrawing from his words, will undergo the Lord's judgment as they deserve, who prays to the Father for unity and says: “Father, grant that as I and you are one, so these also may be in us.”

We for our part have taken up what you wrote as if it were our own, and did not read it in passing but, going over it often, committed it to memory. Nor does it hinder the saving benefit either to repeat the same things to confirm the truth or to add some things to heap up the proof. If anything is added by us, it is not added as if too little had been said by you, but because the divine word surpasses human nature and the soul cannot grasp the whole and perfect; and that is why the number of the prophets is so great, so that manifold divine wisdom may be distributed through many. Hence the first who speaks in prophecy is also commanded to be silent if something has been revealed to a second. For this reason it necessarily happens among us that every year we elders and leaders come together to arrange the matters entrusted to our care, so that anything more serious may be directed by common counsel, and that for fallen brothers, wounded by the devil after the saving washing, healing may be sought through penance: not as though they obtained remission of sins from us, but so that through us they may be turned to an understanding of their offenses and be compelled to make fuller satisfaction to the Lord.

But since the envoy sent by you was hurrying to return to you and the winter season was pressing, we have answered your letter as far as we could. And indeed, as regards what Stephen said, as though the apostles had forbidden those who come from heresy to be baptized and had handed this down to posterity to be kept, you have answered most fully that no one is so foolish as to believe that the apostles handed this down, since it is clear that the accursed and detestable heresies themselves arose later: for Marcion too, the disciple of Cerdo, is found to have introduced his sacrilegious tradition against God late, after the apostles and a long time after them, and Apelles, agreeing with his blasphemy, added many other new and graver things hostile to faith and truth. The time of Valentinus and Basilides is also plain: they too rebelled with their wicked lies against the church of God after the apostles and after a long period. It is clear that the other heretics too introduced their depraved sects and perverse inventions later, each as he was led by error; and all of them are plainly self-condemned and have pronounced an inexcusable sentence against themselves before the day of judgment. Whoever confirms their baptism, what else does he do than judge himself with them and condemn himself by making himself their partner?

That those who are at Rome do not observe in all things what has been handed down from the beginning, and vainly allege the authority of the apostles, anyone can know from the fact that concerning the celebration of the days of Easter and concerning many other sacred matters of divine religion he may see that there are some differences among them, and that not everything is observed there alike as it is observed at Jerusalem; just as in very many other provinces too many things vary according to the difference of places and peoples. Yet on account of this there has never been any departure from the peace and unity of the catholic church. This Stephen has now dared to do, breaking the peace with you which his predecessors always kept with you in mutual love and honor, and besides defaming the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, as if they had handed this down, who in their letters cursed heretics and warned us to avoid them. Hence it appears that this tradition is human which champions heretics and maintains that they have baptism, which belongs to the church alone.

But you have also answered well that part where Stephen said in his letter that the heretics themselves also agree about baptism, and do not baptize those who come to them from one another but only admit them to communion, as though we too ought to do this. At this point, although you have already proved that it is quite ridiculous for anyone to follow those who err, we add this further: it is no wonder that heretics act so, for even if they differ in certain lesser things, they hold one and the same agreement in what is greatest, namely to blaspheme the Creator, inventing for themselves certain dreams and phantoms of an unknown God; so it surely follows that they agree about the emptiness of their baptism as they agree in rejecting the truth of the divine nature. Since it would be long to answer each of their wicked or pointless doctrines, it is enough to say briefly, in summary, that those who do not hold the true Lord the Father cannot hold the truth either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit. So, too, those who are called Cataphrygians and try to lay claim to new prophecies can have neither the Father nor the Son, because they do not have the Holy Spirit either. If we ask them what Christ they preach, they will answer that they preach him who sent the Spirit that spoke through Montanus and Prisca. Since we observe that it was not the spirit of truth but of error that was in these, we know that those who champion their false prophecy against the faith of Christ cannot have Christ. And all other heretics too, if they have cut themselves off from the church of God, can have no power or grace, since all power and grace is established in the church, where the elders preside who possess the power of baptizing, of laying on hands, and of ordaining. For as it is not lawful for a heretic to ordain or to lay on hands, so neither to baptize nor to do anything holy and spiritual, since he is a stranger to spiritual and divine holiness. All this we confirmed long ago at Iconium, a place in Phrygia, when we had gathered together with those who came from Galatia and Cilicia and the other neighboring regions, as something to be firmly held and defended against heretics, when some had doubts about this matter.

And since Stephen and those who agree with him contend that the forgiveness of sins and the second birth can come about in the baptism of heretics, among whom even they themselves confess that the Holy Spirit is not, let them consider and understand that spiritual birth cannot be without the Spirit; just as the blessed apostle Paul baptized again with spiritual baptism those who had been baptized by John before the Holy Spirit had been sent by the Lord, and then laid his hand on them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. What sort of thing is it that, when we see Paul baptizing disciples again after John's baptism, we should hesitate to baptize those who come from heresy to the church after their unlawful and profane dipping? Unless perhaps Paul was less than these bishops of today, so that they can give the Holy Spirit to heretics who come to them by the laying on of hands alone, while Paul was not fit to give the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands to those baptized by John unless he had first baptized them also with the church's baptism.

It is absurd, too, that they think one need not ask who it was that baptized, because the one baptized could obtain grace once the Trinity of the names of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit had been invoked. Then this will be the wisdom which Paul writes is among those who are perfect: that one who is perfect and wise in the church should either defend or believe that this bare invocation of the names suffices for the remission of sins and the sanctification of baptism, whereas these things profit only when the one who baptizes has the Holy Spirit and the baptism itself is not established without the Spirit. But they say that one who is baptized outside in any way whatever can obtain the grace of baptism by his own mind and faith. This too is doubtless ridiculous, as though either a depraved mind could draw down to itself from heaven the sanctification of the righteous, or a false faith the truth of believers. But that not all who call on the name of Christ are heard, or can obtain any grace by their invocation, the Lord himself makes plain, saying: “Many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many.” Indeed there is no difference between a false prophet and a heretic. For as the one deceives in the name of God or Christ, so the other deceives in the sacrament of baptism. Both rely on falsehood to deceive people's wills.