1. 1. In those books which we wrote against the letter of Parmenian, which he sent 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 it is a debt owed by us, since our brothers demand it. Therefore in this work, with the Lord's help, we have undertaken not only to refute the things that the Donatists are accustomed to bring against us on this matter, but also to say what the Lord may grant us to say concerning the authority of the most blessed martyr Cyprian, by which they try to prop up their perversity, lest it fall under the force of the truth, so that all who judge without being blinded by partisan zeal may understand that they are not only not helped by the authority of Cyprian, but are above all convicted and overthrown by it.

1. 2. 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. Now none of them denies that even apostates have baptism, since indeed, when they return and are converted through penance, it is judged that the baptism, not being conferred again, could not have been lost. So too those who depart from the communion of the Church through the sacrilege of schism nevertheless have the baptism which they received before they departed; for if they too return, it is not given to them again, whereby it is shown that what they had received while established in unity they could not lose once separated.

But if it can be possessed outside, why can it not also be given there? If you say, It is not rightly given outside, we reply: Just as it is not rightly possessed outside, and yet is possessed, so it is not rightly given outside, but is nevertheless given. And just as, through reconciliation to unity, what was uselessly possessed outside unity begins to be usefully possessed, so through that same reconciliation what was uselessly given outside it begins to be useful. Yet it is not permitted to say that what has been given was not given, or for anyone to allege as a slander that someone did not give it, when he confesses that this man gave what he had received. For the sacrament of baptism is what he who is baptized possesses, and the sacrament of conferring baptism is what he who is ordained possesses.

And just as the baptized person, if he departs from unity, does not lose the sacrament of baptism, so too the ordained person, if he departs from unity, does not lose the sacrament of conferring baptism. For no injury is to be done to any sacrament: if a man departs from his evils, he departs from both; if he remains in his evils, he remains with both.

As therefore that baptism is accepted which one who had departed from unity could not lose, so the baptism is to be accepted which was given by one who, when he departed, had not lost the sacrament of conferring it. For just as those returning who were baptized before they withdrew are not rebaptized, so those returning who were ordained before they withdrew are certainly not ordained again; rather, either they administer what they used to administer, if the welfare of the Church requires it, or, if they do not administer it, they nevertheless bear the sacrament of their ordination; and for that reason hands are not laid upon them as upon laymen.

For Felician lost neither the sacrament of baptism nor the sacrament of conferring baptism when he departed from them along with Maximian. For now they have him among them, together with those very people whom, while he was outside, he baptized in the schism of Maximian. Therefore the rest could receive from them what those men had not lost when they withdrew from our fellowship, even though they had not joined our fellowship. By all this it is shown both that they act impiously who try to rebaptize the unity of the world, and that we act rightly who do not presume to disapprove of the sacraments of God even in the schism itself.

For in whatever they agree with us, in that they are also with us; but in that they have withdrawn from us in which they disagree with us. For this approach and this withdrawal are to be measured not by bodily movements but by spiritual ones. For just as the joining of bodies comes about through continuity of place, so a certain contact of minds is the agreement of wills. If, then, one who has withdrawn from unity wishes to do something other than what he received in unity, in that he withdraws and is separated; but as for what he wishes to do just as it is done in unity, where he received and learned it, in that he remains and is joined.

2. 3. These people, then, are with us in certain matters, but in certain others they have gone out from us. Accordingly, we do not forbid them to do the things in which they are with us; but in those in which they are not with us, we urge them to receive them by coming over, or to take them up again by returning; and by whatever means we can, we strive with love that, amended and corrected, they may choose this. We therefore do not say to them, Do not give, but, Do not give in schism.

Nor do we say to those whom they intend to baptize, Do not receive, but, Do not receive in schism. For if extreme necessity should perhaps compel someone, where he cannot find a Catholic through whom to receive it, and, keeping Catholic peace in his soul, he receives through someone established outside Catholic unity that which he was about to receive within Catholic unity itself, if he then at once departs from this life, we reckon him none other than a Catholic.

But if he has been delivered from bodily death, when he restores himself even by bodily presence to the Catholic congregation, from which he had never departed in heart, we not only do not disapprove of what he did, but we even most confidently and most truly praise it; because he believed that God was present to his heart, where he was keeping unity, and he was unwilling to depart from this life without the sacrament of holy baptism, which, wherever he found it, he recognized to be not of men but of God.

But if anyone, although he could receive it within the Catholic Church itself, through some perversity of mind chooses to be baptized in schism, even if he afterward intends to come to the Catholic Church because he is certain that the sacrament profits there, since elsewhere it can indeed be received but cannot profit,

he is beyond doubt perverse and wicked, and the more perniciously so the more knowingly he acts. For he does not doubt that it is rightly received there, just as he does not doubt that what he received elsewhere profits there.

3. 4. For there are two things that we say: both that baptism is in the Catholic Church and that it is rightly received only there. The Donatists deny both of these. Likewise we say two other things: that baptism exists among the Donatists, but is not rightly received there. Of these two, they strongly affirm the one, namely, that baptism is there; but they are unwilling to admit that it is not rightly received there. Of these four propositions, three are ours alone, but one we both assert. For that baptism is in the Catholic Church, and is rightly received there, and is not rightly received among the Donatists, we alone say; but that baptism exists also among the Donatists, both they assert and we concede.

Whoever, then, wishes to be baptized, and is already certain that our Church is to be chosen by him for Christian salvation, and that in it alone the baptism of Christ profits even if it was received elsewhere, but who for this reason wishes to be baptized in the party of Donatus, that baptism is there—which not they alone nor we alone, but both of us, affirm—let him attend to the other three points. For if he has chosen to follow us in those things which they do not say, and yet prefers the things that both of us say to those which we alone say, it is enough for us that he prefers the things which they do not say, and which we alone say, to the things which they alone say.

That baptism is in the Catholic Church, we say; they do not. That baptism is rightly received in the Catholic Church, we say; they do not. That baptism is not rightly received in the party of Donatus, we say; they do not. As, then, he rather believes what we alone say is to be believed, so let him rather do what we alone say is to be done. But that which we say both parties hold is to be believed—let him, if he thinks so, believe it more firmly than what is said by us alone. For he is going to believe more firmly that the baptism of Christ is in the party of Donatus, which is said by both of us, than that baptism is in the Catholic Church, which is said by Catholics alone.

But again he is going to believe more firmly that the baptism of Christ is also among us, which we alone say, than that it is not among us, which they alone say. For he has already decided and is certain that, in the things wherein we disagree, we are to be preferred to them. So then, what we alone say—that it is rightly received among us—he is going to believe more firmly than that it is not rightly received among us, since this they alone say. By the same rule, what we alone say—that it is not rightly received among them—he is going to believe more firmly than what they alone say, that is, that it is rightly received among them.

In vain, therefore, does he think himself secure in receiving there what we both say is indeed there, but what we do not both say is to be received there. He himself, however, has chosen, in that which we do not both say, to cleave rather to us. Here, then, let him securely receive, where he is certain both that it is and that it is rightly received; but let him not receive there what they say is indeed there, but do not say is to be received there—they whose opinion he has decided to choose.

And yet, even if he held it doubtful whether what he held it certain is rightly received in the Catholic Church is rightly received there, he would sin gravely, in matters pertaining to the salvation of the soul, if only on the ground that he preferred uncertain things to certain ones.

For he is certain that a man is rightly baptized in the Catholic Church, by the very fact that, though baptized elsewhere, he has decided to come over here. But that a man is not rightly baptized among the Donatists, let him at least hold as uncertain, since this is said by those whose opinion he holds it certain is to be set before the Donatists'.

And so, by preferring certain things to uncertain ones, let him be baptized here, where for this reason he is certain that it is rightly done, because, even when he was thinking of doing it elsewhere, he had decided that he must come over here.

4. 5. But now if anyone does not understand how it can come about that what we confess to be there we say is not rightly given there, let him attend to this: that we do not say it is rightly there either—a point that even they make in the case of those who depart from their own communion.

Let them also consider the analogy of the military brand, which can be both possessed and received outside military service by deserters; yet outside military service it is neither to be possessed nor to be received, and once a man has been brought or led back to military service, it is neither to be changed nor to be repeated.

Nevertheless, the case is different for those who fall in among these heretics imprudently, supposing it to be the very Church of Christ, and different for those who know that the Catholic Church is none other than the one which, as it was promised, is spread and extended throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth—the Church which, growing up among the weeds and longing for the rest to come amid the weariness of scandals, says in the Psalms: From the ends of the earth I have cried to you; when my soul was weary, you exalted me upon a rock (Ps 61:2-3 (60:3)). Now the rock was Christ (See 1 Cor 10:4), in whom the Apostle says (See Eph 2:6) that we are already raised up and seated in heaven—not yet in fact, but in hope. And so the Psalm continues and says: You have led me, because you have become my hope, a tower of strength against the face of the enemy (Ps 61:3-4 (60:3-4)).

For from his promises, as from weapons and darts set in a most fortified tower, the enemy is not only guarded against but even routed—the enemy who clothes his wolves in sheep's skins (See Matt 7:15), that they may say, Behold, here is Christ; behold, there (Matt 24:23); and who, from the wholeness of the city set upon a mountain (See Matt 5:14), draws many away to the little portions of his snares, and devours them once their throats are cut.

And when they know this, they choose to receive the baptism of Christ outside the communion of the unity of the body of Christ, intending afterward to migrate to that same communion together with what they have received elsewhere. For knowingly they will hold the baptism of Christ against the Church of Christ, even on the very day on which they receive it. But if this is wicked, who is there who would say, Let me be permitted to commit a wickedness for one day? For if he is going to come over to the Catholic Church, I ask the reason. What else will he answer, except that it is an evil to be in the party of Donatus and not to be in Catholic unity? This evil, then, for as many days as you do it, for so many days' worth of evil you will be doing; and it can be said that a greater evil is done over more days, and a lesser over fewer; but it cannot be said that no evil is done. And what need is there to commit so detestable an evil even for a single day or a single hour? For one who wants this conceded to him might ask the Church, or God himself, to grant him to be an apostate even for a single 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 a heretic for one day.

5. 6. I chose, he says, to receive it there, where both parties agree that the baptism of Christ exists. But that it is not rightly received there, those to whom you are going to migrate say; while that it is rightly received there, those from whom you are going to migrate say. That, then, which these men say—men whom you yourself place behind, when those whom you yourself prefer contradict them—is either false or, to put it more mildly, uncertain. Prefer, therefore, true things to false, or certain things to uncertain. For that what you desire can be rightly received there, where you are going to migrate after receiving it elsewhere, not only do those to whom you are going to cross over confess, but you yourself who are going to cross over confess it. For if you doubted whether it could be rightly received there, you would also doubt whether you ought to cross over there.

To receive it, then, in the party of Donatus, if it is uncertain whether it is a sin—who would doubt that it is a certain sin not rather to receive it where it is certain there is no sin? But those who are baptized there through ignorance, supposing it to be the very Church of Christ, sin less in comparison with these others; yet they are wounded by the sacrilege of schism—not, on that account, lightly, merely because others sin more gravely. For when it was said to certain people, It will be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment than for you (Matt 11:24), it was not said because the Sodomites will not be tormented, but because the others will be tormented more grievously.

5. 7. And yet perhaps this was once hidden and uncertain. But the very thing whereby those who take heed and are corrected are healed is that whereby those are weighed down who, when they are no longer permitted to be ignorant, obstinately rage to their own destruction.

For the condemnation of the Maximianists, and the reception of those condemned together with the people whom they baptized outside their own communion in a sacrilegious schism—as their own council proclaims—settles this whole question and removes the whole dispute. It leaves nothing at all between us and those Donatists who are in communion with Primian about which there could be any doubt that the baptism of Christ can not only be possessed but also be given by those who are separated from the Church.

For just as they themselves are compelled to confess that those whom Felician baptized in schism received true baptism, because they now have them among themselves with the very baptism that they received in schism, so we say that the baptism of Christ exists even outside the Catholic communion—the baptism which those give who have been cut off from that communion, because they did not lose it when they were cut off. And what they themselves suppose they conferred upon those whom Felician baptized in schism, when they reconciled them to themselves—that is, not that they might receive what they did not have, but that what they had uselessly received and possessed in schism might profit them—this God truly confers and bestows through the Catholic communion upon those who come from any heresy or schism in which they received the baptism of Christ: that is, not that they may begin to have the sacrament of baptism which they did not have, but that what they had may begin to profit them.

6. 8. Therefore, between us and those, as it were, cardinal Donatists, whose bishop at Carthage is Primian, there is now no controversy on this matter. For God willed it to be ended through the Maximianists, so that what they refused to confess at the urging of love they might confess under the compulsion of their own example. But we still dispute the matter on this account, lest those should think they have something to say who are not even in communion with these Donatists—those who contend that the truer Donatists have remained with themselves, the fewer they are the more genuine. If these were the only Maximianists, we ought not to despise even their salvation. How much more, then, since that same party of Donatus has been chopped into many tiny fragments—all which tiny particles censure this one much larger party, in which Primian is, for the baptism of the Maximianists it received, and each tries to assert that true baptism has remained only with itself, and is nowhere else at all, neither in the whole world over which the Catholic Church is spread out, nor in that larger party of Donatus, nor among the rest besides its own one of the tiniest parties? If all these particles were willing to heed the voice not of a man but of the most manifest truth itself, and to tame the spirited temper of their own perversity, they would surely return, from their own dryness, not to the larger party of Donatus, from which, itself cut off, they were cut off, but to the very greenness of the Catholic root. For all these people, where they are not against us (See Mark 9:39), are for us; but where they do not gather with us, they scatter (See Matt 12:30).

7. 9. Now, lest I should seem to do this by human arguments—since the obscurity of this question, in the earlier times of the Church before the schism of Donatus, so drove great men, and fathers and bishops endowed with great love, to debate among themselves and to waver while preserving peace, that for a long time the diverse decrees of councils in their various regions fluctuated, until it was confirmed—doubts also being set aside—by a plenary council of the whole world, what was being held with most wholesome judgment:

from the Gospel I bring forward sure proofs, by which, with the Lord's help, I show how rightly it was decided, and truly according to God, that the medicine of the Church should heal in any schismatic or heretic the wound in which he was separated, while what remained sound should rather be acknowledged and approved than wounded by being condemned. The Lord certainly says in the Gospel: He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters (Matt 12:30).

Yet when the disciples reported to him that they had seen someone casting out demons in his name and had forbidden him, because he did not follow him along 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 (Mark 9:38-39). If there was nothing to be corrected in that man, then let anyone be secure who, established outside the communion of the Church, gathers in the name of Christ, cut off from Christian society; and thus 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 what the Lord's disciples wished to do out of ignorance is to be corrected in him, since the Lord said, Do not forbid him, why did he himself forbid this forbidding?

And how will that be true which he there says: He who is not against you is for you? For in this deed he was not against them but for them, where he was working healings through the name of Christ. Therefore, in order that both sayings may be true, as indeed both are true—both that where he says, He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters, and that where 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, where he was not against the Church but for the Church; and yet was to be blamed in that separation, where, if he gathered, he would scatter; so that, if he should perhaps come to the Church, he would not there receive what he already had, but would correct that in which he had gone astray?

8. 10. For neither were the prayers of Cornelius, a gentile, unheard, nor were his almsgivings unaccepted; indeed, he deserved both that an angel should be sent to him and to behold the one sent, through whom he could certainly, without the approach of any man, learn all things necessary. But because whatever good he had in his prayers and almsgivings could not profit him unless he were incorporated into the Church through the bond of Christian society and peace, he is bidden to send to Peter, and through him he learns of Christ; through him also, having been baptized, he is joined to the Christian people by the fellowship of communion as well—the people to which he was joined only by the likeness of good works (See Acts 10). For he would have despised, to his own ruin, the good he did not yet have, growing proud over the good he did have.

So too those who, separating themselves from the society of the rest, break the bond of unity with love violated, if they do nothing of the things they received in that society, are separated in all things; and therefore anyone they have joined to themselves, if he wishes to come to the Church, must receive everything that he did not receive.

But if they do some of the same things, they have not separated themselves in those things; and from that part they are held within the fabric of the weaving, while in the rest they are torn away.

Accordingly, if they have joined anyone to themselves, he is bound to the Church from that part in which they too are not separated; and therefore, if he wishes to come to the Church, he is healed in that wherein he was wandering, mangled; but where he was joined sound, he is not cured but acknowledged—lest, when we wish to cure what is sound, we rather wound it.

And so those whom they baptize, they heal from the wound of idolatry or unbelief, but they strike them more grievously with the wound of schism. For the sword slew the idolaters among the people of God (See Exod 32), but the gaping of the earth swallowed up the schismatics (See Num 16). And the Apostle says: If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2).

8. 11. If someone were brought to a physician wounded with a grave wound in some necessary part of the body, and the physician said, He dies of it unless it is cured, I do not suppose that those who brought him would be so foolish that, having considered and counted his other sound members, they would answer the physician and say: Then are these many sound members not enough for his life, and is that one wounded one enough for his death? They certainly do not say this, but offer it to be cured; nor, however, because they offer it to be cured, do they ask the physician to cure also those parts that are sound, but to apply the medicine urgently to that one place alone, from which death threatens even though the rest are safe, and will come unless it is healed.

What good, then, is either a sound faith, or perhaps only the sound sacrament of faith, to a man in whom the soundness of love has been destroyed by the lethal wound of schism—by the destruction of that one thing alone, those other intact things too are drawn to death? That this may not happen, the mercy of God does not cease, through the unity of the holy Church, to call them to come and be cured by the medicine of reconciliation, through the bond of peace.

Nor let them think themselves sound because we say they have something sound; nor again let them think that what is sound must be cured because we point out that something is wounded. And so, in the soundness of the sacrament, because 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 exalted by the things they have. Why do they so lift up proud eyes over the things that are sound? Let them deign to look humbly upon their own wound, and attend not only to what is present but also to what is lacking.

9. 12. Let them see how many and how great things profit nothing if some one thing is lacking, and let them see what that one thing is. And let them not heed me in this, but the Apostle: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:1-2). What good, then, does it do them if they have an angelic tongue in the sacred mysteries, and prophecy like Caiaphas (See John 11:51) and Saul (See 1 Sam 10:10; 18:10), so that they sometimes prophesy—men whom holy Scripture testifies to have been damnable?

If they not only know the sacraments but also have them, as Simon Magus had them (See Acts 8:13); if they have faith, as the demons confessed Christ—for they did not disbelieve when they said, What have we to do with you, Son of God? We know who you are (Mark 1:24). If they distribute even their own substance to the poor, as many do, not only in the Catholic Church but in various heresies. If, when some persecution presses, they hand over their body to the flames along with us for the faith which they likewise confess (See 1 Cor 13:3)—yet because they do these things separated, not bearing with one another in love, nor striving to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (See Eph 4:2-3), since they certainly do not have love, even with all those things which profit them nothing, they cannot attain to eternal salvation.

10. 13. But they think they ask a most clever question, whether the baptism of Christ in the party of Donatus begets children or does not beget them: so that, if we grant that it begets them, they may assert that their Church is the mother who could beget children from the baptism of Christ; and since there must be one Church, they may on this ground charge that ours is therefore not the Church. But if we say it does not beget, Why then, they say, are those who pass over from us to you, when they have been baptized among us, not reborn through baptism among you, if they have not yet been born?

10. 14. As though it begot from that in which it is separated, and not from that in which it is joined. For it is separated from the bond of love and peace, but joined in the one baptism. And so there is one Church, which alone is named Catholic; and whatever of its own it has in the communions of those separated from its unity, it is precisely through what it has of its own in them that it begets, and not they.

For it is not their separation that begets, but what they have kept with them of the Church; and if they give up this too, they do not beget at all. This Church, then, begets in all whose sacraments are retained, whereby something of the kind can be begotten anywhere—although not all whom it begets belong to its unity, which will save those who persevere to the end. For not only do those not belong to it who are manifest by the open sacrilege of separation, but also those who, mingled bodily in its unity, are separated by a most wicked life. For it had borne Simon Magus through baptism; and yet to him it was said that he had no part in the inheritance of Christ (See Acts 8:21).

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 those not born to whom the Apostle says, As to little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food (1 Cor 3:1-2)? Yet he recalls them from the sacrilege of schism, into which they were rushing precisely 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 to bear it; but neither indeed are you now able, for you are still carnal. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not carnal, and walking according to man? For when someone says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not men? (1 Cor 3:1-4)

For about these he says above: Now 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 perfected in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, because each of you says, I indeed am of Paul, but I of Apollos, but I of Cephas, but I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor 1:10-13) These men, then, if they remained in this obstinacy and perversity, were certainly born, and yet did not belong, through the bond of peace and unity, to the very Church from which they were born.

Therefore the Church itself begets, both through its own womb and through the wombs of handmaids, from the same sacraments, as from the seed of its husband. For not in vain does the Apostle say that all those things happened as a figure (1 Cor 10:11). But those who are proud and are not joined to their 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 (Gen 21:10-11).

But those who peaceably love their father's lawful wife, by whose lawful right they were begotten, are like the sons of Jacob, although born of handmaids and yet receiving the same inheritance (See Gen 30:3). But those who, born within unity from the womb of that same mother, neglect the grace they received, are like Esau the son of Isaac, who was rejected, God bearing witness and saying: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated—though both were conceived from one act of intercourse and born from one womb (See Mal 1:2-3; Gen 25:24).

11. 15. 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; for when, with the Lord breathing upon them, the Spirit had been given to the disciples, he then went on and said: Baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19); if you forgive anyone's sins, they shall be forgiven him; if you retain anyone's, they shall be retained (John 20:23). And if it is so, they say, our communion is the Church of Christ; for the Holy Spirit does not work the forgiveness of sins apart from the Church.

And if our communion is the Church of Christ, your communion is not the Church of Christ. For it is one, whatever it is, of which it was said: One is my dove, the only one of her mother (Song 6:9 (6:8)); 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 not true baptism there; and therefore you ought to baptize those whom you receive from us; and because you do not do this, you confess that you are not in the Church of Christ.

11. 16. We resist them in this way, 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 (1 John 2:11). But no one would make schisms unless they were blinded by hatred of a brother. If, then, we say that sins are not forgiven there, how is one who is baptized among them reborn? For what is it to be reborn through baptism, except to be renewed from one's old state? But how is one renewed from his old state whose past sins are not forgiven him?

But if he is not reborn, neither has he put on Christ, from which it follows that he must apparently be baptized again. For the Apostle says: As many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ (Gal 3:27); and if a man has not put him on, neither is he to be held baptized in Christ. Further, because we say he was baptized in Christ, we confess that he has put on Christ; and if we confess this, we confess that he was regenerated. And if this is so, his sins also have been forgiven. How then does John say, He who hates his brother remains in darkness even until now (1 John 2:11), if the forgiveness of sins has already taken place? Or is there not in schism a hatred of one's brother? Who would say this, since both the origin and the obstinacy of schism is nothing else but hatred of a brother?

11. 17. They think they solve this question for themselves when they say: There is, then, no forgiveness of sins in schism, and therefore no regeneration of the new man, and consequently no baptism of Christ. But we, because we confess that the baptism of Christ is there, set this question before them to be solved: whether that Simon Magus was washed with the true baptism of Christ. They will answer, Yes; for they are compelled by the authority of holy Scripture. I ask, then, whether they confess that his sins were forgiven him? Surely they will confess it. Again I ask, why did Peter say to him that he had no part in the lot of the saints (See Acts 8:21)? Because, they say, he sinned afterward, wishing to buy the gift of God with money, of which he believed the apostles to be sellers.

12. 18. What if he approached baptism itself feignedly? Were his sins forgiven him, or were they not forgiven? Let them choose what they will; whichever they choose, it is enough for us. If they say they were forgiven, how then will the Holy Spirit of discipline flee from the feigner (Wis 1:5), if in this feigner he worked the forgiveness of sins? If they say they were not forgiven, I ask: if he afterward, with his heart shaken and with true sorrow, were to confess his feigning, would he be judged to need baptizing again? But if it is most insane to say this, let them confess that a man can be baptized with the true baptism of Christ, and yet his heart, persevering in malice or sacrilege, does not allow the abolition of his sins to take place;

and thus let them understand that men can be baptized in communions separated from the Church, where the baptism of Christ is given and received in the same celebration of the sacrament, yet which then profits unto the forgiveness of sins when each one, reconciled to unity, is stripped of the sacrilege of dissension, by which his sins were held bound and not allowed to be forgiven. For just as, in the one who had approached feignedly, it comes about that he is not baptized again, but is purified by that very pious correction and truthful confession—which he could not be without baptism—but so that what was given before then begins to avail unto salvation, when that feigning has departed through truthful confession: so too this man who, an enemy of the love and peace of Christ, received the baptism of Christ (which those who separated themselves did not lose) in some heresy or schism, by which sacrilegious crime his sins were not forgiven—when he has corrected himself and has come to the society and unity of the Church, is not to be baptized again; because by that very reconciliation and peace it is granted that the sacrament, which when received in schism could not profit, now begins in unity to profit unto the forgiveness of his sins.

12. 19. But if they say that, in the one who approached feignedly, his sins were indeed forgiven him at that very point of time through the holy power of so great a sacrament, but returned at once through his own feigning—so that the Holy Spirit was both present to the baptized to make his sins depart, and fled from the persistence of his feigning so that they returned;

so that both this is true: As many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ (Gal 3:27); and this: For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the feigner (Wis 1:5)—that is, so that the holiness of baptism clothes him with Christ, and the ruin of feigning strips him of Christ:

as happens when someone passes from darkness through light back to darkness; his eyes are indeed directed perpetually toward the darkness, but the light cannot but flood over him as he passes through—if, then, they say this, let them understand that this also happens in those who are baptized outside the communion of the Church, yet with the baptism of the Church, which, wherever it is, is holy in itself:

and therefore it does not belong to those who separate themselves, but to the source from which they separate themselves; yet it avails among them at least to this extent, that through its light they pass over to the darkness of their own dissension, with the sins returning at once which the holiness of baptism had forgiven at that point of time, just as the obscurity returns which the light had shaken off in passing.

12. 20. For the Lord teaches most plainly in the Gospel that forgiven sins return where there is no brotherly love, in the case of that servant whom, when he found him a debtor of ten thousand talents, he released from everything at his entreaty. But when that servant had not had mercy on his fellow servant, who owed him a hundred denarii, the master ordered him to repay what he had forgiven him (See Matt 18:23-34). The time, then, in which pardon is received through baptism is, as it were, the time of rendering an account, so that all the debts that are found may be forgiven.

Yet that servant did not afterward lend his fellow servant the money which, when the other could not repay it, he refused to pity him for; rather, his fellow servant already owed it to him at the time when he himself, rendering his account to his master, was released from a debt of so great a sum; nor had he forgiven his fellow servant what he owed him, and so came to have his master forgive him. The fellow servant's words indicate this when he says: Have patience with me, and I will repay you (Matt 18:26). Otherwise he would say: You had already forgiven me this; why do you demand it again?

The Lord's own words open this up more plainly. For he says: But that servant, going out, found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii (Matt 18:28). He did not say, To whom he had already forgiven a debt of a hundred denarii. For if he had forgiven it, the other did not owe it him. Because, then, he said, he owed him, it is plain that he had not forgiven it. And it would indeed have been better, and this rather befitted so great a debtor about to render an account and awaiting the mercy of his master, that he himself should first forgive his fellow servant what was owed to him, and so come to render his account, where the mercy of his master was to be implored. And yet the fact that he had not yet forgiven his fellow servant did not hinder his master from forgiving him, at that time of receiving the account, all that he owed. But what good did it do, since, on account of his persistence in hatred, everything was at once heaped back upon his head?

So the grace of baptism is not hindered from forgiving all sins, even if hatred of a brother persists in the soul 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 thereafter he at once begins to be guilty, not only of the following days, hours, and moments, but also of the past ones, with all returning that had been forgiven; and these things often happen in the Church.

13. 21. For it very 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 (See Luke 6:27). Suddenly, by the danger of death, he begins to be alarmed, and he asks for baptism, which he receives with such haste that the time of danger scarcely admits the necessary questioning of a few words (how much less a very long discourse?) so that the hatred might be driven from his heart, even if it is known to the one baptizing. Certainly these things do not cease to occur not only among us but also among them. What, then, do we say? Are this man's sins forgiven, or are they not forgiven?

Let them by all means choose what they will. For if they are forgiven, they return at once: the Gospel says it, the truth proclaims it. Whether, then, they are forgiven or are not forgiven, medicine is afterward necessary; and yet if he lives, and has learned that this is to be corrected, and has corrected it, he is not baptized again, whether among them or among us. So too the things which schismatics or heretics have no differently, and do no differently, than the true Church does, when they come to us, we do not amend but rather approve.

For in the things in which they do not disagree with us, in those they are not separated from us. But nevertheless, because these things profit them nothing as long as they are schismatics or heretics—on account of the other things in which they disagree with the truth, and on account of the most monstrous crime of separation itself, whether their sins have remained in them or, forgiven at once, have returned—we urge them to come to the soundness of peace and love; not only that they may have something they did not have, but that what they had may also begin to profit them.

14. 22. In vain, then, do they say to us: If you accept our baptism, what do we have less, that you should think we must take counsel about your communion? For we reply: We do not accept your baptism; because that is not the baptism of schismatics or heretics, but of God and the Church, wherever it has been found and wherever it has been carried. What is yours, however, is only that you hold wrong opinions, and act sacrilegiously, and impiously separate yourselves. For even if you held or had all other things true, and yet continued in that same separation against the bond of brotherly peace, against the unity of all the brothers who, throughout the whole world, have been presented just as they were promised—whose causes and hearts you could in no way ever know and examine so as to condemn them deservedly, and who cannot on that account be guilty, because they trusted ecclesiastical judges rather than litigants:

this alone you have less, which he has less who does not have love (See 1 Cor 13:2). Now what need is there for us to weave it out again? Look yourselves in the Apostle at how great is what you have less. And what does it matter for one who does not have love, whether he flies outward, carried off by some wind of temptation, or within does not depart from the Lord's harvest, only to be separated at the final winnowing? And yet even such people, if they have once already been born through baptism, ought not to be born again.

15. 23. For the Church bears all through baptism, whether within itself, that is, from its own womb, or outside itself from the seed of its husband. But Esau too, though born of a wife, was separated from the people of God on account of brotherly discord (See Gen 25:23). And Asher, though born indeed by the right of a wife, yet of a handmaid, received the land of promise on account of brotherly concord (See Gen 30:13).

Hence too it did not harm Ishmael, that he should be separated from the people of God, that his mother was a handmaid, but brotherly discord harmed him; and it did not profit him that he belonged to a wife's authority, whose son he rather was, because by her own conjugal rights he had been both sown in a handmaid and received from a handmaid (See Gen 16:11; 17:20).

Just so, among these people, by the right of the Church which is in baptism, all are born who are born; but if they agree with the brothers, through the unity of peace they will come to the land of promise, not to be cast out again from the maternal womb, but to be recognized in the paternal seed; while if they persist in discord, they will belong to the lot of Ishmael. But Ishmael was first, and Isaac afterward; and Esau first, and Jacob later: not because heresy bore before the Church, or because the Church itself bore first the carnal or natural, and afterward the spiritual; but because in the very lot of our mortality, by which we are born of Adam, that which is spiritual is not first, but that which is natural, and afterward the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46).

And from that very natural mind, because the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14), all dissensions and schisms are begotten. Those who persist in this mind the Apostle says belong to the Old Testament (See Gal 4:24), that is, to the desire for earthly promises, in which spiritual things are indeed prefigured, but the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14).

15. 24. At whatever time, then, such men begin to be in this life that, though already imbued with the divine sacraments according to the distribution of the ages, they still think carnally, and hope for and desire carnal things from God, whether in this life or after this life, they are natural men. But the Church, which is the people of God, is even in the pilgrimage of this life an ancient thing, having in some men a natural portion, and in others a spiritual one. To the natural belongs the Old Testament, to the spiritual the New. But in the first times both were hidden, from Adam to Moses. From Moses, however, the Old was made manifest, and in it the New was hidden, because it was secretly signified. But after the Lord came in the flesh (See 1 John 4:2), the New was revealed; and the sacraments of the Old ceased, but such concupiscences did not cease. For they are in those whom the Apostle, though already born through the sacrament of the New Testament, yet calls natural men unable to perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (See 1 Cor 2:14).

For just as in the sacraments of the Old Testament certain spiritual men lived, belonging secretly to the New Testament, which was then hidden, so now too in the sacrament of the New Testament, which has already been revealed, very many live as natural men. And if these are unwilling to make progress toward perceiving the things that are of the Spirit of God, to which the apostolic word exhorts them, they will belong to the Old Testament.

But if they make progress, then even before they fully grasp it, by their very progress and approach they belong to the New; and if, before they become spiritual, they are snatched from this life, kept safe by the holiness of the sacrament, they are counted in the land of the living, where our hope and portion is the Lord (See Ps 142:5 (141:6)). Nor do I find what truer meaning may be understood in what is written: Your eyes saw my unformed substance; since there follows: And in your book they shall all be written (Ps 139:16 (138:16)).

16. 25. The same Church that bore Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham also bore Moses and the later Prophets before the coming of the Lord; and the same that bore these bore also the apostles and our martyrs and all good Christians. For all, though born at different times, have appeared, but are contained in the fellowship of one people; and as citizens of the same city they have experienced the labors of this pilgrimage, and some of them experience them now, and the rest will experience them until the end. Likewise, the same Church that bore Cain and Ham and Ishmael and Esau bore also Dathan and others like them in the same people; and the same that bore these bore also Judas the false apostle, and Simon Magus, and the rest down to these times—false Christians obstinately hardened in a natural disposition, whether they are mingled within unity or dissent by open severance.

But when such men are evangelized and imbued with the sacraments by spiritual men, Rebekah, as it were, bears them by herself, like Esau (See Gen 25:25); but when such men are begotten in the people of God through those who do not chastely announce the Gospel (See Phil 1:17), it is Sarah indeed, but through Hagar (See Gen 16:15). Likewise good spiritual men, when they are begotten by carnal men who evangelize or baptize, are borne by Leah or Rachel by conjugal right, but through a handmaid's womb (See Gen 30:3).

But when good faithful are begotten through spiritual men in the Gospel—those who either come to the disposition of spiritual age, or do not cease to strive toward it, or fail to do so only because they cannot—they are born into the new life and the New Testament, as Isaac from the womb of Sarah, or Jacob from the womb of Rebekah.

17. 26. And so, whether they seem to dwell within or are openly outside, what is flesh is flesh (See John 3:6); whether it persists on the threshing floor in its barrenness, or is carried outside by the occasion of temptation as by a wind, what is chaff is chaff (See Matt 3:12).

And he is always divided from the unity of that Church which is without spot or wrinkle (See Eph 5:27), even he who is mingled with the congregation of the saints in carnal hardness. Yet no one is to be despaired of, whether one who appears such within, or one who more openly opposes from outside.

But spiritual men, or those making progress toward this very thing with pious zeal, do not go outside; because even when they seem to be expelled by some perversity or constraint of men,

they prove there all the more that they remain within, since they in no way rise up against the Church, but are rooted in the solid rock of unity with the strongest strength of love.

For to this pertains what is said in that sacrifice of Abraham: But the birds he did not divide (Gen 15:10).

18. 27. On the question of baptism, then, I have now, as I judge, treated enough; and because this is the most manifest schism that is named with the name of the Donatists, it remains that we believe piously concerning baptism what the universal Church, removed from the sacrilege of schism, keeps. Yet within it, if some held one opinion and others another on this question while preserving peace, until by a universal council some one clear and pure thing should be settled, the love of unity would cover over the error of human weakness, as it is written: For love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8). For in whose absence the other things are had in vain, in whose presence certain things are venially not had.

18. 28. There exist in the letters of the blessed martyr Cyprian great proofs—that I may now come to him, on whose authority these men flatter themselves carnally, while they are destroyed spiritually by his love. For in those times, before the consensus of the whole Church confirmed by the sentence of a plenary council what was to be followed in this matter, it seemed to him, together with nearly eighty of his fellow bishops of the African Churches, that every person who had been baptized outside the communion of the Catholic Church ought, when coming to the Church, to be baptized again. That this was not rightly done the Lord did not, of course, reveal to so great a man—so that his pious humility and love in wholesomely keeping the peace of the Church might be made plain, and might be marked, as it were, for the medicinal instruction not only of the Christians of that time but also of those to come.

For when a bishop of such merit, of such great service to the Church, of such a heart, of such eloquence, of such virtue, thought otherwise about baptism than the truth, more carefully investigated, was going to confirm; and when many of his colleagues held, though it was not yet clearly manifest, that which both the past custom of the Church and afterward the whole Catholic world embraced—he nevertheless did not cut himself off from the rest, who held a different opinion, by a separated communion, and did not cease to persuade the rest of this also, that they should bear with one another in love, striving to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (See Eph 4:2-3).

For thus, with the framework of the body remaining intact, if anything in certain members was weak, it would rather be restored to health by their soundness than, deadened by severance, admit the care of no healing. And if he had separated himself, how many would have followed him? What a name he would have made for himself among men? How much more widely would they have been called Cyprianists than Donatists?

But he was not a son of perdition (See John 17:12; 2 Thess 2:3), of the sort of whom it was said: You cast them down while they were lifted up (Ps 73:18 (72:18)); rather, he was a son of the peace of the Church, who, endowed with so great an illumination of heart, on that account did not see one thing, so that through him something more surpassing might be seen. And I show you, says the Apostle, a still more surpassing 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 (1 Cor 12:31-13:1). He therefore penetrated less far, so as to discern the hidden secret of the sacrament; but if he knew all the sacraments, yet had not love, he would be nothing (See 1 Cor 13:2).

But since, perceiving that one thing less, he nevertheless kept this one humbly, faithfully, and bravely, he deserved to attain the crown of martyrdom: so that if any cloud from the human condition had crept into his lucid mind, it might be put to flight by the glorious serenity of his shining blood.

For not in vain did the Lord Jesus Christ himself, when he called himself the vine, and his own people as branches in the vine, say that they were cut off and taken away from the vine as useless branches that bore no fruit (See John 15:1ff). And what is the fruit, except that new offspring, of which he likewise says: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another (John 13:34)? This is that very love, without which the rest profit nothing. The Apostle also says: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-23). All these begin from love, and through the rest of the joining make, as it were, a wondrous cluster.

Nor yet in vain did the same Lord add: But the branches in me that bear fruit, my Father prunes, that they may bear more fruit (John 15:2); except that even those who excel in the fruit of love can nevertheless have something to be pruned, which the husbandman does not leave untended. Therefore, as for that holy man, who held an opinion about baptism otherwise than the matter stood—which was afterward thoroughly handled and confirmed by most careful consideration—because he remained in Catholic unity, it was both made up for by the abundance of his love, and pruned away by the sickle of his passion.

19. 29. But lest I should seem, for the sake of evading proof, to say these things in praise of the most blessed martyr—praise which is indeed not his, but his by whose grace he became such—let us now bring forward proofs from his letters, by which above all the mouths of the Donatists may be shut. For they set his authority against the unlearned, so as to show that they act, as it were, rightly in baptizing again the faithful who come to them. Too wretched are they, and, unless they correct themselves, altogether condemned by their own selves, who choose to imitate in so great a man that which did not harm him precisely because he walked, with steps most persevering to the end, in that peace from which these men have strayed, who have not known the way of peace (Ps 14:3 (13:3)).

It is indeed the case that the baptism of Christ is holy everywhere, and though it be among heretics or schismatics, it nevertheless does not belong to the heresy or schism itself, and therefore those who come from there to the Catholic Church ought not to be baptized again; but this is one thing, and it is another to judge that those who stray from Catholic peace and are cast headlong into the wicked pit of severance must moreover be rebaptized. For in his case the breasts of love covered over that blemish on the brightness of a holy soul; but in the case of these men an unpeaceable countenance flaunts this soot in their hellish foulness.

But the things we are next going to treat, as far as concerns the authority of the blessed Cyprian, we shall take up from another beginning.

1. 1. I have set out to show, with the Lord's help, how much the things which the party of Donatus brings forth against us, as though from the authority of the blessed Cyprian, make for us—that is, for Catholic peace—and how much they are against those by whom they are brought forth. If, then, the necessity of replying compels me to recall again the things I have already set down in other books (though I shall do this sparingly), it ought not to be burdensome to those who have already read and hold them: for the things necessary for instruction must be conveyed rather often to the slower, and when the same things are handled and treated in manifold and various ways, they help even those endowed with more capacious understanding, both toward ease of knowing and toward abundance in discussion.

I also know how it tends to sadden a reader when, from the book he holds in his hands, when he has come upon some knotty point of a question, he is sent to another in which to seek its solution—one which perhaps he does not have. Therefore, whatever we have already said in other books, if the necessity of the present questions compels us to repeat briefly, let those who know it pardon us, and those who do not know it not be offended; for it is better to offer it to one who has it than to put off one who has it not.

1. 2. What, then, do these men say, when they are choked by the force of the truth to which they are unwilling to consent? Cyprian, they say, whose great merit and great learning we know, together with many of his fellow bishops bringing their own opinions, decreed in a council that heretics or schismatics—that is, all who are outside the communion of the one Church—do not have baptism; and therefore anyone baptized by them who comes to the Church is to be baptized in the Church. The authority of Cyprian does not frighten me, because the humility of Cyprian restores me.

We know indeed the great merit of Cyprian, bishop and martyr; but is it greater than that of Peter, apostle and martyr? Of whom the same Cyprian, in his letter to Quintus, speaks thus: For not even Peter, he says, whom the Lord chose first, and upon whom he built his Church (See Matt 16:18), when Paul afterward 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 he ought rather to be obeyed by those newly come and later; nor did he despise Paul because he had earlier been a persecutor of the Church: but he admitted the counsel of truth, and readily assented to the lawful reasoning which Paul defended—giving us, of course, a lesson both of concord and of patience, that we should not obstinately love our own opinions, but rather count as our own whatever is at any time usefully and wholesomely suggested by our brothers and colleagues, if it be true and lawful (Cyprian, Ep. 71.3).

See where Cyprian recalls what we too have learned in the holy Scriptures: that the apostle Peter, in whom the primacy of the apostles stands out with such excellent grace, was accustomed to act about circumcision otherwise than the truth demanded, and was corrected by the later apostle Paul.

If, then, Peter could in some matter walk not rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, so as to compel the gentiles to judaize—which Paul writes in that letter in which he called God to witness that he was not lying; for he says, In what I write to you, behold, before God, I do not lie (Gal 1:20); and after this so holy and awesome attestation of God, he narrated all these things, among which he said, When I saw that they were not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter before them all: If you, being a Jew, live like the gentiles and not like the Jews, how do you compel the gentiles to judaize? (Gal 2:14)—if Peter, I say, could against the rule of truth, which the Church afterward held, compel the gentiles to judaize, why could not Cyprian, against the rule of truth, which the whole Church afterward held, compel heretics or schismatics to be baptized again?

I think that Cyprian the bishop is compared to Peter the apostle without any insult to himself, as far as concerns the crown of martyrdom. For the rest, I ought rather to fear lest I be insulting to Peter. For who does not know that the primacy of his apostolate is to be preferred to any episcopate whatever?

But even if the grace of their chairs differs, the glory of the martyrs is nevertheless one; and if perhaps they outstrip one another in something—the hearts of those who confess, and who die in the unity of love for the true faith—the Lord knows, by whose hidden and wonderful dispensation of graces the thief hanging on the cross confesses him once and is sent that very day into paradise (See Luke 23:40ff), while Peter, following the Lord, denies him three times (See Matt 26:69ff) and is deferred from the crown: it is rash for us to judge this matter.

Nevertheless, if anyone now were to compel someone to be circumcised after the Jewish manner and so to be baptized, the human race would detest this kind of thing far more than if someone were compelled to be rebaptized.

Therefore, since Peter, in doing that, is corrected by the later Paul, and, kept by the bond of peace and unity, is advanced to martyrdom, how much more easily and forcibly is what has been confirmed by the decrees of the universal Church to be preferred either to the authority of one bishop or to the council of one province? Since this same Cyprian so stated what seemed to him that he willed to be in the peace of unity even with those who held a different opinion on this matter—which his own first address indicates, at the beginning of that same council which is brought forth by these men. For it runs thus:

2. 3. "When very many bishops from the province of Africa, Numidia, and Mauretania had come together as one at Carthage on the first of September, with their presbyters and deacons, in the presence also of a very large part of the people, and the letter of Jubaian written to Cyprian had been read, likewise Cyprian's reply to Jubaian about baptizing heretics, and what Jubaian afterward wrote back to Cyprian, Cyprian said: You have heard, most beloved colleagues, what Jubaian our fellow bishop has written to me, consulting our littleness about the unlawful and profane baptism of heretics; and what I wrote back to him, judging, of course, what once and again and often we have judged: that heretics coming to the Church ought to be baptized and sanctified with the baptism of the Church.

Likewise there has been read to you another letter of Jubaian, in which, out of his sincere and religious devotion, replying to our letter, he not only agreed but also gave thanks that he had been instructed. It remains that we each set forth what we think on this very matter, judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently. For none of us has set himself up to be a bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror to drive his colleagues to the necessity of obeying, since every bishop, according to the license of his liberty and power, has his own free 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 has the power both of setting us over the governance of his Church and of judging our conduct" (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref).

3. 4. Now let the proud and swollen necks of the heretics, if they dare, lift themselves up against the holy humility of this address. Insane Donatists, whom we desire and wish to return to the peace and unity of the holy Church and to be healed in it, what do you say to these things? You certainly are accustomed to set against us the letters of Cyprian, the opinion of Cyprian, the council of Cyprian: why do you take up the authority of Cyprian 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 that it is so set before all the later writings of bishops that there can be no doubt or dispute at all about it, whether what is established to be written in it is true or right; but that the letters of bishops, which were or are written after the confirmation of the canon, may lawfully be censured both by the discourse, perhaps wiser, of anyone more skilled in that matter, and by the weightier authority and more learned prudence of other bishops, and by councils, if anything in them has perhaps deviated from the truth;

and that the councils themselves which are held in the several regions or provinces yield, without any quibbling, to the authority of the plenary councils which are held from the whole Christian world; and that the plenary councils themselves, the earlier, are often amended by the later, when by some experience of things what was closed is opened and what lay hidden is recognized—without any pride of sacrilegious arrogance, without any inflated neck of presumption, without any contention of livid envy, but with holy humility, with Catholic peace, with Christian love?

4. 5. Therefore the holy Cyprian, the more exalted the more humble, who so loved the lesson of Peter that he said, giving us, of course, a lesson both of concord and of patience, that we should not obstinately love our own opinions, but rather count as our own whatever is at any time usefully and wholesomely suggested by our brothers and colleagues, if it be true and lawful (Cyprian, Ep. 71.3), sufficiently shows that he would most readily have corrected his opinion, if anyone had shown him that the baptism of Christ could be given by those who went outside in the same way that it could not be lost when they went outside; of which we have already said much.

Nor would we ourselves dare to assert any such thing, were we not confirmed by the most harmonious authority of the universal Church; to which he too would without doubt have yielded, if already at that time the truth of this question, refined and declared, had been made firm through a plenary council.

For if he praises and proclaims Peter as corrected patiently and harmoniously by one later 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 a soul, so peaceable, could most readily have consented even to one man speaking and demonstrating the truth:

and perhaps it was done, but we do not know. For not all the things that were done among the bishops at that time could be committed to memory and to writing, nor do we know all the things that were committed to writing.

For how could this matter, enveloped in such great clouds of altercation, be brought to the clear illustration and confirmation of a plenary council, unless first it stood, treated for a rather long time through the regions of the world by many disputations and conferences of bishops on this side and on that? And this is what the soundness of peace brings about: that when some rather obscure things are sought for a longer time, and, on account of the difficulty of finding them, give birth to diverse opinions in brotherly debate, until one comes to the clear truth, the bond of unity nevertheless remains, lest in a part cut off there remain the incurable wound of error.

5. 6. And so very often something is revealed less to the more learned, that their patient and humble love, in which the fruit is greater, may be proved—either how they keep unity when they think differently in more obscure matters, or how they accept the truth when they recognize that it has been declared against what they thought. Of these two we hold one made manifest in the blessed Cyprian, that is, how he kept unity with those from whom he thought differently. For he says: judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref).

But the other, that is, how he could have accepted the truth once it was found, against what he had thought—even if the letters are silent, his merits cry out; if the letter is not found, his crown bears witness; if the council of bishops does not show it, the fellowship of the angels shows it. For it is no small proof of a most peaceable soul, to have deserved martyrdom in that unity from which, though thinking differently, he was unwilling to separate himself.

For we are men. Hence to be wise about something otherwise than the matter stands is a human temptation. But to love one's own opinion too much, or to envy those who are better, to the point of arriving at the sacrilege of cutting off communion and founding a schism or heresy, is a diabolical presumption. But in nothing to be wise otherwise than the matter stands is an angelic perfection. Since, then, we are men, but in hope are angels of God, to whom we shall be equal in the resurrection (See Matt 22:30), as long as we do not have the perfection of the angel, let us not have the presumption of the devil. Therefore the Apostle says: Let no temptation take hold of you but such as is human (1 Cor 10:13).

It is human, then, to be wise about something otherwise. For this reason he says in another place: As many of us, therefore, as are perfect, let us be of this mind; and if you are of any other mind, this too God will reveal to you (Phil 3:15). But to whom does he reveal it, when he wills, whether in this life or after this life, except to those walking in the way of peace and straying into no severance? Not such as these men are, who have not known the way of peace (Ps 14:3 (13:3)), and who have broken the bond of unity for no other reason.

And therefore the Apostle, when he had said, And if you are of any other mind, this too God will reveal to you (Phil 3:15), lest they should think that what they thought otherwise could be revealed to them apart from the way of peace, at once added: Nevertheless, in that to which we have attained, let us walk in it (Phil 3:16).

Walking in this, Cyprian, by most persevering endurance—not with blood shed, but shed in unity (for if he handed over his body to be burned and had not love, it would profit him nothing (See 1 Cor 13:3))—attained through the confession of martyrdom to the angelic light; so that, if not before, there at least he might recognize as revealed what, while he was of another mind, he did not set the opinion of a different view above the bond of unity.

6. 7. You, then, Donatists, what do you say to these things? If our opinion about baptism is true, all who were of another mind in Cyprian's times are not separated from the unity of the Church, until God should reveal to them that about which they thought differently: why then have you broken the bond of peace by a sacrilegious separation? But if your opinion about baptism is true, Cyprian and the rest, with whom you report that he held such a council, remained in unity with those who thought differently. Why have you broken the bond of peace?

Whichever of these you choose, you are compelled to pass sentence against your own severance. Answer: why did you separate? Why did you erect an altar against the whole world? Why are you not in communion with the Churches to which you hold and read the apostolic letters were sent, and according to which you say you live? Answer: why did you separate?

Certainly for this reason: lest you perish by communion with the wicked. How then did Cyprian and so many of his colleagues not perish? For although they believed that heretics and schismatics did not have baptism, yet, with these received without baptism—when they believed sins so monstrous and so sacrilegious to be upon them—they nevertheless chose to be in communion with them rather than to be separated from unity, Cyprian saying: judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref).

6. 8. If, then, the just perish by such communion with the wicked, already in the times of Cyprian the Church had perished. Whence, then, arose the origin of Donatus—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 in no way harm the good in one communion. Why did you separate?

Behold, in unity I see Cyprian and his other colleagues, who, having held a council, judged that all who had been baptized outside the communion of the Church do not have baptism, and therefore that it must be given to them when they come. But behold again, in the same unity I see certain men think differently on this matter, and not dare, once the baptism of Christ has been recognized in them, to baptize again those who have come from heretics or schismatics.

All these the Catholic unity embraces in its maternal bosom, bearing one another's burdens (See Gal 6:2), and striving to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (See Eph 4:3), until the Lord should reveal to whichever of them, if they thought anything otherwise (See Phil 3:15). If these thought true things, were they not contaminated by those, or were they contaminated? If those thought true things, were they not contaminated by these, or were they contaminated?

Choose what you will. If they were contaminated, then already there was no Church: answer, whence did you come forth to this place? But if the Church remained, in no way are the good contaminated by the wicked through such communion: answer, why did you break the bond?

6. 9. Or do schismatics, received without baptism, perhaps not contaminate, while betrayers of the holy Books do contaminate? That your own people were betrayers, the most manifest records of the deeds bear witness. And if at that time you had spoken the truth against those whom you were accusing, you would have persuaded the unity of the world of your case, so that, you being retained, they would be excluded.

But if you tried to do this and did not obtain it, the world is innocent, which trusted ecclesiastical judges rather than defeated litigants; while if you were unwilling to plead your case, the world is innocent, which could not condemn men unheard. Why, then, have you separated yourselves from the innocent? You cannot defend the sacrilege of your schism. But I pass over these things; this I say: if betrayers could contaminate you—men who have not been convicted by you, and by whom you have been defeated—much more could the sacrileges of schismatics and heretics, received without baptism according to your opinion, contaminate Cyprian. Yet he did not separate himself. And because the Church remained, it is manifest that it could not be contaminated.

Why, then, have you separated yourselves—I do not say from the innocent, which is proved, but from those very betrayers, which is not proved? Or, as I had begun to say, are the crimes of betrayers graver than those of schismatics? Let us not bring forward deceitful scales, on which we may weigh what we wish, and as we wish, saying at our own discretion, This is grave, this is light; but let us bring forward the divine scale from the holy Scriptures, as from the Lord's treasures, and weigh on it what is graver; nay, let us not weigh it, but recognize what has been weighed by the Lord.

At that time in which the Lord showed that former offenses were to be guarded against by recent examples of punishments, an idol was both fashioned and adored, a prophetic book was burned by the anger of a contemptuous king, and a schism was attempted; idolatry was punished by the sword (See Exod 32), the burning of the book by slaughter in war and foreign captivity (See Jer 36), the schism by the gaping of the earth, with its authors buried alive and the rest consumed by heavenly fire (See Num 16).

Who now would doubt that what was more grievously avenged was the more wickedly committed? Coming from such sacrilegious men, without baptism, as you say, if they did not contaminate Cyprian, how could betrayers—not convicted, but invented—contaminate you?

And if these men had not handed over the Books to be burned, but had burned them themselves with their own hands, they would certainly have been guilty of a lesser crime than if they committed schism; because the one was more mildly, the other more grievously avenged—not by human discretion, but by divine judgment.

7. 10. Why, then, have you separated yourselves? If there is any sense in you,

you certainly see that you can find nothing to reply. Not to such an extent, they say, have all things failed, that we cannot reply: It is our will. Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls (Rom 14:4).

They do not understand that this was said to those who wished to judge not about manifest deeds, but about the hearts of others. For how does Paul himself speak so much about the crimes of schisms and heresies? Or how is it sung in the Psalms: If you truly love justice, judge what is right, you sons of men (Ps 58:1 (57:2))? And why does the Lord himself say: Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment (John 7:24), if it is not permitted to judge about anyone? Finally, those very men, in the case of the betrayers about whom they judged falsely, why did they judge at all about others' servants? They stood or fell to their own master.

Why, in short, about the recent Maximianists did they not hesitate, by the truthful mouth of a plenary council, as they say, to pronounce such a judgment as to compare them to those first schismatics whom the earth swallowed up alive (See Num 16:31-33)? Yet some of these—which they cannot deny—they either condemned as innocent or received back as guilty.

But when the truth is spoken to which they cannot reply, they gnaw with rough mutterings: It is our will. Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls (Rom 14:4). But when a weak sheep is spied in the wilderness, where the shepherd who might cry out against them seems to be absent, their teeth are bared, the feeble throat is broken: You would be a good man, if you were not a betrayer. Take counsel for your soul; become a Christian. O wicked madness! When it is said to a Christian, Become a Christian, what else is he taught but to deny that he is a Christian? Was there anything else that those persecutors of the Christians desired to teach, those whom whoever resisted became martyrs? Or is what is committed by a threatening sword thought lighter than what is committed by a treacherous tongue?

7. 11. Answer these things, you ravenous wolves, who, desiring to be clothed in sheep's skins (See Matt 7:15), suppose that the letters of the blessed Cyprian are for you. Did the sacrilege of schismatics contaminate Cyprian, or did it not contaminate him? If it contaminated him, then already at that time the Church perished, and there was nothing from which you could be propagated.

But if it did not contaminate him, by what crime of another can the innocent be contaminated in unity, if they cannot be contaminated by the sacrilege of schism? Why, then, have you separated yourselves? Why, while you flee the lighter things that you invent, have you committed the very sacrilege of schism, which is graver than all? Or does it perhaps now please you to confess that those were no longer either schismatics or heretics who had been baptized outside the communion of the Church, whether in some schism or in heresy, because, by crossing over to the Church and anathematizing their former errors, they had ceased to be what they were?

How, then, without baptism, had their crimes not remained upon them? Or was it the baptism of Christ, but it could not profit them outside the communion of the Church; and when they came, and, having anathematized their former error, were received into the peace of the Church through the laying on of hands, then, rooted and grounded in love—without which the rest are fruitless—it began to profit them, both unto the forgiveness of sins and unto the sanctification of life, what they had carried outside without fruit?

7. 12. Do not, then, set against us the authority of Cyprian for the repetition of baptism; but hold with us the example of Cyprian for the preservation of unity. For that question of baptism had not yet been carefully treated, and yet the Church held the most wholesome custom, even in schismatics and heretics themselves, of correcting what is wrong, not repeating what has been given; of healing what is wounded, not curing what is sound.

This custom—coming, I believe, from apostolic tradition, as many things are not found in their writings, nor in the councils of those who came after, and yet, because they are kept throughout the whole Church, are believed to have been handed down and commended by none but the apostles themselves—this most wholesome custom, then, the holy Cyprian says began, as it were, to be corrected through Agrippinus his predecessor (See Cyprian, Ep. 71.3).

But as the more carefully investigated truth taught—the truth which, after great waves of doubt, was brought to the confirmation of a plenary council—it is more truly believed to have begun through Agrippinus to be corrupted, not corrected. And so, when so great a question rushed in, since it was difficult to give a reason about the forgiveness of sins and the spiritual regeneration of man, whether it could take place among heretics or among schismatics, and the authority of Agrippinus went before, along with that of some men who had agreed with him—men failing in this question, who had preferred to contrive something new rather than to keep a custom whose defense they did not understand—plausible reasonings rushed into the eyes of the soul and blocked the road to tracking down the truth.

8. 13. Nor do I think that the blessed Cyprian, for any other reason, set forth rather freely and stated first whatever he thought against the custom, except that he might most gladly accept another, if perhaps one should arise to whom it had been better revealed; and that he might show that not only diligence in teaching but also modesty in learning is to be imitated; and that, if no one should arise who might bring forward something such as would refute all those plausible reasonings by which he was moved, he might remain in the same opinion, well aware in himself both that the truth he supposed had not been concealed, and that the unity he loved had been retained.

For he understood thus also what the Apostle says: Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh; but if anything is revealed to another sitting by, let the first be silent (1 Cor 14:29-30). In which passage, he says, he taught and showed that many things are revealed to individuals for the better, and that each one ought not obstinately to contend on behalf of what he had once imbibed and held, but, if anything better and more useful should appear, gladly to embrace it (Cyprian, Ep. 71.4).

By these words, certainly, he not only admonished those to agree with him who did not see anything better, but also exhorted those, if any could, to bring forward something by which the former custom should rather be confirmed as worth keeping: so that, if it were such as could not be refuted, he himself too might show how truthfully he had said that each one ought not obstinately to contend on behalf of what he had once imbibed and held, but, if anything better and more useful should appear, gladly to embrace it (Cyprian, Ep. 71.4).

But because at that time there were none except those who opposed the custom to him, while they brought forward defenses of the custom itself not such as would move so great a soul, that most weighty man was unwilling that his own reasonings—even if not true (which lay hidden from him), yet not defeated—should yield to a custom that was indeed truthful, yet not yet asserted. And yet, had not Agrippinus before him, and some of his fellow bishops throughout Africa, tried even by the sentences of a council to abandon this custom, he would not have dared even to reason against it; but, troubled in so obscure a question, and everywhere beholding the universal and robust custom, he would rather have constrained himself, both by prayer and by intention of mind, toward God, that he might perceive and teach to be true what afterward seemed good to a plenary council. But when, wearied, he had taken up the authority of the preceding council which was held through Agrippinus, he preferred to defend the view of his predecessors as though it were established, rather than to labor further in inquiry. For at the end of his letter to Quintus he shows thus on what couch of authority, as though weary, he came to rest.

9. 14. This indeed, he says, Agrippinus too, a man of good memory, together with the rest of his fellow bishops who at that time governed the Church of the Lord in the province of Africa and Numidia, decreed, and confirmed by the balanced examination of a common council: whose opinion, religious and lawful, salutary, and agreeable to the faith of the Catholic Church, we too have followed (Cyprian, Ep. 71.4).

By this attestation he sufficiently shows that he would much rather have recalled some council held about this matter overseas or universally, had one been held. But none had yet been held, because the world was held by the strength of custom, and this alone was set against those wishing to introduce a novelty, because they could not grasp the truth. Yet afterward, while it was treated and inquired into among many on both sides, it was not only found but also brought to the authority and strength of a plenary council—after the passion of Cyprian, indeed, but before we were born.

That this was the custom of the Church—which afterward, when many windings had been discussed and the truth perceived, was confirmed by a plenary council—is sufficiently shown also by the words of the blessed Cyprian himself in that same letter to Jubaian, which is recalled 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? (Cyprian, Ep. 73.23)

Here he certainly shows sufficiently what used to be done, even if he did not wish it to be done; and by the very fact that he recalls the council of Agrippinus, he plainly indicates that there was another custom of the Church. For there would have been no need for this council to wish to decree it, if it was already held by custom; and in the council itself certain opinions plainly declare that they decreed against the custom of the Church what they judged ought to be decreed. Therefore let these men consider this one thing, which is plain to all: if the authority of Cyprian is to be followed, it is rather to be followed in preserving unity than in changing the custom of the Church; but if his council is regarded, to it is to be preferred the later council of the universal Church, of which he rejoiced to be a member; and he often admonished the rest to imitate him in keeping themselves within the framework of the whole body. For both later councils are preferred to earlier ones among those who come after, and the whole is always, by the best right, preferred to its parts.

10. 15. But what do these men do, when the holy Cyprian is shown to have been in communion with those who admitted men baptized in heresy or in schism, even if he himself did not admit them—which he most plainly declared, saying: judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref)? 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 retaining unity?

Surely nothing remains here except that they say: It is our will? What else do all disgraceful and criminal men reply to the discourse of truth and justice—the lustful, the drunken, adulterers, and those shameless in every way, thieves, robbers, murderers, brigands, sorcerers, idolaters (See 1 Cor 6:9-10)—what else do they reply when the truth convicts them, except: This I will, this delights me?

And if they have been washed with the Christian name, they even say: Who are you to judge another's servant? (Rom 14:4) Nevertheless, these men are more modest in this, that when they suffer some punishments by the divine and human laws for their lost morals and deeds, they do not call themselves martyrs; but these others wish to have at once both the life of the sacrilegious and the reputation of the innocent, and in wicked deeds no punishment, and in just punishments the glory of martyrs:

as though the mercy and patience of God toward them were not the greater, the more, by reproving them in part, he gives place for repentance (See Wis 12:10), and does not cease to redouble his scourges in this life, that, considering what they suffer and why they suffer it, they may at some time come to their senses:

and that those who have already received the baptism of the Maximianists for the unity of Donatus may rather embrace the baptism of the world for the peace of Christ, may be restored to the root, may be reconciled to unity, may see that nothing has remained for them to say, but that nevertheless something has remained for them to do—that for their past deeds the sacrifice of love may be offered to the God who is appeasable, whose unity they broke by a wicked crime, to whose sacraments they inflicted such long-lasting injuries. For the Lord is merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and very merciful and truthful (See Exod 34:6; Ps 103:8 (102:8)). Let them embrace, in the present life, the merciful and long-suffering one, and let them fear, in the future, the truthful one. For he does not will the death of the impious, so much as that he should turn back and live (See Ezek 18:23; 33:11); for he bends his sentence against the injuries inflicted. This is our exhortation.

11. 16. For this reason we have them as enemies, because we speak the truth, because we are afraid to be silent, because we dread to cease from urging as much as we can, because we obey the Apostle, who says: Preach the word, be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, exhort, rebuke (2 Tim 4:2). But, as the Gospel says, they love the glory of men more than that of God (John 12:43), and they fear to be reproved for a time, but do not fear to be condemned forever.

They themselves also see what evil they do, they see that there is nothing at all for them to reply; but they spread clouds before the unlearned, while they themselves are swallowed up alive—that is, they perish knowing and recognizing it (See Num 16:31-33). They have seen men shudder at, and gravely detest, the fact that they too have divided themselves into many schisms, and especially in the head of Africa and the most renowned city, Carthage:

they tried to patch up the disgrace of their rags. Thinking that they could carry off the Maximianists, with great effort they pressed forward strongly through Optatus the Gildonian, and inflicted on them many evils and most savage persecutions. They received some back from there, thinking that they could convert them all by the same terror; but to those whom they received back they were unwilling to do the injury of baptizing again those baptized by them in schism, or rather of having them rebaptized within by those very men by whom they had been baptized outside, and in this way they laid down a precedent against their own wicked custom. They perceive how wickedly they now act, in that, having received the baptism of the Maximianists, they violate the baptism of the whole world (See Matt 16:25). But they fear their own rebaptized ones, lest perhaps these not spare them, if they themselves spare the rest; lest they exact their souls from them, if they cease to slaughter the souls of others.

12. 17. They find nothing to reply about the Maximianists they received back. If they say, We received them back as innocent, it is answered them: Then you had condemned the innocent. If they say, We did not know, then you judged rashly (so too you pronounced a rash sentence about the betrayers); and you spoke falsely: Know that they have been condemned by the truthful mouth of a plenary council. For the innocent could not be condemned by a truthful mouth.

If they say, We did not condemn them, the council is read out, 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 more than once they alleged that same council, in order to exclude those very Maximianists from the basilicas, and to drive them out by the uproar of lawsuits and the onset of armed aid.

If they say, Felician of Musti and Praetextatus of Assuras, whom they afterward received back, were not with Maximian, the records are read out by which they demanded, from the public courts, on the basis of their own council which they held against the Maximianists, that these men be excluded from the basilicas. If they say, They were received for the sake of peace, it is answered: Why, then, do you not recognize the true and full peace? Who drove you, who compelled you, for the peace of Donatus to receive back a condemned schismatic, and against the peace of Christ to condemn the world unheard?

The truth certainly presses them; they see that they have nothing to reply, and they think they have nothing to do; they find nothing to say. They are not permitted to be silent; they prefer to struggle against the truth with perverse voices than, their errors confessed, to be restored to peace.

13. 18. But who does not understand what they can say in their heart? What, then, do we do, they say, about those whom we have already rebaptized? It is answered: Return with them to the Church; offer for healing, by the medicine of peace, those whom you have wounded; offer for raising, by the love of life, those whom you have slain. Brotherly concord avails much to propitiate God. If two of you, says the Lord, agree on earth, whatever you ask shall be done for you (Matt 18:19). If for two men, how much more for two peoples? Let us together prostrate ourselves before the Lord; share unity with us, let us share grief with you, and let love cover a multitude of sins (See 1 Pet 4:8).

Seek counsel from the blessed Cyprian himself; attend to how much he presumed upon the good of unity, from which he did not break himself away from those who thought differently; and although he judged that those who were baptized outside the communion of the Church did not have baptism, he nevertheless believed that they, once simply admitted into the Church, could, on account of that very bond of unity, attain to pardon.

For thus he resolves the question which he himself set, writing to Jubaian as follows: 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, simply admitted into the Church, have fallen asleep in the Church (Cyprian, Ep. 73.23).

14. 19. But which is the more pernicious—to be not baptized at all, or to be rebaptized—is difficult to judge. I see indeed what men more detest and shudder at; but nevertheless, returning to that scale of the Lord, where the weights of things are weighed not by human sense but by divine authority, I find a sentence of the Lord about each matter. For he said to Peter: He who has been washed has no need of washing again (John 13:10); and to Nicodemus: Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5). What the more secret discernment of God may hold, it is perhaps difficult for men such as we are to know; yet, as far as concerns the very words, it is plain to any man how great is the distance between he has no need of washing and he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Church itself, finally, holds it as a tradition that it cannot at all admit to the altar a man without baptism; but since a rebaptized man may be admitted after penance, what else is shown except that he does not lack baptism?

If, then, Cyprian presumed that those whom he judged to be without baptism nevertheless attained to pardon on account of the bond of unity, the Lord is able, through that very bond of unity and peace, to be appeased toward the rebaptized as well, and to grow gentle toward those by whom they were rebaptized, out of that very recompense of peace, and to pardon all the offenses they had committed in error, when they offer the sacrifice of love, which covers a multitude of sins (See 1 Pet 4:8);

so that he may regard not how many were wounded by their departure, but how many more were freed by their return. For in whatever bond of peace Cyprian believed that, through the mercy of God, those whom he supposed admitted into the Church without baptism could not be separated from the gifts of the Church, in that same bond of peace we believe that, through the same mercy of God, the rebaptized can merit pardon.

15. 20. For the Catholic Church, in the times of the blessed Cyprian, and before him in past time, held within the bosom of unity either the rebaptized or those not having baptism; either the one or the other obtained salvation only by the merit of unity itself. For if those who came from heretics did not have baptism, as Cyprian asserts, they were not rightly admitted; and yet he himself did not despair of pardon for them from the mercy of the Lord on account of the unity of the Church. So then, if they did have baptism, they were not rightly rebaptized; what, therefore, helped them except that same love of unity, so that the divine mercy did not impute to those who loved peace what, in the handling of the sacrament, lay hidden from human weakness?

Why, then, when you fear for your own rebaptized ones, do you begrudge both them and yourselves the entrance to salvation? There was once a doubt about baptism; those who thought differently remained in unity. That doubt, as time went on and the truth was perceived, was removed: a question which, not yet ended, did not deter Cyprian from withdrawing, now ended, invites you to return.

Come to the Catholic Church now in concord, which Cyprian did not desert when it was wavering; or, if the example of Cyprian now displeases you—he who was in communion with those who received men back with the baptism of heretics, openly saying, judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref)—where are you going, wretched men? What are you doing? Flee even yourselves, because you have proceeded from where he remained. But if to him, on account of the abundance of love and his affection for the brotherhood and the bond of peace, neither his own sins nor those of others could do harm, return here, where things that your people have invented will do far less harm both to us and to you.

1. 1. I think it is now manifest to all that the authority of the blessed Cyprian, for retaining the bond of peace and for the most wholesome love of the unity of the Church which is in no way to be violated, is to be set forth rather for us than for the Donatists.

For if they wish to use the example of Cyprian for rebaptizing Catholics, because he judged that heretics were to be baptized in the Catholic Church, we rather use his example, by which he most plainly determined that one must in no way withdraw, 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 was unwilling to remove even from the right of communion those who, as it seemed to him, received unbaptized sacrilegious men into the Catholic communion, saying: judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref).

2. 2. Yet I see what can still be asked of me, namely, that I should reply to those plausible reasonings by which either Agrippinus before, or Cyprian himself, or those who agreed with them in Africa, or perhaps some from overseas and far-distant lands, were moved—not indeed by any council, whether plenary or even regional, but by epistolary conversation—to think that this ought to be done, which both the former custom of the Church did not have, and which afterward the Catholic world excluded with the most robust firmness of consensus: so that what, through disputations of this kind, had begun to creep into the minds of some, the more powerful truth, coming from the salvation of unity, and the universal medicine, might heal.

Let them see, then, how securely I approach this discourse. If I cannot attain and show how to refute what they affirm from the council of Cyprian or his letters—that the baptism of Christ cannot be given through heretics—I shall remain secure in that Church, in whose communion with those who had not agreed with him Cyprian himself remained.

2. 3. But if they say that the Catholic Church existed then for this reason, that there were there a few—or, if they think so, even many—who disapproved of the baptism given among heretics, and baptized those who came from there: What then? Before Agrippinus, with whom this, as it were, new reasoning began, struggling against the custom, was there not a Church?

And finally, after Agrippinus, when—unless there had been a return to the former custom—it would not have been necessary for Cyprian to contrive another council, was there not a Church, because such a custom was held throughout, that the baptism of Christ was held to be none but the baptism of Christ, even if it were 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, taking increase through all the nations, remained; the safest course is to remain in that same custom, which then bore the good and the wicked in one embrace. But if then there was no Church, because sacrilegious heretics were received without baptism, and this was held by universal custom, whence did Donatus appear? From what earth did he sprout? From what sea did he emerge? From what sky did he fall?

We therefore, as I had begun to say, are secure in the communion of that Church through whose universality there is now done what, both before Agrippinus and between Agrippinus and Cyprian, was likewise done through its universality; and whose universality neither Agrippinus deserted, nor Cyprian, nor those who had agreed with them, although they were of another mind than the rest; but with those very men from whom they thought differently they remained in the same communion of unity.

But let them themselves consider where they are, who cannot even say from what they were propagated, if already then the Church had lost heretics and schismatics received without baptism by the contagion of communion:

nor do they themselves agree with Cyprian; for he professed that he remained in communion with the receivers of heretics and schismatics, and through this even with those received; but these men, on account of the name of betrayers whom they defamed in Africa, and did not convict in the overseas judgment, have separated themselves from the communion of the whole world: although, even if they brought forward true crimes, the crimes of heresies and schisms are far greater, from which those coming without baptism, as he himself held, and received into the Catholic communion not through baptism, could not stain Cyprian.

Nor, in the very thing in which they say they imitate Cyprian, do they find what to reply about the baptism of the Maximianists which they received, since they recalled into their communion—into the very same episcopate in which they had condemned them—those whom, of that number whom they condemned by their plenary council, they even persecuted by the judgment of earthly powers.

Therefore, if in the times of Cyprian communion with the wicked destroyed the Church, these men have no origin for their own communion; but if it did not destroy it, they have no defense for their severance: moreover, they neither follow the example of Cyprian, because they broke the bond of unity, nor his very council, because they received the baptism of the Maximianists.

3. 4. Now, then, we, remaining in the example of Cyprian, let us also consider the council of Cyprian. What does Cyprian say? You have heard, he says, most beloved colleagues, what Jubaian our fellow bishop has written to me, consulting our littleness about the unlawful and profane baptism of heretics; and what therefore I wrote back to him, judging, of course, what once and again and often we have judged: that heretics coming to the Church ought to be baptized and sanctified with the baptism of the Church. Likewise there has been read to you another letter of Jubaian, in which, out of his sincere and religious devotion, replying to our letter, he not only agreed but also gave thanks that he had been instructed (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref).

From these words of the blessed Cyprian, we have learned that he was consulted by Jubaian, and what he replied to the one consulting him, and that the other gave thanks that he had been instructed. Are we now to be considered obstinate, if we are willing to consider that very letter by which this was persuaded to Jubaian? For until it is persuaded to us also (if this can be persuaded by true reasonings), Cyprian himself makes us secure about the right of Catholic communion.

3. 5. For it follows, and he says: It remains that we each set forth what we think on this very matter, judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref). He therefore grants me, with the right of communion preserved, not only still to seek the truth, but even to think differently. For none of us, he says, has set himself up to be a bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror drives his colleagues to the necessity of obeying (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref). What more gentle? What more humble? Certainly no authority deters us from seeking what is true. Since every bishop, he says, according to the license of his liberty and power, has his own free judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref):

in those questions, I suppose, certainly, which have not yet been discussed with the most refined perception. For he knew how great a profundity of the sacrament the whole Church was then turning over in varied disputation, and he made the judgment of inquiry free, so that the truth, once examined, might be laid open.

For he was not lying, and thinking to catch his simpler colleagues in a word, so that when they had betrayed that they thought differently, he might then, contrary to what he had promised, judge them to be excommunicated. Far be this wicked treachery from so holy a soul; those who think this of such a man, as though to his praise, profess nothing else than that they themselves are such.

I could in no way at all believe that Cyprian, a Catholic bishop, a Catholic martyr, and the greater he was, the more humbling himself in all things, that he might find grace before God (See Sir 3:18), brought forth from his mouth—especially in a holy council of his colleagues—anything other than what he bore in his heart, especially since he adds and says: But let us all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has the power both of setting us over the governance of his Church and of judging our conduct (Cyprian, Sent. episc., pref). Under the recollection, then, of so great a judgment, awaiting to hear the truth from his colleagues, would he be the first to set them an example of lying? May God turn this madness away from any Christian whatever, how much more from Cyprian! We have, therefore, the free choice of inquiry, granted to us by Cyprian's own most gentle and most truthful discourse.

4. 6. Now indeed his colleagues begin to bring forward their own opinions; but they had heard the letter given to Jubaian. For it was read out, as was recalled in the opening. Let it therefore be read out to us also, that we too may from it track down, 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 Jubaian? I have already read it, I confess; and I would assuredly have gone over to the same opinion, had not so great an authority of others recalled me to a more diligent consideration—men whom the Church spread throughout the whole world, the Church which had also borne him himself, could bear, men either equal in the grace of learning, or even perhaps more learned, through so many nations, Latin, Greek, barbarian, and the Hebrew itself,

who could in no way seem to me to have been unwilling to hold this opinion in vain: not because it could not happen that, in a most obscure question, one or a few should think more truly than the many; but because a sentence is not easily to be passed for one or a few against innumerable men of the same religion and unity, endowed both with great talent and with abundant learning, unless the matters have been handled and perceived to the best of one's power.

And so, to one who inquires more anxiously, how much even the letters of Cyprian himself have supplied to me in favor of this opinion which the Catholic Church now holds—that the baptism of Christ is to be recognized and approved not from the merit of those through whom it is given, but from the merit of him of whom it was said, This is he who baptizes (John 1:33)—the matter itself will show in the course of our discourse.

Let us therefore now suppose that letter, which was given to Jubaian by him, read out to us, as it was read out in the council. Let him first read it, who is going to read these things that I am about to say, lest he should perhaps think that I have left out something necessary. For it is too long, and does not pertain to the explanation of the matter undertaken, that all the words of this letter should now be recalled by us.

5. 7. But if anyone asks what I hold in the meantime while I treat these things, I answer: first, the letters of Cyprian have supplied me with what to hold, until I perceive what sort of thing it is that began afterward to be disputed. 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? (Cyprian, Ep. 73.23) Whether these were truly without baptism, or whether they were admitted for the reason that those who admitted them understood them to have baptism, we shall presently consider. Nevertheless, what the custom of the Church used to be, the same Cyprian sufficiently shows, who says that in the past those coming from heresy to the Church were admitted without baptism.

5. 8. Castus of Sicca also says in that same 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 (Cyprian, Sent. episc. 28).

Whether the truth has been revealed, we shall presently inquire; yet that there was another custom of the Church, even this man has confessed.

6. 9. Libosus of Vaga also says: In the Gospel the Lord says, I am the truth (John 14:6); he did not say, I am custom. And so, the truth being made manifest, let custom yield to truth (Cyprian, Sent. episc. 30).

Clearly, who would doubt that custom ought to yield to manifest truth? But about the manifested truth we shall see; yet now this man too makes manifest that there was another custom.

7. 10. Likewise Zosimus of Tharassa said: When the revelation of truth has been made, let error yield to truth: for Peter too, who formerly circumcised, yielded to Paul preaching the truth (Cyprian, Sent. episc. 56).

This man indeed was unwilling to say "custom," but "error"; yet when he says, For Peter too, who formerly circumcised, yielded to Paul preaching the truth, he sufficiently indicates that something else about baptism also used to be done. At the same time he reminds us that it was not impossible for Cyprian to be of another mind about baptism than the truth demanded—the truth which was retained by the Church both before him and after him—if even Peter could be of another mind about something which the truth did not hold, as we learned with the apostle Paul as our teacher (See Gal 2:11-14).

8. 11. Likewise Felix of Buslacenum said: In admitting heretics without the baptism of the Church, let no one set custom before reason and truth; because reason and truth always exclude custom (Cyprian, Sent. episc. 63).

If it is reason, if it is truth, excellent; but this we shall presently see. Meanwhile, that there was another custom appears even from this man's words.

9. 12. Likewise Honoratus of Tucca said: Since Christ is the truth, we ought to follow truth rather than custom (Cyprian, Sent. episc. 77).

By all these opinions it is declared that we are not established outside the communion of the Church, until the truth, which they say is to be set before this custom, has shone clearly. But if the truth shall reveal that what that custom had prescribed is to be retained, it will be manifest both that the custom was not instituted and strengthened in vain, and that, even after these disputations, the most wholesome observance of so great a sacrament could not be changed in the Catholic Church, but, confirmed by the still greater strength of councils, is most religiously kept.

10. 13. Cyprian therefore writes to Jubaian about the baptism of heretics, who, as it seems to him, being placed outside and established outside the Church, claim for themselves a thing belonging neither to their right nor to their power; which we, he says, can think neither valid nor lawful, since it is established that this is unlawful among them (Cyprian, Ep. 73.1).

Nor do we deny that one who is baptized among heretics or in some schism outside the communion of the Church does not profit by it insofar as he consents to the perversity of heretics and schismatics; nor that those who baptize, although they give the very and true sacrament of baptism, nevertheless do not act rightly in gathering outside the Church and thinking against the Church.

But it is one thing not to have something, another not to have it by right or to usurp it unlawfully. The sacraments of Christ and the Church are therefore not less his sacraments because not only heretics, but also all the wicked and impious, use them unlawfully. Yet these men are to be corrected or punished; but those sacraments are to be acknowledged and venerated.

10. 14. He says, to be sure, that on this matter not one, but two or more councils were held, yet African ones. For he recalls that in a certain one there were seventy-one bishops (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.1), to whose authority, all of them, we do not doubt—with the peace of Cyprian himself—to prefer the authority of the universal Church spread throughout the whole world with far more bishops, of which universal Church he rejoiced to be an unpluckable member.

10. 15. But the water over which the name of God is invoked is not profane and adulterous, even if it is invoked by the profane and adulterous; because neither is the creation itself adulterous, nor the name itself. But the baptism of Christ, consecrated by the words of the Gospel, is holy both through adulterers and in adulterers, though they be shameless and unclean; because its holiness itself cannot be polluted, and the divine power assists its sacrament, whether for the salvation of those who use it well, or for the ruin of those who use it ill.

Or does the light of the sun, or even of a lamp, when it is spread over filthy places, contract no defilement thence, and can the baptism of Christ be befouled by anyone's crimes? For if we direct our mind to the very visible things by which the sacraments are administered, who does not know that they are corruptible? But if to that which is done through them, who does not see that it cannot be corrupted, although the men through whom it is done, according to their morals, either receive rewards or pay penalties?

11. 16. But rightly was Cyprian not moved by what Jubaian wrote: that the Novatianists rebaptize those who came to them from the Catholic Church (Cyprian, Ep. 73.2). For whatever heretics have perversely imitated is not therefore not to be done by Catholics because those men do it likewise.

But there is one reason why heretics ought not to rebaptize, another why the Catholic Church ought not. For heretics ought not to do it even if it were to be done in the Catholic Church; because they say that this does not exist among Catholics, which they themselves received when they were there, and took away when they departed. But the Catholic Church ought not to repeat the baptism given among heretics, lest it seem to judge that what is Christ's belongs to them, or that they do not have what, since they received it within, they certainly could not lose by going outside.

For this Cyprian himself too decreed with the rest (See Cyprian, Ep. 71.2; Sent. episc. 8): that if any who had been baptized in any heresy returned to the Church, they should be received not now through baptism, but through penance; whence it is established that they cannot lose by departing what they do not receive by returning. But just as their heresy is theirs, as their error is theirs, as the sacrilege of dissension is theirs, so the baptism which is Christ's ought not to be called theirs. And so, when those evils of theirs are corrected when they return, in that which is not theirs he is to be acknowledged whose it is.

12. 17. But the blessed Cyprian shows that he did not decree a new or sudden thing, because it had already begun to be done under Agrippinus. It is many years, he says, and a long age, since under Agrippinus, a man of good memory, very many bishops, coming together, decreed this (Cyprian, Ep. 73.3).

Accordingly, by Agrippinus himself the new thing was done. But how he can say, And from then to this day so many thousands of heretics in our provinces, converted to the Church, have not scorned, nor hesitated, but rather both reasonably and gladly embraced it, so that they might obtain the grace of the life-giving and saving washing of baptism (Cyprian, Ep. 73.3), I do not see; unless perhaps he says this, from then to this day, because no question of any excommunication arose about those who, from the time they were baptized in the Church through the council of Agrippinus, were baptized.

But if the custom of baptizing those coming from heretics had continued from Agrippinus down to Cyprian, why were councils held by Cyprian on this matter? Why does he say to that same Jubaian that he is not doing a new or sudden thing, but one instituted by Agrippinus? For why would Jubaian be disturbed about a novelty, so that he had to be healed by the authority of Agrippinus, if the Church had held this from Agrippinus down to Cyprian? Why, finally, did so many of his colleagues in the council say that reason and truth are to be set before custom, and not rather say that those who wished to do otherwise were acting both against truth and against custom?

13. 18. But about the forgiveness of sins, whether it takes place through baptism among heretics, what seemed to me I have already written in another volume; but here too I recall it briefly.

If forgiveness of debts takes place there through the holiness of baptism, the debts return again through the obstinacy of heresy or schism; and therefore men of this kind have it as necessary to come to Catholic peace, that they may now cease to be heretics and schismatics, and may merit, by love working in the bond of unity, the purgation of those sins which had returned upon them.

But if, although among heretics or schismatics it is the same baptism of Christ, yet it does not there work the forgiveness of sins, on account of that same foulness of discord and iniquity of dissension: then the same baptism begins to avail for the forgiveness of sins when they have come to the peace of the Church; so that what was truly forgiven is not retained; and not so that that baptism, as though foreign or another, is disapproved, that another may be administered; but so that the very same baptism, which on account of discord was working death outside, may on account of peace work salvation within.

For it was the same odor of which the Apostle says: We are the good odor of Christ in every place; and yet, both in those who are being saved, he says, and in those who are perishing: to some indeed an odor of life unto life, but to others an odor of death unto death (2 Cor 2:15-16). And even though he said this about another matter, I have set it down for this purpose, that it may be understood that some good can work not only life for those who use it well, but also death for those who use it ill.

14. 19. Nor does it matter, when the integrity and holiness of the sacrament is treated, what he believes and with what sort of faith he is imbued who receives the sacrament. It matters indeed very much for the way of salvation, but for the question of the sacrament it matters nothing.

For it can happen that a man has an intact sacrament and a perverse faith: just as it can happen that he holds the words of the Creed intact, and yet does not rightly believe, whether about the Trinity itself, or about the resurrection, or something else. For it is no small thing, within the Catholic Church itself, to hold an intact faith, so as to believe nothing otherwise than the truth holds, not about any creation at all, but about God himself.

Is a man, then, if baptized in the Catholic Church itself, who afterward, by reading, hearing, and peaceably discussing, with the Lord himself revealing it, has recognized that he had previously believed otherwise than he ought, to be baptized again? But what carnal and natural man does not wander through the phantasms of his own heart, and set up for himself a God such as pleases him according to his carnal sense, and so believe him to be 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 that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). And yet he was saying this about those whom he himself makes plain to have been already baptized. For he says to them: Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor 1:13) 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, where the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God? To such men 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; but neither indeed are you now able, for you are still carnal (1 Cor 3:1-3).

Such men are also carried about by every wind of doctrine, of whom he says: That we may no longer be little ones, tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine (Eph 4:14). Are these men, then, if they have advanced to the spiritual age of the interior man, and by the sincerity of understanding have recognized how far otherwise, through the deceit of their phantasms, they believed about God than the truth demanded, to be baptized again?

So too it can happen that a Catholic catechumen comes upon the book of some heretic, and, not knowing how to distinguish error from truth, believes something against the Catholic faith; an error which, nevertheless, the words of the Creed do not contradict: for under these same words innumerable errors of heretics have arisen.

Thinking, then, that this book belongs to some great and learned Catholic, if, believing such things, he is baptized in the Catholic Church, and by later diligence recognizes how he ought to believe, and, having seized the Catholic faith, rejects that error from his soul, is he, if he confesses this, to be baptized again?

Or if, before he learns and confesses, he is found to hold this opinion, and is taught what he ought to cast off and what to believe, and it becomes manifest that he was baptized in that falsity of faith, is he to be baptized again? Why so? Because that holiness of the sacrament, consecrated by the words of the Gospel, remained intact over him, just as he had received it handed down; although he himself, established in the vanity of a carnal mind, believed, when he was baptized, something other than he ought to have believed.

Therefore it is manifest that it can happen that, with faith not intact, the sacrament of baptism remains intact in someone; and therefore the things that are said about the variety of the different heretics do not pertain to this question. For in each one that is to be corrected which the one through whom he is corrected perceives to be wrong. That is to be healed which is sick; that is to be given which is not had, and above all the love of peace, without which the rest cannot profit. But nevertheless, when those things are present, they are not to be administered as though they were absent; but, so that they may be had fruitfully and not perniciously, one must act through the very bond of peace and the preeminence of love.

15. 20. Wherefore, 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 (Matt 28:19), the sacrament was intact; although his faith, holding under those same words something other than the Catholic truth teaches, was not intact, but defiled by fabulous falsehoods. For under those 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 very carnal little ones of the Church (to whom the Apostle said, I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal (1 Cor 3:1)), if each could be carefully questioned, would be counted as having perhaps as many diversities of opinions as there are men; for the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). Do they on that account not receive an intact sacrament? Or, if they make progress and amend the vanity of their carnal opinions, must what they received be on that account repeated?

Each one receives according to his faith (See Matt 9:29), but as much as he grasps under the governance of that mercy of God, presuming on which the same Apostle says: If you are of any other mind, this too God will reveal to you (Phil 3:15). Yet the snares of heretics and schismatics are for this reason exceedingly pernicious to the carnal, because their very advancement is blocked, with the opinion of vanity confirmed against the Catholic truth, and the animosity of dissension confirmed against Catholic peace. Yet the sacraments, if they are the same, are everywhere intact, even if they are wrongly understood and discordantly handled: just as the writing of the Gospel itself, if it is the very same, is everywhere intact, even if it is maintained with an innumerable variety of false opinions.

For as to what Jeremiah says (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.1 and 6): Why do those who afflict me prevail? My wound is grievous; whence shall I be healed? It has become to me like deceitful water that has no faithfulness (Jer 15:18); if water were nowhere set down in the figurative and allegorical speech of prophecy except such as signified baptism, we should labor to seek what these words of Jeremiah mean: but now, since in the Apocalypse the waters are most plainly explained as set for peoples (See Rev 17:15), why I should not understand deceitful and faithless water to mean a deceitful and faithless people, I do not know.

16. 21. But as for what is said—that the Holy Spirit is given through the laying on of hands only in the Catholic Church—our elders surely wished this to be understood as what the Apostle says: For the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). For that is the very love which those do not have who are cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church; and on this account, 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 as to remove mountains, and distribute all their goods to the poor, and hand over their body to be burned, it profits them nothing (See 1 Cor 13:1-3).

But he does not have the love of God who does not love the unity of the Church; and on this account it is rightly understood to be said that the Holy Spirit is received only in the Catholic Church. For the Holy Spirit is now given through the laying on of hands not with temporal and sensible miracles bearing witness, as it was formerly given for the commendation of a fledgling faith and for enlarging the beginnings of the Church. For who now expects that those upon whom hands are laid for receiving the Holy Spirit should suddenly begin to speak with tongues? But it is understood that, invisibly and latently, on account of the bond of peace, divine love is breathed into their hearts, so that they can say: For the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). But many are the operations of the Holy Spirit, which the same Apostle, when in a certain place he had recalled as many as he judged sufficient (See 1 Cor 12:8-10), concluded thus: But all these the one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each his own as he wills (1 Cor 12:11).

Since, then, the sacrament is one thing, which even Simon Magus could have (See Acts 8:13); the operation of the Spirit another, which is wont to take place even in wicked men, as Saul had prophecy (See 1 Sam 10:6, 10); the operation of the same Spirit another, which none but the good can have, such as is the end of the commandment, love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (See 1 Tim 1:5): whatever heretics and schismatics receive, the love which covers a multitude of sins (See 1 Pet 4:8) is the proper gift of Catholic unity and peace; nor is it the gift of all within it, because not all belong to it, as we shall see in its place. Yet apart from that love those other things cannot exist, without which the rest, even if they can be acknowledged and approved, nevertheless cannot profit and set free. But the laying on of hands cannot, like baptism, fail to be repeated. For what else is it but a prayer over a man?

17. 22. For as to what the Lord gave to Peter, in a figure of unity, that there should be loosed in heaven what he had loosed on earth (See Matt 16:19), it is manifest that that unity was also called the one perfect dove (See Song 6:9). Do, then, all the greedy belong to that same dove, about whom the same Cyprian grievously groaned within the Catholic Church itself (See Cyprian, De lapsis 6)? For, as I think, the rapacious can be called not doves but hawks. How, then, did those baptize who seized estates by treacherous frauds, and increased their interest by multiplying usuries, if that dove alone—that is, that unity which cannot be understood except among the good—simple and chaste and perfect, baptizes? Or is it perhaps that, through the prayers of the spiritual saints who are in the Church, as through the most frequent groaning of the dove, a great sacrament is carried on, and the hidden dispensation of God's mercy, so that even the sins of those are loosed who are baptized not by the dove but by the hawk, if they approach that sacrament with the peace of Catholic unity? But if it is so, why, then, are not a man's sins loosed through their prayers when he comes from heresy or schism to Catholic peace? But the integrity of the sacrament is recognized everywhere, yet for that irrevocable forgiveness of sins it will not avail outside the unity of the Church. Nor can the prayers of the saints—that is, the groanings of that one dove—help a man established in heresy or schism; just as they cannot help one placed within, if he holds against himself, through a most wicked life, the debts of his sins, not only if he is baptized through the hawk, but even if through the pious ministry of the dove itself.

18. 23. As the Father has sent me, he says, so I send you. When he had said this, he breathed upon them and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit: if you forgive anyone's sins, they shall be forgiven him; if you retain anyone's, they shall be retained (John 20:21-23; see Cyprian, Ep. 73.7). Therefore, if they bore the person of the Church, and this was said to them as though it were said to the Church itself, the peace of the Church forgives sins, and estrangement from the peace of the Church retains sins—not according to the discretion of men, but according to the discretion of God and the prayers of the spiritual saints, who judge all things, but are themselves judged by no one (See 1 Cor 2:15).

For the rock retains, the rock forgives; the dove retains, the dove forgives; unity retains, unity forgives. But the peace of this unity is among the good alone—either those already spiritual, or those making progress toward spiritual things by concordant obedience: among the wicked, however, it is not, whether they make tumult outside, or are tolerated within with groaning, and both baptize and are baptized.

But just as those who are tolerated within with groaning, although they do not belong to that same unity of the dove, and to that glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing (See Eph 5:27), nevertheless, if they are corrected and confess that they approached baptism as most wicked men, are not rebaptized, but begin to belong to the dove, through whose groanings their sins are loosed, by being estranged from whose peace they were held bound: so too those who are more openly outside, if they have received the same sacraments, when, corrected, they come to the unity of the Church, are set free not by a repeated baptism, but by the same law of love and bond of unity.

For if it is permitted to baptize only to those set over the Church, and grounded in the evangelical law and the Lord's ordinance (Cyprian, Ep. 73.7), were they such, who seized estates by treacherous frauds and increased their interest by multiplying usuries (See Cyprian, De lapsis 6)? For I think that those are grounded in the Lord's ordinance to whom the Apostle, in giving the rule, said: Not greedy, not eager for base gain (Titus 1:7).

Yet such men baptized in the times of Cyprian himself, whom he confesses with great groaning to have been his fellow bishops, and whom he endures with the great reward of toleration. Yet they did not give forgiveness of sins, which is given through the prayers of the saints—that is, through the groanings of the dove—whoever baptizes, if those to whom it is given belong to its peace. For the Lord would not say to robbers and usurers: If you forgive anyone's sins, they shall be forgiven him; if you retain anyone's, they shall be retained (John 20:23). Outside, indeed, nothing can be either bound or loosed, where there is no one who can either bind or loose (Cyprian, Ep. 73.8): 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.

18. 24. But as for Dathan and Abiram, who tried to usurp for themselves the license of sacrificing against the unity of the people of God, and the sons of Aaron who placed strange fire on the altar, we know that they did not do this with impunity (See Num 16; Lev 10:1-2). Nor do we say that such crimes remain unpunished, unless such men have corrected themselves, if the patience of God, leading to repentance (See Rom 2:4), grants time for correcting them.

19. 25. Those, indeed, who say that baptism is not to be repeated because hands only were laid upon those whom Philip the deacon had baptized (See Acts 8:5-17; Cyprian, Ep. 73.9), say nothing pertaining to the matter; and far be it that, when we seek the truth, we should use such arguments. Wherefore we rather do not yield to the heretics if we say that what they have of the Church of Christ is not theirs, and if, on account of the crimes of the deserters, we are unwilling not to recognize the standards of our Emperor (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.10.1): rather, because the Lord our God is a jealous God (Deut 4:24), whatever of his we recognize in anyone, let us in no way concede to that man that he should think it his own. God himself certainly reproaches the woman who fornicates away from him, in a figure of the prevaricating people, and says that the things which were his he gave to her lovers, and received again from them what was not theirs but his (See Hos 2:5; 8:9). Between the adulterous woman and the adulterous lovers, God nevertheless, as one jealous and angry, recognizes his own gifts (See Hos 2:8): and shall we say that the baptism consecrated by the words of the Gospel is the heretics', moved by their deeds to attribute to them even the things that are God's, as though they could contaminate them, or make their own the things that are God's, because they themselves were unwilling to be God's?

19. 26. Who is that adulterous woman whom the prophet Hosea designates, who said: I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my garments and my linens, and all things that befit me (Hos 2:5)? It is permitted indeed to understand this also of the prevaricating nation of the Jews: but yet whom else do the false Christians imitate (for this is what all heretics and schismatics are), except false Israelites?

For there were also true Israelites, as the Lord himself bears witness to Nathanael, saying: Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile (John 1:47). But who are the true Christians, except those of whom the same Lord says: He who loves me keeps my commandments (John 14:21)? But what is it to keep his commandments, except to persist in love? Hence he also says: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another (John 13:34); and again: By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35). But who would doubt that this was said not to those alone who then, through his flesh, heard the words of the one present, but also to those who now, through the Gospel, know the words of the one seated in heaven?

For he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (See Matt 5:17). But the fullness of the law is love (See Rom 13:10). In which Cyprian flourished greatly, so that, thinking otherwise about baptism, he nevertheless did not desert unity, and was a fruitful branch rooted in the Lord's vine, which the heavenly husbandman would even prune with the iron of his passion, that it might bear more fruit (See John 15:1-5).

But the enemies of this brotherly love, whether they are openly outside or seem to be within, are false Christians and antichrists. For, having found occasions, they go outside, as it is written: He who wishes to depart from friends seeks occasions (Prov 18:1). But even if occasions are lacking, when they seem to be within, they are separated from that invisible framework 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 (1 John 2:19). He did not say that by going out they became alien; but that they were alien, on this account he declared that they went out.

The Apostle also speaks of certain men who had wandered from the truth and were subverting the faith of some, whose talk crept like a cancer, whom, when he said they were to be avoided, he nevertheless indicates to have been in one great house, but as vessels for dishonor. I believe that they had not yet gone outside. Or if they had already gone outside, how does he say they were in that same great house with the honorable vessels—unless perhaps, on account of the very sacraments, which were not changed even in the separated assemblies of the heretics, he says that all belong to one great house, but with different merits, some for honor, some for dishonor?

For thus he speaks, writing to Timothy: But avoid profane novelties of words; for they will advance much toward impiety, and their talk creeps like a cancer: among whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they subvert the faith of some. But the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are his; and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only gold or silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen; and some indeed are for honor, but others for dishonor. If anyone, then, cleanses himself from such things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work (2 Tim 2:16-21). But what is it to cleanse oneself from such men, except what he said a little before: Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity?

And lest anyone should think he could perish, as though in one great house, together with such men, he most vigilantly foretold: The Lord knows those who are his—namely, those who, by departing from iniquity, cleanse themselves from the vessels made for dishonor, lest they perish along with those whom they are compelled to tolerate in the great house.

19. 27. The wicked, then, and the criminal, the carnal, the natural, the diabolical, suppose that the things which are nothing but the gifts of God—whether the sacraments, or certain spiritual operations concerning present salvation—are given to them by their seducers. But these men do not have love toward God, but are taken up with those by whose pride they are seduced, and they are likened to the fornicating woman whom the prophet recalls saying: I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my garments and my linens and my oil, and all things that befit me (Hos 2:5). For thus heresies and schisms come about, when the carnal people, not grounded in the love of God, says: I will go after my lovers—with whom, certainly, whether through corruption of faith or through the elation of pride, it shamefully fornicates. But on account of those who, having suffered difficulties and straits and obstructions in the empty reasonings of those by whom they are seduced, are pricked by fears, and return to the way of peace and to seeking God sincerely; therefore it follows and says: Therefore, behold, I will hedge her way with stakes, and I will build up thorns in her path, and she shall not find her track; and she shall pursue her lovers, but shall not overtake them, and shall seek them, but shall not find them; and she shall say: I will go and return to my former husband, for it was better with me then than now (Hos 2:6-7).

Then, lest the things which the seducers have should be thought intact and coming from the doctrine of truth—the things through which they seduce men toward the falsehoods of their dogmas and dissensions—lest, then, the intact things they have should be thought theirs, he at once added: And she did not know that I gave her grain and wine and oil, and multiplied silver for her; but she made gold and silver for Baal (Hos 2:8).

For she had said above: I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread, and so on—not at all understanding that these things are God's, not men's, whatever even the seducers hold intact and lawful: nor would they arrogate these things to themselves and claim them as their own, were they not in turn seduced by the seduced peoples, when they are believed and such honors are paid them, so that through them they may have the power of saying such things and claiming such things for themselves; so that their error may be called truth, and their crime thought justice, on account of the sacraments and Scriptures which they hold for appearance, not for salvation.

And therefore through Ezekiel too it is said to the same fornicatress: And you took from the vessels of your glory, of my gold and of my silver, which I gave you, and you made for yourself male images, and fornicated with them. And you took my many-colored garment, and covered your idols; and my oil and my incense you set before the face of your idols, and my bread which I gave you; and with fine flour and honey and oil I fed you; and you set these before the face of your idols as a sweet-smelling odor. And you accomplished these things (Ezek 16:17-19). For to the images of its own phantasms, with which the carnal soul delights to wallow, it turns all the sacraments and the words of the holy Books. Yet not because those images are false, and are doctrines of demons, in the hypocrisy of liars (See 1 Tim 4:1-2), are those sacraments too, and the divine words, to be so dishonored that they be reckoned theirs: since the Lord says: Of my gold and of my silver and my many-colored garment, and my oil and incense and my bread, and the rest. Or because those erring ones think these things belong to those by whom they are seduced, are we therefore not to recognize whose they are; when he himself says: And she did not know that I gave her grain and wine and oil, and multiplied silver for her (Hos 2:8)? For he did not say that she did not have these things, because she was a fornicatress: rather, she is said both to have had them, and that they were not hers nor her lovers', but God's, whose alone these things are. Therefore, although she had her fornication, yet the things with which she adorned that fornication—whether seduced or seducing—were not hers, but God's.

If these things were prefigured about the Jewish nation, where the scribes and Pharisees rejected the commandment of God in order to establish their own traditions, so that with the people forsaking God they fornicated, as it were, in a certain manner; and yet such fornication in the people of that time, which the Lord by reproving brought to light, did not bring it about that the sacraments were theirs, which were not theirs but God's, who, speaking to the fornicatress, says that all those things are his; whence the Lord himself even sent those whom he cleansed from leprosy to those same sacraments, that they might offer sacrifice for themselves to the priests, because there had not yet succeeded for them the sacrifice which he afterward willed to be celebrated in the Church in place of all those, because in all those he himself was foretold: how much more ought we, finding the sacraments of the New Testament among any heretics or schismatics, not to attribute them to those men, nor to reject them as though unrecognized; but, although it be in a fornicating woman, to recognize the gifts of the lawful husband, and by the word of truth to amend that fornication which is proper to the unchaste woman, not to blame those gifts which are proper to the merciful Lord?

19. 28. By the consideration of these and such matters our fathers, not only before Cyprian or Agrippinus, but also afterward, held the most wholesome custom, that whatever divine and lawful thing they found intact in any heresy or schism, they should rather approve than deny; but whatever was alien, and proper to that error or dissension, they should truthfully reprove and heal.

But the things which remain to be considered from that letter which was written to Jubaian, on account of the length of this volume, are, as I think, to be taken up and treated from another beginning.

1. 1. The Church, compared to Paradise (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.10.3), indicates to us that men can indeed receive its baptism even outside it, but that no one can either obtain or hold the salvation of blessedness outside it. For the rivers too, from the spring of Paradise, as Scripture testifies, flowed forth abundantly even outside. For they are recalled by name, and through what lands they flow, and that they are established outside Paradise, is known to all (See Gen 2:10-14); and yet in Mesopotamia or in Egypt, where those rivers reached, there is not the felicity of life that is recalled in Paradise. So it comes about that, though the water of Paradise is outside Paradise, the blessedness nevertheless is only within Paradise. So, then, the baptism of the Church can be outside the Church, but the gift of the blessed life is found only within the Church: which is also founded upon the rock, which received the keys of binding and loosing (See Matt 16:18-19). This is the one which holds and possesses all the power of her bridegroom and Lord: by which conjugal power she can bear children even from handmaids; who, if they are not proud, are called into the lot of the inheritance; but if they are proud, they will remain outside (See Gal 4:22, 31).

2. 2. The more, then, because we fight for the honor and unity of the Church, let us not attribute to heretics whatever of hers we recognize among them: but, reproving them, let us teach 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 (Cyprian, Ep. 73.11.2) to those who use it well. But no one can use it well outside the Church. To those who use it ill, however, both outside and within, it is carried on for punishment, it does not avail for reward. And therefore baptism cannot be corrupted and adulterated, even if it is had by the corrupt and adulterous: just as the Church herself too is incorrupt and chaste and modest; and therefore the greedy, the rapacious, the usurers, do not belong to her—whom Cyprian himself testifies, in many places of his writings, to be not only outside but also within: and yet, with their hearts unchanged, they are baptized and baptize.

2. 3. For this too he says in a certain letter of his to the clergy about beseeching God, transferring to himself, like the holy Daniel, the sins of his people. For among the many evils he recalls, he also says this: renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds (Cyprian, Ep. 11.1): as the Apostle says of certain men: For they confess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him (Titus 1:16).

These, then, the blessed Cyprian charges to dwell within the Church itself, who are baptized with their heart unchanged for the better, since they certainly renounce the world in words, not in deeds, whereas the apostle Peter says: So too baptism now saves you by a like form; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience to God (1 Pet 3:21); which certainly they 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, that at some time they may walk in the way of Christ, and prefer to be his friends rather than the world's.

3. 4. If they had obeyed him, and had begun now to live rightly, not as false Christians, but as true Christians, would he order them to be baptized again? Certainly not; rather, true conversion would bestow this upon them, that the sacrament which, while they were unchanged, availed for ruin, might, once they were changed, begin to avail for salvation. For these too are not devoted to the Church (Cyprian, Ep. 73.11.3), who seem to be within and live against Christ—that is, act against the commandments of Christ: nor are they to be judged to belong at all to that Church which he so cleanses with the washing of water in the word, that he may present to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing (See Eph 5:26-27). 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: One is my dove, the only one of her mother (Song 6:9): for that is the one without spot or wrinkle. Or let him assert, who can, that those who renounce the world in words, not in deeds, are members of this dove (See Rom 14:6; Cyprian, Ep. 11.1).

Meanwhile, as for what we see—whence, I think, it was said: He who minds the day, minds it to the Lord (Rom 14:6): for God judges every day. But according to his foreknowledge, who knows whom he has predestined before the foundation of the world to be conformed to the image of his Son (See Rom 8:29; Eph 1:4), many even who are openly outside, and are called heretics, are better than many good Catholics. For what they are today, we see; what they will be tomorrow, we do not know. And to God indeed, with whom the things that are to come are present, even what they will be already is: but we, according to what each man is in the present, ask whether he is to be counted today among the members of that Church which is called the one dove, and the bride of Christ without spot or wrinkle,

of whom Cyprian says, in the letter which I have recalled, that they did not hold the way of the Lord, nor keep the heavenly commandments given them for salvation, that they did not do the will of the Lord: zealous for patrimony and gain, pursuing pride, given over to rivalry and dissension, neglectful of simplicity and faith, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds, each pleasing himself and displeasing all (Cyprian, Ep. 11.1).

But if that dove does not recognize them among her members, and to such men, if they remain in the same perversity, the Lord is going to say: I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity (Matt 7:23): they seem to be in the Church, but they are not; rather, they even act against the Church. How, then, can they baptize with the baptism of the Church (Cyprian, Ep. 73.11.3), which profits neither themselves nor those who receive it, unless they are inwardly changed by true conversion, so that the sacrament itself, which did not profit them when they received it, while they were renouncing the world in words and not in deeds, may begin to profit them when they have begun to renounce it in deeds too (See Cyprian, Ep. 11.1)? So too with those whose separation is open; because neither these nor those are today among the members of that dove, but some of them perhaps will be.

4. 5. We therefore 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 outside, or secretly separated within—we receive with due veneration, those men being corrected in that wherein they went astray. But just as I seem to be pressed when it is said to me, Does a heretic, then, forgive sins? (Cyprian, Ep. 73.12.2), so I too press when I say: Does, then, he who does not keep the heavenly commandments—the greedy, the rapacious, the usurer, the envious, renouncing the world in words and not in deeds—forgive sins? (Cyprian, Ep. 11.1)

If through the power of the sacrament of God, then both the one and the other; if through his own merit, then neither the one nor the other. For that sacrament is recognized to be Christ's even in wicked men: but in the body of the one dove, incorrupt, holy, modest, not having spot or wrinkle (See Eph 5:27), neither the one nor the other is found. And just as baptism does not profit the one receiving it who renounces the world in words and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Ep. 11.1), so it does not profit him who is baptized in heresy or in schism: but to each, when corrected, that begins to profit which before did not profit, but nevertheless was present.

4. 6. One baptized in heresy, then, does not become a temple of God (Cyprian, Ep. 73.12.2): is he, however, on that account not to be held as baptized? For neither does the greedy man baptized within become a temple of God, if he has not departed 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 the rapacious will possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:10). For the same apostle in another place compares greed to the service of idols: And greed, he says, which is the service of idols (Eph 5:5; Col 3:5). Which sense the same Cyprian so heightened in his letter to Antonian (See Cyprian, Ep. 55.27) that he did not hesitate to compare greed to the sin of those who in time of persecution had professed by certificates that they would offer incense.

So, then, one baptized in heresy in the name of the holy Trinity nevertheless does not become a temple of God, if he has not departed from heresy, just as neither does one baptized in greed in the same name become a temple of God, if he does not depart from greed, which is the service of idols. For this too the same apostle says: What agreement has the temple of God with idols? (2 Cor 6:16) Let it therefore not be asked of us whose temple of God he becomes whom we say does not become a temple of God (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.12.2). And yet he is not on that account not baptized, nor does his unclean error bring it about that the sacrament he received, consecrated by the words of the Gospel, is not holy: just as neither can the greed of that other man—which is the service of idols and a great uncleanness—bring it about that the baptism he receives is not holy, even if he is baptized by another greedy man likewise through the same words of the Gospel.

5. 7. Accordingly, he says, in vain do certain men who are overcome by reason set custom against us, as though custom were greater than truth; or as though that were not to be followed in spiritual matters which has been revealed for the better by the Holy Spirit (Cyprian, Ep. 73.13.1). This is plainly true, that reason and truth are to be set before custom. But when truth supports custom, nothing ought to be held more firmly.

Then he continues and says: For one who errs in simplicity can be pardoned, he says, as the apostle Paul says of himself, 'I who was first a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and insolent; but I obtained mercy, because I did it in ignorance' (1 Tim 1:13). But after inspiration and revelation have been made, one who perseveres in that wherein he had erred, knowingly and wittingly, sins without the pardon of ignorance. For he relies on a certain presumption and obstinacy, when he is overcome by reason.

This is most true, that the sin of one who has sinned knowingly is far graver than that of one who has sinned unknowingly. And therefore the holy man Cyprian, not only learned but also teachable—who himself so understood what the Apostle says in praise of the bishop he describes (2 Tim 2:24) that he said this too is to be loved in a bishop, that he not only teach knowingly, but also learn patiently (See Cyprian, Ep. 74.10)—I do not doubt that, if he were treating this question, long and much turned over in the Church, with those most holy and most learned men through whom it afterward came about that that ancient custom was confirmed even by a plenary council, he would without hesitation show not only how learned he was in the things he had perceived with the firmest truth, but also how teachable in the things he had less attended to.

And yet, since it is most manifest that one who knows sins much more gravely than one who does not know, I would wish someone to tell me: if one 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 the worse. I can also put it thus: If one rushes into heresy unknowing, and another knowingly does not depart from idolatry—since the Apostle too says, Greed, which is the service of idols (Col 3:5): and Cyprian himself understood the same sentence no otherwise, as I said, writing to Antonian, where he says (See Cyprian, Ep. 55.27): Let not the new heretics flatter themselves in this, that they say they are not in communion with idolaters; since among them too there are adulterers and defrauders who are held by the crime of idolatry. For 'know this, understanding it, that every fornicator, or unclean person, or defrauder, which is to be an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God' (Eph 5:5): and again, 'Mortify therefore your members that are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, and evil desire, and greed, which is the service of idols' (Col 3:5).

I ask, then, who sins more gravely: he who unknowing has fallen into heresy, or he who knowing has not departed from greed, that is, from idolatry? According indeed to that rule by which the sins of those who know are set before the sins of ignorance, the greedy man with his knowledge wins in wickedness.

But lest perhaps the magnitude of the crime itself in heresy do what the knowing commission does in greed, let the unknowing heretic be made equal to the knowing greedy man: although the testimony which he himself set down from the Apostle does not seem to show this. For what do we detest in heretics except blasphemies? But, wishing to show that sins pertain to the ease of pardon of the ignorant, he set down from the Apostle where he says: I who was first a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and insolent; but I obtained mercy, because I did it in ignorance (1 Tim 1:13).

But if, as I said, both sins can be weighed equally—the blasphemy of the ignorant and the idolatry of the knowing—and there be judged by the same sentence both he who, in seeking Christ, fell into a plausible discourse of falsehood, and he who, knowing, resists Christ speaking through the Apostle: That every fornicator, or unclean person, or greedy man, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Eph 5:5): why, in the one, are baptism and the words of the Gospel disapproved, but in the other approved, when each is found alien from the members of that dove? Or is it because the one is an open litigant outside, that he may not be let in; but the other a crafty flatterer within, that he may not be cast out?

6. 8. But as for what he says: Nor let anyone say: What we received from the apostles, this we follow: since the apostles handed down only one Church, and one baptism, which is established only in that same Church (Cyprian, Ep. 73.13.3): this does not move me so much that I should dare to reject the baptism of Christ even when found among heretics (just as I must approve the Gospel itself when I find it among them, although I detest their error), as it admonishes me that there were certain men even in the times of the holy Cyprian who said that that custom—against which the African councils were acting, and about which he himself said a little before, In vain do certain men who are overcome by reason set custom against us (Cyprian, Ep. 73.13.1)—was handed down by the apostles.

Nor do I find why the same Cyprian found that custom—which after Cyprian was confirmed even by a plenary council of the whole world—so robust even before, that, when a man endowed with such great knowledge sought the authority he might follow for changing it, he found only the council of Agrippinus, held in Africa alone a few years before him. And since he perceived that this did not suffice for him against the practice of the whole world, he seized upon these reasonings, which we now, considering more diligently—confirmed by the antiquity of the custom itself, and afterward by the authority of a plenary council—find to be plausible rather than true: which seemed true to him as he labored in a most obscure question and wavered about the forgiveness of sins, whether it could fail to take place in the baptism of Christ, and whether it could take place among heretics:

and if something was less revealed to him there, that the magnitude of his love—by which he did not desert unity—might be proved, no one ought on that account to dare to set himself before such great firmnesses and merits of his virtues and such an abundance of his graces, merely because, admonished by the firmness of a universal council, he sees something that Cyprian did not see, because the Church did not yet have a plenary council on this matter.

Just as no one is so insane as to set himself before the merits of the apostle Peter, because, taught by the letters of the apostle Paul and strengthened now by the very custom of the Church, he does not compel the gentiles to judaize, which Peter once had compelled them to do (See Gal 2:14).

6. 9. We therefore do not find that anyone, when he had been baptized among heretics, was admitted by the apostles with that same baptism and was in communion. But neither do we find this, that anyone coming from heretics, who had been baptized among them, was baptized again by the apostles (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.13.3). But that custom, which even then men looking upward did not see to have been instituted by those who came later, is rightly believed to have been handed down by the apostles. And such things are many, which it would be long to recount. Wherefore, if those were saying something—those whom Cyprian, wishing to persuade them of what seemed good to him, addresses when he says, Nor let anyone say: What we received from the apostles, this we follow (Cyprian, Ep. 73.13.3)—how much more robustly do we now say: What the custom of the Church has always held, and what this disputation could not dissuade, and what a plenary council confirmed, this we follow? To this is added that, the reasonings and the testimonies of the Scriptures on both sides of the disputation being well perceived, it can also be said: What the truth has declared, this we follow.

7. 10. For indeed that which certain men set against the disputations of Cyprian (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.14.1)—that the Apostle says, Nevertheless, in every way, whether by pretext or in truth, let Christ be announced (Phil 1:18)—Cyprian rightly refutes, showing that it does not pertain to the cause of heretics; since the Apostle was speaking of those who, with malevolent envy, seeking their own, were nevertheless within:

they were indeed announcing Christ, as the truth holds by which we believe in Christ, but not with that disposition with which he was announced by the good evangelists, the children of that dove. For Paul, he says, was not speaking in his letter about heretics, or about their baptism, so that he should be shown to have set down anything pertaining to this matter.

He was speaking about brothers, whether walking disorderly and against ecclesiastical discipline, or keeping the evangelical truth in the fear of God. And some of them he set down as having spoken the word of God constantly and intrepidly, but some as caught up in envy and dissension; some as keeping benevolent love toward him, but others as having a malevolent dissension: but nevertheless that he patiently endured all things, provided that, whether in truth or by pretext, the name of Christ which Paul preached came to the notice of very many, and the still new and rough sowing of the word grew dense by the preaching of those who spoke. Now 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 (Cyprian, Ep. 73.14.2-3).

These words of Cyprian seem to admonish us to distinguish between those who are wicked outside and those who are wicked within. And those of whom the Apostle says that they announced the Gospel not chastely but through envy (See Phil 1:15-17), he says were within, and he says truly. Yet I think I do not say this rashly: If outside no one can have anything that is Christ's, neither can anyone within have anything that is the devil's. For if that enclosed garden (See Song 4:12) could have the thorns of the devil, why could not the spring of Christ flow even outside the garden? But if it could not, whence, among those who were within even in the times of the apostle Paul himself, came so great an evil of envy and malevolent dissension? For these are the words of Cyprian. Or is envy and malevolent 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; nor through men, but through angels—sounded at Christ's birth: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14). Which certainly would not have sounded by angelic mouth at Christ's birth on earth, unless God willed it to be understood that those are in the unity of the body of Christ who are in the peace of Christ; and that those are in the peace of Christ who are of good will. Now just as in benevolence there is good will, so in malevolence there is ill will.

8. 11. But now envy itself, which cannot but be malevolent, how great an evil is it? Let us not seek other witnesses: Cyprian himself suffices for us, through whom the Lord thundered so many most true things about zeal and spite, and commanded wholesome things. Let us read, then, the letter of Cyprian on zeal and spite, and let us see how great an evil it is to envy those who are better—of which evil he teaches, from memory, that the origin came from the devil himself: To be zealous over what you see to be good, and to envy those who are better, seems to certain men a light and slight fault, most beloved brothers.

Then a little later, when he sought the head and origin of that evil: Hence the devil, he says, at the very beginnings of the world, both perished first and destroyed. And a little later: What an evil it is, he says, most beloved brothers, by which an angel fell, by which that lofty and illustrious sublimity could be circumvented and overthrown, by which the very one who deceived was himself deceived? Thenceforth envy stalks on the earth, while the one destined to perish through spite obeys the master of perdition, while he imitates the devil who is zealous, as it is written, 'But by the envy of the devil death entered into the world; they therefore imitate him who are of his party' (Wis 2:24-25).

These words of Cyprian, in a letter known to the people, how true, how forceful we recognize them to be. Truly it befitted Cyprian both gravely to reprove and to admonish concerning zeal and spite—he whose heart, by such an abundance of love, he proved to be deeply alien from so deadly an evil: which love being most vigilantly kept, with his colleagues who thought differently about baptism not malevolently, while he himself thought otherwise not by malevolent contention but by human temptation—that which God would afterward reveal to him, persevering in love, when he willed (See Phil 3:15)—he remained in the unity of communion, openly saying: judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently. For none of us has set himself up to be a bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror drives his colleagues to the necessity of obeying.

And at the end of this letter: These things we have written back to you briefly, he says, according to our littleness, most dear brother, prescribing or prejudging for no one, so that each of the bishops may do what he thinks, having the free power of his own judgment. We, as far as in us lies, do not contend with our colleagues and fellow bishops on account of heretics, with whom we keep divine concord and the Lord's peace; especially since the Apostle too says: 'But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Church of God' (1 Cor 11:16). By us there is kept, patiently and gently, the love of the spirit, the honor of the college, the bond of faith, the concord of the priesthood. For this reason we have also now written a little book, On the Good of Patience, as far as our littleness availed, with the Lord permitting and inspiring, which we have sent to you for our mutual love (Cyprian, Ep. 73.26).

9. 12. With this patience of love he tolerated not only, in an obscure question, good colleagues thinking otherwise not malevolently, just as he himself too was tolerated, until in process of time the most wholesome custom, when God willed, with the truth also declared, was confirmed by a plenary council; but also manifest wicked men, most well known to him, who thought otherwise not by the obscurity of the question, but, by the morals of a lost life, did contrary to what they preached, as the Apostle says of them: You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal? (Rom 2:21)

For of such men, even those of his own time, his own colleagues, and remaining in communion with him, he says in his letter: While their brothers in the Church are hungry, to wish to have silver abundantly, to seize estates by treacherous frauds, to increase their interest by multiplying usuries (Cyprian, De lapsis 6). For here there is no obscurity of the question; Scripture openly proclaims: Neither the greedy nor the rapacious will possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:10); and: He who has not put out his money at usury (Ps 15:5 (14:5)); and: Every fornicator and unclean person and greedy man, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Eph 5:5). Such greedy men, then—so that they not only greedily treasured up their own, but also fraudulently snatched away the goods of others—such idolaters, as he himself both understands and convicts them, he would certainly not reprove unless he knew them.

For he would not bear false witness against his own fellow bishops. And yet, on account of Christ, who died for the weak (See 1 Cor 9:22), lest, the weeds being rooted up before the time, the wheat too should be rooted up along with them (See Matt 13:29), he tolerated them with the bowels of fatherly and motherly love: imitating, of course, the apostle Paul, who endured those malevolent and envious toward him, with that same love toward the Church (See Phil 1:15-18).

9. 13. But nevertheless, because by the envy of the devil death entered into the world, and they imitate him who are of his party (Wis 2:24-25)—not through that by which they were created by God, but through that by which they were made perverse by themselves; as Cyprian himself recalls, since the devil too, before he was the devil, was an angel and was good: whence are they in the unity of Christ who are of the party of the devil? Beyond doubt, as the Lord himself says: An enemy man has done this, who sowed weeds over the field (Matt 13:28, 25). As, then, even within, what is the devil's is to be reproved, so too outside, what is Christ's is to be acknowledged. Or does Christ not have his own outside the unity of the Church, and does the devil have his own within the unity of the Church?

This perhaps can be said of men, that God has none of his own outside the communion of the Church, just as among the holy angels the devil has none of his own. But to this Church, which still bears the mortality of the flesh, as long as it is a pilgrim away from the Lord (See 2 Cor 5:6), it has been permitted to the devil to mingle weeds, that is, wicked men; and he has been allowed to do so on account of the very pilgrimage of the Church, that the rest of that homeland which the holy angels fully enjoy might be more ardently desired: but about the sacraments this cannot be said. For just as those men can have and handle them, not for their salvation but for their ruin, in which case the inner weeds are destined for the fire: so too the outer weeds, which they received from the inner ones as they departed; because in departing they did not lose them. Which is without doubt made manifest when it is not restored to those returning, when perhaps some of those very ones who had departed come back. Nor let anyone say: But what wheat have the weeds? For if this is so, both within and outside the condition is, in this respect at least, equal. For grains of wheat are not found among the outer weeds and found among the inner. But when the question is about the sacrament, it is not asked whether the weeds have anything of wheat, but whether they have anything of heaven: for to both the outer and the inner weeds, together with the wheat itself, the rain is common, which is heavenly and sweet in itself, even if from it the weeds grow barrenly: so too the evangelical sacrament of Christ is divine and sweet, and not to be disapproved on account of the barrenness of those whom it also rains upon outside.

10. 14. Someone will say that the inner weeds are more easily turned into wheat. I grant it is so: but what does this pertain to the repeating of baptism? Is it that, if perhaps someone converted from heretics, by the time and ease of his conversion, anticipates one who is more slowly corrected and changed within from his malice, baptism is not to be repeated for him; while for the one who has been anticipated by the one who came from heretics, because he was more slowly corrected, it is to be repeated? Nothing, then, pertains to the matter now in question, who converts sooner or more slowly from his own perversity to the rectitude of faith, or of hope, or of love.

For even if the inner wicked can more easily become good, yet sometimes some of the number of the outer ones anticipate by conversion some inner ones, and, while those remain in barrenness, being reconciled to unity, they bear fruit with endurance, whether thirtyfold, or sixtyfold, or a hundredfold (See Matt 13:23; Luke 8:15). Or if those alone are to be called weeds which persist to the end in malignant error, then both outside there are many grains of wheat, and within there are many weeds.

10. 15. But are the outer wicked worse than the inner? It is indeed a great question, whether Nicolaus, already outer (See Rev 2:6), was worse than Simon, still inner (See Acts 8:9-24), because the one was a heretic, the other a magician. But if division itself, because it is a most certain sign of violated love, is held to be the graver evil, I grant it is so. But many, having lost love, do not on that account go outside, because they are held by worldly emoluments, and, seeking their own, not the things of Jesus Christ (See Phil 2:21), are unwilling to depart not from the unity of Christ, but from their own advantages. Whence it was said in praise of love: It does not seek its own (1 Cor 13:5).

10. 16. Now, then, it is asked how men of the devil's party can belong to the Church, which has no spot or wrinkle or any such thing (See Eph 5:27), of which it was also said: One is my dove (Song 6:9). But if they cannot, it is manifest that she groans among aliens, both those plotting within and those barking from without. Yet such men, even within, both receive baptism, and have it, and hand it on, holy in itself, and it is in no part violated by the malignity of those in which they persist to the very end.

Wherefore the same blessed Cyprian teaches us that baptism is to be considered in itself, consecrated by the words of the Gospel as the Church received it, with no perversity and malice, whether of those receiving or of those handing it on, joined or mingled with it: since he himself admonishes us of both—both that there were certain men within not keeping benevolent love, but caught up in envy and malevolent dissension, of whom the apostle Paul spoke; and that the envious are of the devil's party, as he testifies in the most open words in the letter he wrote on zeal and spite. Wherefore, since it is manifest that it can happen that, in those who are of the devil's party, the sacrament of Christ is nevertheless holy—not for their salvation, but for their judgment—not only if after receiving baptism they are perverted, but even if they receive it as such men, as the same Cyprian shows, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Ep. 11.1); and that, on that account, if they are afterward corrected, that which they had received while perverse is not to be repeated:

as far as I judge, it is now clear and plain that in this question about baptism we must not think who gives, but what he gives; or who receives, but what he receives; or who has, but what he has. For if men of the devil's party, and therefore in no way belonging to the one dove, can nevertheless both receive and have and give the holiness of baptism, in no way violated by their own perversity, as we are admonished from the letters of Cyprian himself: why do we attribute to heretics things that are not theirs? Why do we say that what is Christ's is theirs, and not rather recognize in them both the standards of our Emperor and amend the deeds of deserters? Wherefore it is indeed one thing, as the 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 (Cyprian, Ep. 73.14.3).

But both many who are within act against the Church by living wickedly, and by drawing weak souls over to their own way of life; and some who are outside speak in the name of Christ, and are forbidden not to do the things that are Christ's, but to be outside, when, that they may be healed, we either rebuke, or reprove, or exhort them.

For that man too was outside, who did not follow along with the disciples, and was casting out demons in the name of Christ, whom the Lord admonished should not be forbidden (See Luke 9:49-50): although certainly he was to be cured in that wherein 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 (Matt 12:30). So then, some things are done outside in the name of Christ, not against the Church; and within, things are done by the devil's party against the Church.

11. 17. What of this, which is even wonderful, which one who attends diligently finds can happen—that certain men, with love preserved, teach something useless, as Peter compelled the gentiles to judaize (See Gal 2:14), as Cyprian himself held that heretics should be baptized again: whence to such good members rooted in love, and in some respect not walking rightly, the Apostle says: If you are of any other mind, this too God will reveal to you (Phil 3:15): and that certain men, on the other hand, teach something wholesome without love, of whom the Lord says: They sit in the chair of Moses. What they say, do; but what they do, do not do; for they say, and do not do (Matt 23:2-3)? Whence the Apostle too says of those envious and malevolent men, who nevertheless announced Christian salvation: Whether by pretext or in truth, let Christ be announced (Phil 1:18).

Wherefore both within and outside the perversity of men is to be corrected, but the divine sacraments and words are not to be attributed to men. He therefore does not act as patron to heretics who does not attribute to them what he recognizes to be, though among them, yet not theirs (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.14.3). We do not concede baptism to the heretic; but the baptism of him of whom it was said, This is he who baptizes (John 1:33), wherever we find it, we acknowledge. But the faithless and the blasphemer, if he persists in faithlessness and blasphemy, receives the forgiveness of sins neither outside the Church nor within the Church: or, if on account of the power of the sacrament he receives it for a point of time, both outside and within the same power works, just as the power of the name of Christ worked the casting out of demons even outside.

12. 18. But indeed we find the apostles in all their letters execrating and detesting the sacrilegious depravity of heretics, so that they say that their talk creeps like a cancer (Cyprian, Ep. 73.15.1). What of it? Even those who said, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1 Cor 15:32), does not Paul make plain to be corrupters of good morals through evil conversations, at once adding: Evil conversations corrupt good morals (1 Cor 15:33); 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? (1 Cor 15:12) But where does he not detest the greedy? Or indeed could anything be said more vehemently than that greed should be called the service of idols, as the same apostle set down (See Eph 5:5): nor did Cyprian understand it otherwise (See Cyprian, Ep. 55.27), and inserted it into his letters where it was needed; who nevertheless confesses that in his times there were in the Church not ordinary greedy men, but robbers and usurers; and not just any men, but bishops. And yet even those of whom the Apostle says, Their talk creeps like a cancer (2 Tim 2:17), I would wish to understand as having been outside; but Cyprian himself does not allow me.

For when, writing to Antonian, he showed that before the time of the final separation of the just and the unjust one must in no way withdraw from the unity of the Church on account of the mingling of the wicked—where he declares how holy he is, and how most worthy of that glory of martyrdom which he deserved—he says: How great is the swelling of arrogance, how great the forgetfulness of humility and gentleness, and how great the boasting of one's own arrogance, that anyone should dare, or believe he can do, what the Lord did not concede even to the apostles, that he should think he can distinguish the weeds from the wheat,

or, as though it were conceded to him to carry the winnowing fan and to cleanse the threshing floor, should try to separate the chaff from the wheat: and when the Apostle says, 'But in a great house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen' (2 Tim 2:20), he should seem to choose the gold and silver vessels, but to despise and cast off and condemn the wooden and earthen, when it is only on the day of the Lord that the wooden vessels are burned up by the fire of the divine blaze, and the earthen are broken by him to whom the iron rod was given (See Ps 2:9; Cyprian, Ep. 55.25)?

Thus, then, Cyprian, reproving those who, as though avoiding the fellowship of the wicked, had broken themselves away from unity, shows that by the great house which the Apostle spoke of, where there were not only gold and silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen, he understood nothing but the Church, where there are good and wicked, until in the end, like a threshing floor winnowed, it is cleansed (See Matt 3:12). But if this is so, in the Church itself, that is, in that great house, there were vessels for dishonor, whose talk crept like a cancer. For when the Apostle was speaking of them, he taught this: And their talk, he says, creeps like a cancer; among whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they subvert the faith of some. But the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are his; and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen (2 Tim 2:17-20). If, then, even those whose talk crept like a cancer were, as vessels for dishonor, in the great house—which great house Cyprian understands as the unity of the Church itself—did their cancer violate the baptism of Christ?

So then, neither outside, nor within, can anyone who is of the devil's party stain, either in himself or in anyone, the sacrament which is Christ's. The talk that creeps like a cancer to the ears of hearers (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.15.1) does not, therefore, give the forgiveness of sins: but when baptism is given with the words of the Gospel, with whatever perversity he who gives it, or he to whom it is given, understands it, it is in itself holy on account of him whose it is. And if anyone, receiving it through a perverse man, nevertheless does not receive the perversity of the minister, but only the holiness of the mystery, joined to the unity of the Church in good faith and hope and love, receives the forgiveness of sins; not through words creeping like a cancer, but through the evangelical sacraments flowing from the heavenly spring. But if he himself who receives is perverse, what is given does not profit the perverse man unto salvation; and yet what is received remains holy in him, nor, if he is corrected, is it repeated for him.

13. 19. There is therefore no fellowship of justice with iniquity (2 Cor 6:14); not only that which 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 (2 Tim 2:19). There is also no communion of light with darkness (2 Cor 6:14); not only that which is outside, but also those which are within. For he who hates his brother, says John, is in darkness even until now (1 John 2:9). And certainly those hated Paul, who, announcing Christ in envy and malevolence and dissension, thought they were stirring up tribulation for his bonds (See Phil 1:15-17); whom nevertheless the same Cyprian understands to have been within. Since, then, darkness cannot enlighten, nor iniquity justify (Cyprian, Ep. 73.15.1), as he himself says, I ask how these men can baptize within the Church itself?

I ask how those vessels, which the great house contains not in honor but in dishonor, can, within that same great house, minister to men to be sanctified what is holy—except because that holiness of the sacrament can neither be polluted 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 whom, placed within, he himself says: renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds (Cyprian, Ep. 11.1).

13. 20. There are, then, even within, enemies of God, and men whose hearts the spirit of Antichrist has besieged: and yet they perform spiritual and divine things (Cyprian, Ep. 73.15.1), which can neither profit themselves unto salvation as long as they are such, nor can they stain those things with their own uncleanness. As for what he says—that nothing is permitted them unto ecclesiastical grace and salvation, who, scattering and attacking the Church of Christ, are by Christ himself called adversaries, and by his apostles antichrists (Cyprian, Ep. 73.15.2);

it is to be taken thus, that such men are found both outside and within: yet the separation of those who are within, from the perfection and unity of that dove, not only does God know in certain men, but men too know in certain men; for, beholding their most wicked life and confirmed wickedness in the open, and comparing it with the rules of the divine precepts, they understand to how many weeds and chaff, placed whether outside or within, but nevertheless to be most openly separated in the end, the Lord is going to say: Depart from me, you who work iniquity (Matt 7:23); and: Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41).

14. 21. But of no one's conversion is one to despair, whether established outside or within, as long as the patience of God leads him to repentance (See Rom 2:4), and visits their crimes with the rod, and their sins with scourges. For in this way he does not scatter his mercy from them (See Ps 89:32-33 (88:33-34)), if they too at some time have mercy on their own soul, pleasing God (See Sir 30:23 (30:24)). For just as the good man who has persevered to the end, he shall be saved (See Matt 24:13), so the wicked man, whether outside or within, who has persevered to the end, shall not be saved.

Nor do we say that those baptized anywhere and in any way obtain the grace of baptism (Cyprian, Ep. 73.16.1), if the grace of baptism is understood in salvation itself, which is conferred through the celebration of the sacrament: but this salvation many do not obtain even within, although it is manifest that they have the sacrament, which is holy in itself. Rightly, then: The Lord admonishes us in the Gospel not to consent to those who give evil counsel (See Mark 13:21), but walk under the name of Christ (Cyprian, Ep. 73.16.1-2): but these are found both within and outside, because they do not go outside unless they have first been wicked within; and certainly of the vessels placed in the great house the Apostle was speaking: But if anyone cleanses himself from such things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Lord, always prepared for every good work (2 Tim 2:21).

But 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 (2 Tim 2:19); lest he hear in the end, together with the chaff—whether that which flew before from the threshing floor, or that which is to be separated at the last: Depart from me, you who work iniquity (Matt 7:23). Whence it appears indeed, as Cyprian says, that those things are not to be at once taken up and received which are boasted of in the name of Christ, but those which are done in the truth of Christ (Cyprian, Ep. 73.16.2). But it is certainly not done in the truth of Christ to seize estates by treacherous frauds, to increase interest by multiplying usuries (See Cyprian, De lapsis 6), to renounce the world in words only (See Cyprian, Ep. 11.1); all which things he himself declares, a sufficiently fit witness, to be done even within.

15. 22. But now, as for what he pursues in many words, that those who blaspheme the Father of Christ cannot be baptized in Christ (Cyprian, Ep. 73.17-19)—since it is manifest that they blaspheme by error (for one who approaches the baptism of Christ does not openly blaspheme the Father of Christ (See Cyprian, Ep. 73.17-19), but is convicted of blaspheming by thinking otherwise about the Father of Christ than the truth teaches)—we have now sufficiently shown that to baptism, which is consecrated by the words of the Gospel, the error of anyone, whether giving or receiving, does not pertain, whether he think otherwise about the Father, or about the Son, or about the Holy Spirit, than the heavenly doctrine conveys. For many carnal and natural men are baptized even within, though the Apostle openly says: But the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14); and, with baptism already received, he says they are still natural (See 1 Cor 3:2).

But according to the carnal sense the soul given over to bodily senses cannot but think carnally about God. Whence many, making progress after baptism—and especially those baptized as infants or boys—the more their understanding is made serene and enlightened, while the interior man is renewed from day to day (See 2 Cor 4:16), deriding and detesting and confessing, cast off their former opinions, which they held about God while they were deluded with their phantasms. Nor are they on that account thought not to have received baptism, or said to have received such a baptism as their error was: but in them both the integrity of the sacrament is honored, and the vanity of the mind is amended, even if it had grown hard, confirmed and perhaps defended with many contentions.

Wherefore even the heretic who is plainly outside received baptism there, the evangelical baptism—he certainly did not receive such a baptism as the error by which he is blinded. And therefore, if, coming to his senses, he sees that what he wrongly held is to be left behind, he is not at the same time to leave behind the good he had received: nor, because his error is to be disapproved, is the baptism of Christ on that account to be blown away in him.

For now, from those whom it happens are baptized within while thinking false things about God, it is sufficiently clear that the truth of the sacrament is to be distinguished from the error of the one who believes wrongly, although both can be found in one man; and therefore, when even one established in some error outside has nevertheless been baptized with a true sacrament, when he is restored to the unity of the Church, just as a true faith succeeds a false one, a true baptism cannot thus succeed even to a true baptism: because the very same thing cannot succeed itself; because neither can it depart. To this end, then, heretics come to the Catholic Church: that what is evil of theirs may be corrected, not that what is the good of God may be repeated.

16. 23. Someone says: Is there, then, no difference, if two are established in equal error and malice, and, with life and heart unchanged, one of them is baptized outside, the other within? I confess there is a difference: for he is worse who is baptized even outside, not because he is baptized, but because he is outside; for of division itself the evil is neither none nor small: provided, however, that the one who is baptized within willed to be within not on account of some earthly or temporal advantage, but because he preferred the unity of the Church spread throughout the whole world to the cuttings-up of schisms; otherwise he too is to be counted among those who are outside.

Let us therefore set up two men in this way: one of them, for example, thinking about Christ what Photinus held, and being baptized in his heresy outside the communion of the Catholic Church; the other thinking this same thing, but being baptized in the Catholic Church, supposing it to be the Catholic faith. This latter I do not yet call a heretic, unless, the doctrine of the Catholic faith being made manifest to him, he has preferred to resist it, and has chosen what he held; which, before it happens, it is manifest that the one who is outside is the worse.

And so in this man only the false opinion is to be corrected, but in that man the division itself also; but in neither of them is the truth of the sacrament to be repeated. But if anyone thinks the same as they do, and knows that there is a heresy separated from Catholic unity where this is taught and learned, but for the sake of some worldly advantage has willed to be baptized in Catholic unity, or, having been baptized in it, has on this account been unwilling to go out from it; he is to be held not only as separated, but even so much the more wickedly, the more he adds to the error of heresy and the division of unity the deceit of pretense. Wherefore the depravity of any man, the more dangerous and tortuous it is, the more urgently and laboriously it is to be corrected: nor yet, on that account, if he has anything intact—especially not his own, but God's—is it, on account of his depravity, to be thought either nothing, or to be censured in the same way, or to be attributed to his depravity, and not to the bounty of him who, even to the soul fornicating away from him, and going after her lovers, gave his bread, and his wine, and his oil, and other things, whether nourishments or ornaments, which are hers neither from herself nor from her lovers, but from him who, pitying her, willed everywhere to admonish her to whom she should return (See Hos 2:5-7).

17. 24. Can the power of baptism, he says, be greater or more potent than confession? than passion? that a man should confess Christ before men, and be baptized in his own blood? And yet, he says, not even this baptism profits the heretic, if, though he confessed Christ, he was killed outside the Church (Cyprian, Ep. 73.21.1). This is most true: for one killed outside the Church is convicted of not having 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 (1 Cor 13:3). But if for this reason—because love is lacking—the passion profits nothing, neither does it profit those whom Paul says, and Cyprian expounds, to live within in envy and malevolence without love: and yet they can both receive and hand on true baptism (See Cyprian, De lapsis 6; Ep. 11.1).

There is no salvation outside the Church (Cyprian, Ep. 73.21.2). Who denies it? And therefore whatever things are had of the Church herself do not avail for salvation outside the Church. But it is one thing not to have, another not to have profitably. He who does not have is to be baptized that he may have; but he who has it unprofitably is to be corrected that he may have it profitably. Nor is the water adulterous in the baptism of heretics (Cyprian, Ep. 73.21.2): because neither is the creation itself which God founded evil, nor are the words of the Gospel, in whatever erring persons, to be censured, but their error, in which the soul is adulterous, even if it has from the lawful husband the ornament of the sacrament.

Baptism, therefore, can be common to us and to heretics (Cyprian, Ep. 73.21.3), with whom the Gospel too can be common, although their error differs from our faith: whether they think otherwise about the Father, or about the Son, or about the Holy Spirit, than the truth holds, or, cut off from unity, do not gather with Christ, but scatter (See Matt 12:30): because the sacrament of baptism can be common to us, if we are the Lord's wheat, even within, with the greedy, with the rapacious, with the drunken, and the rest of pests of this kind, of whom it is said: They will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:10), and yet the vices by which they are separated from the kingdom of God are not common.

18. 25. For not of heresies alone does the Apostle say: That those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:21). But let it not be irksome to attend a little to what he enumerates together: The works of the flesh are manifest, he says, which are fornications, uncleannesses, debaucheries, the service of idols, sorceries, enmities, contentions, rivalries, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkennesses, carousings, and the like; which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21). Let us therefore set up a heretic who is chaste, continent, not greedy, not serving idols, hospitable, ministering to the needy, an enemy of no one, not contentious, patient, quiet, rivaling no one, envying no one, sober, frugal: there is certainly no doubt for anyone that, for this alone, that he is a heretic, he will not possess the kingdom of God. Let us set up another who is a fornicator, unclean, debauched, greedy, or even more openly given over to idols, a sorcerer, discordant, contentious, a rival, animose, seditious, envious, drunken, a carouser, but a Catholic: will he, for this alone, that he is a Catholic, possess the kingdom of God, doing such things, of which the Apostle thus concludes: Which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:21)? If we say this, we deceive ourselves (See 1 John 1:8). For the word of God does not deceive us, which neither is silent, nor spares, nor deceives us with any flattery. For on this account it says elsewhere too: For know this, understanding it, that every fornicator, or unclean person, or greedy man, 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 (Eph 5:5-6). There is therefore nothing for which we may complain of the word of God. It says altogether, and openly and freely says, that those who live wickedly do not belong to the kingdom of God.

19. 26. Let us, then, not flatter a Catholic hedged about with all these vices, nor dare to promise him, because he is a Catholic Christian, the impunity which divine Scripture does not promise: nor, if he has any one of the things that have been mentioned, ought we to promise him the fellowship of that heavenly homeland. For to the Corinthians he enumerates them singly, in each of which singly it is understood that they will not possess the kingdom of God: Do not err, he says; neither fornicators, nor those serving idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor those who lie with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor the rapacious will possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10).

He did not say: Those who have all these vices together will not possess the kingdom of God: but: Neither these, nor those; so that in each you understand this, that none of them will possess the kingdom of God. As, then, heretics will not possess the kingdom of God, so the greedy will not possess the kingdom of God. Nor is it indeed to be doubted that the very punishments by which those will be tormented who will not possess the kingdom of God are diverse according to the diversity of crimes, and some sharper than others, so that in the eternal fire itself there may be unequal torments of punishments for the unequal weights of sins.

For not in vain does the Lord himself say: It will be more tolerable for Sodom than for you in the day of judgment (Matt 11:24). But nevertheless, for not possessing the kingdom of God, whichever of those vices you choose as the milder avails just as much as either several or one which you perceive as the graver. And because those will possess the kingdom of God whom that judge will set on his right hand, and to those who will not deserve to be set on the right hand nothing else will remain than to be on the left; there is no other voice which, as goats, they will hear from the mouth of the shepherd, except: Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41): although from that fire, as I said, diverse punishments can be distributed according to the diversity of crimes.

20. 27. But whether we ought to prefer a Catholic of the worst morals to some heretic in whose life, besides that he is a heretic, men find nothing to reprove, I do not dare to rush to a verdict. But if anyone says that, because he is a heretic, this cannot be the only thing, but that other things follow as well—for he is carnal and natural (See 1 Cor 2:14), and on this account it is necessary that he be also a rival, and animose, and envious, and an enemy of the truth itself and dissenting from it—let him understand, of those evils too, that whichever one he has chosen as the milder cannot be the only one in anyone, namely for this reason, that he is carnal and natural; just as drunkenness, which they have now grown accustomed not only to name without horror, but even to proclaim with the people's merriment, can it be the only thing in him in whom it is? For what drunkard is not also contentious, and animose, and envious, and dissenting from the soundness of the precepts, and a grave enemy of those who reprove him? But now that he should not be also a fornicator and adulterer is difficult: yet he can fail to be a heretic; just as a heretic can fail to be a drunkard, nor an adulterer or fornicator, nor debauched or a lover of money or a sorcerer, and can at the same time fail to be all these. For not all the rest follow some one vice.

And so, two being set forth—one a Catholic with all these vices, the other a heretic without those which can fail to be in a heretic—although neither disputes against the faith, and yet each lives against the faith, and each is deceived by an empty hope, and each dissents from spiritual love, and on this account each is alien from the body of that one dove (See Song 6:9): why do we recognize in the one of them the sacrament of Christ, and are unwilling to in the other, as though it were the one's or the other's; when in each it is the same, and is none but God's, and, although in the worst men, is good? And if of the men who have this, one is worse than the other, not on that account is what they have worse in the one than in the other: because neither in two wicked Catholics, if one is worse than the other, does he bear a worse baptism; nor, if one of them is good, the other wicked, is the baptism wicked in the wicked man and good in the good; but in each it is good: just as the light of the sun, or even of a lamp, is certainly not worse in worse eyes than in better ones; but the same in both, although it differently, according to their diversity, either gladdens or torments them.

21. 28. But that which was objected to Cyprian about catechumens, that, caught in martyrdom and killed for the name of Christ, they are crowned even without baptism (Cyprian, Ep. 73.22.1), what it pertains to the matter I do not sufficiently understand: unless perhaps because they were saying that heretics with the baptism of Christ could much more be admitted to his kingdom, whereby catechumens were admitted; whereas he himself said: Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5).

In which matter neither do I doubt that a Catholic catechumen burning with divine love is to be preferred to a baptized heretic; but even within the Catholic Church itself we prefer a good catechumen to a wicked baptized person: nor yet on that account do we do injury to the sacrament of baptism, with which the latter is already, the former not yet, imbued; nor do we think the catechumen's sacrament to be preferred to the sacrament of baptism, when we recognize some catechumen to be more faithful and better than some baptized person. For the centurion Cornelius, not yet baptized, was better than Simon, baptized. For the former was filled with the Holy Spirit even before baptism (See Acts 10), the latter was puffed up with an unclean spirit even after baptism (See Acts 8:13, 18-19).

Nevertheless, if Cornelius, even after the Holy Spirit was already received, had been unwilling to be baptized, he would 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 diverse merits of men were distinguished under the equal holiness of the same sacrament: thus the good or evil merit of a man does not increase or diminish the holiness of baptism. But just as a good catechumen lacks baptism for attaining the kingdom of heaven, so a wicked baptized person lacks true conversion. For he who said: Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5), himself also said: Unless your justice abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20). For, lest the justice of the catechumen be secure, it was said: Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven: again, lest, baptism being received, iniquity be secure, it was said: Unless your justice abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The one without the other is too little: both make the heir of that possession. As, then, we ought not to disapprove the justice of a man, which began to exist before he was joined to the Church—as the justice of Cornelius had begun to exist before he himself was in the Christian people; which, if it were to be disapproved, the angel would not have said to him, Your almsgivings have been accepted, and your prayers have been heard (Acts 10:4, 31); nor, if it were to suffice for attaining the kingdom of heaven, would he have been admonished to send to Peter: so the evangelical sacrament of baptism is not to be disapproved, even if it has been received outside the Church; which, however, because it does not profit unto salvation, unless he who has the integrity of baptism, his own depravity also being corrected, is incorporated into the Church, let us so correct the error of heretics that we acknowledge in them what is, not theirs, but Christ's.

22. 29. The same blessed Cyprian draws no slight argument from the fact that suffering can indeed sometimes take the place of baptism, citing that thief to whom, though he had not been baptized, it was said, Today you will be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43). Pondering this again and again (See Cyprian, Letter 73.22.2), I find that it is not only suffering for the name of Christ that can supply what was lacking from baptism, but also faith and conversion of heart, if perhaps in straitened circumstances there is no opportunity to celebrate the mystery of baptism.

For that thief was not crucified for the name of Christ but for the deserts of his own crimes; nor did he suffer because he believed, but he believed while he was suffering. How much weight there is, then, even without the visible sacrament of baptism, in what the Apostle says, Man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved (Rom 10:10), was made plain in that thief. But it is fulfilled invisibly only when it is not contempt for religion but the press of necessity that shuts out the ministry of baptism.

For in Cornelius and his friends it might far more readily seem superfluous that they should also be washed with water than in the case of that thief, since in them the gift of the Holy Spirit, which holy Scripture testifies that others received only after being baptized, had already shown itself by a sure sign suited to those times, when they spoke in tongues. Yet they were baptized, and in this deed there stands apostolic authority. So far is it that no one, in whatever advance of the inner man he has made, even if before baptism he has by a devout heart advanced to spiritual understanding, ought to despise the sacrament that is applied bodily by the work of the ministers; rather, through it God works the consecration of man spiritually.

Nor do I think the office of baptizing was assigned to John, so that it was called the baptism of John, for any other reason than that the Lord himself, who had given it, by not disdaining to receive the baptism of a servant (See Mt 3:6, 13; Phil 2:7), might consecrate the way of humility and, by such a deed, declare most plainly how greatly his own baptism, with which he himself was to baptize, was to be esteemed. For as the most powerful physician of eternal salvation he foresaw that there would be no lack of a certain swelling of pride in some who, having so advanced in understanding of the truth and in probable conduct that they would not in the least hesitate to set themselves, in life and teaching, above many who had been baptized, would believe it superfluous for themselves to be baptized, once they felt they had reached that disposition of mind to which many already baptized were still striving to ascend.

23. 30. But what the sanctification of the sacrament applied bodily avails and effects in a person (and yet that thief was not without it, since it was not the will to receive it that he lacked, but the necessity of not receiving it that was upon him) is difficult to say. Still, unless it availed very much, the Lord would not have received the baptism of a servant. But because it is to be considered in itself, apart from the salvation of the person for whose perfecting it is applied, it sufficiently shows—both in the wicked, and in those who renounce the world in words and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1)—that it is itself whole, even though such people cannot have salvation unless they are corrected.

But just as in the thief salvation was made complete because, though bodily it was lacking through necessity, spiritually it was present through devotion, so too when the sacrament itself is at hand, salvation is perfected if through necessity there is lacking what was present in the thief.

This is what the whole Church holds by tradition when little infants are baptized, who certainly cannot yet believe with the heart unto righteousness and confess with the lips unto salvation, as the thief could; indeed, by weeping and wailing while the mystery is celebrated over them, they drown out those mystical words with their own; and yet no Christian would say that they are baptized to no purpose.

24. 31. And if anyone should seek divine authority in this matter—although what the whole Church holds, and what was not established by councils but has always been retained, is most rightly believed to have been handed down by no other than apostolic authority—we can nevertheless truly infer what the sacrament of baptism avails in little ones from the circumcision of the flesh that the former people received. For before he received it, Abraham was justified (See Jas 2:21), just as Cornelius too was enriched with the gift of the Holy Spirit before he was baptized. Yet the Apostle says of Abraham himself that he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith (Rom 4:11)—he who had already believed with the heart, and it had been reckoned to him as righteousness (See Rom 4:3; 10:10). Why, then, was he commanded thereafter to circumcise every male infant on the eighth day (See Gen 17:9-14), who could not yet believe with the heart so that it might be reckoned to him as righteousness, unless because the sacrament also availed much in itself? This was made manifest by an angel in the case of Moses' son, who, while still uncircumcised, was being carried by his mother, and at a present and evident peril it was required that he be circumcised (See Exod 4:24-26); and when it was done, the danger was driven off.

As, therefore, in Abraham the righteousness of faith came first, and circumcision, the seal of the righteousness of faith, was added, so in Cornelius spiritual sanctification came first in the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the sacrament of regeneration was added in the washing of baptism. And as in Isaac, who was circumcised on the eighth day of his birth, the seal of the righteousness of faith came first, and since he imitated his father's faith, there followed, as he grew, that very righteousness whose seal had come first in him as an infant, so in baptized infants the sacrament of regeneration comes first; and if they hold to Christian devotion, there will also follow in the heart the conversion whose mystery came first in the body.

And as in that thief the kindness of the Almighty supplied what was lacking from the sacrament of baptism, since it had been lacking not through pride or contempt but through necessity, so in infants who die baptized, the same grace of the Almighty is to be believed to supply the fact that, not from an impious will but from the want proper to their age, they can neither believe with the heart unto righteousness nor confess with the lips unto salvation. And so, when others answer on their behalf, that the celebration of the sacrament may be fulfilled for them, it avails for their consecration, because they themselves cannot answer. But if another should answer for one who is able to answer, it does not avail in the same way. From this rule comes that saying in the Gospel which, when it is read, moves everyone naturally: He is of age; let him speak for himself (Jn 9:21).

25. 32. By all these things it is shown that the sacrament of baptism is one thing and conversion of heart another, but that a person's salvation is made complete by both; nor, if one of these is lacking, ought we to think it follows that the other is lacking too, since the one can exist without the other in an infant, and the other could exist without the one in the thief, God supplying in the one case and in the other what had been lacking through no fault of the will. But when one of the two is lacking through the will, a person is entangled in guilt. And baptism indeed can be present where conversion of heart is lacking; conversion of heart, on the other hand, can indeed be present where baptism has not been received, but not where baptism has been despised. For in no way is it to be called a conversion of heart to God when the sacrament of God is despised. Rightly, then, do we reprehend, anathematize, detest, and abominate the perversity of heart in heretics; yet they do not, on that account, fail to have the gospel sacrament, merely because they do not have that through which it is profitable (See Cyprian, Letter 73.22.3). Therefore, when they come to faith and truth and, doing penance, beg that their sins be forgiven them, we do not deceive or mislead them when, having corrected and reformed them in the matter in which they had been depraved and perverted, we so instruct them by heavenly disciplines for the kingdom of heaven that what in them is whole we in no way violate, nor, on account of the fault of the man, do we say that whatever of God is in the man is either nothing or faulty.

26. 33. A few things now remain from the letter to Jubaianus; but because in them there is also discussion of the Church's past custom and of the baptism of John—which usually raises no small question for those who pay too little attention to a matter that is plain, since those who had received the baptism of John were commanded by the Apostle to be baptized in Christ (See Acts 19:3-5)—they are not to be treated carelessly, but to be put off to another volume, lest the size of this one be immoderate.

1. 1. That the ancient custom of the Catholic Church is now maintained, whereby those who come from heretics or schismatics, if they have received a baptism consecrated with gospel words, are not baptized anew—of this we use blessed Cyprian as witness. For he himself set out a question to himself, taken indeed from the mouth of the brethren, whether they were seeking the truth or contending on behalf of the truth. For in the course of his disputations, by which he wished to show that heretics must be baptized anew—about which we have said enough for the present in the foregoing books—he says: But someone says: What then will become of those who in the past, coming to the Church from heresy, were admitted without baptism? (Cyprian, Letter 73.23.1)

Here the whole cause of the Donatists, with whom we have our conflict on this question, is utterly shipwrecked. For if those who, coming from heretics, were thus received did not truly have baptism, and their sins were upon them (See Ps 51:5 (50)), then, when communion was given to such persons—whether by those who were before Cyprian or by Cyprian himself (See Cyprian, Letter 73.23.1)—one of two things must necessarily be said: either that the Church then perished, stained by communion with such people, or that another's sins, even when known, do no harm to one who remains in unity.

But since they cannot say the former—that the Church then perished through the contagion of communion with those who, as Cyprian says, were admitted to it without baptism (otherwise they will not even be able to assert their own origin, if the Church perished then; for there are more than forty years between Cyprian's passion and the burning of the divine books, from which these men, hurling out the smoke of their slanders, found occasion for making a schism, as the order of the consuls shows)—it remains that they must confess that the unity of Christ is contaminated by no such communion even with known evildoers. And when they have confessed this, they will find no cause why they should contend that they had to separate themselves from the Churches throughout the world, which we read were likewise founded through the Apostles; because neither could those Churches perish through admixture with evildoers of any kind, and these men, who would not have perished had they remained in unity with them, by separating themselves from them and breaking the bond of peace, perished in schism.

For the most evident sacrilege of schism stands out, if there was no cause for separation. And it appears that there was no cause for separation, if even known evildoers do not stain the good in unity. But that the good are not stained in unity even by known evildoers we teach with Cyprian as witness, who says that in the past those coming to the Church from heresy were admitted without baptism (Cyprian, Letter 73.23.1); yet their wicked acts of sacrilege, which were upon them because they had not been remitted by baptism, if they could not pollute and destroy the holiness of the Church, then the Church can perish by no contagion of evildoers. Therefore, if they agree that Cyprian spoke the truth, they are convicted by his testimony of the crime of schism; if they contend that Cyprian spoke falsely, let them not use him as a witness in the question of baptism.

2. 2. But now let us carry through what we have undertaken: to converse with blessed Cyprian, a man of peace.

When he had set against himself what he knew was said by the brethren—What then will become of those who in the past, coming to the Church from heresy, were admitted without baptism?—he says: The Lord is able by his mercy to grant indulgence, and not to separate from the gifts of his Church those who, having been admitted to the Church in simplicity, have fallen asleep in the Church (Cyprian, Letter 73.23.2). He rightly presumed that the love of unity could cover a multitude of sins. And if they did have baptism, and those who judged that they must be baptized anew did not think rightly, the love of unity covered that error (See 1 Pet 4:8), as long as there was present this human temptation, not a diabolical secession; until, as the Apostle says, the Lord should reveal to them if they thought otherwise in any matter (See Phil 3:15). And therefore woe to those who, torn from unity by a sacrilegious cutting-off, rebaptize—if baptism exists both among us and among them; or, if it is in the Catholic Church alone, do not baptize at all. Whether, then, they rebaptize or do not baptize, they are not in the bond of peace; so let them apply medicine to whichever of these wounds is theirs.

But as for us, if we admit to the Church without baptism, we are in the number of those whom Cyprian presumed could be pardoned for the sake of preserving unity. But if (as I think is already clear from what we have said in the foregoing books) the integrity of Christian baptism can exist even in the perversity of heretics, then those who in those times rebaptized, and yet did not withdraw from the framework of unity, could by the same love of peace belong to pardon, the love by which Cyprian testifies that even those admitted without baptism could not be separated from the gifts of the Church. Further, if it is true that among heretics and schismatics there is no baptism of Christ, how much less would another's sins harm those set in unity, if even one's own sins were loosed for those coming to unity and admitted without baptism. For if, with Cyprian as witness, the bond of unity avails so much, how could those be harmed by another's sins who were unwilling to withdraw from unity, if even the unbaptized would not perish by their own sins, provided they wished to come to it out of heresy?

3. 3. But what Cyprian adds, saying, It is not the case that, because at some time there was error, error must therefore always continue; since it better befits men who are wise and fear God to follow gladly and without hesitation the truth once disclosed and discerned, than to struggle stubbornly and obstinately against brethren and fellow priests on behalf of heretics (Cyprian, Letter 73.23.1)—he says most truly, and he opposes none rather than himself who resists the most evident truth (See 2 Tim 3:8).

But through all that we have now said at such length, it appears clearly enough, as I judge, and it is certain, that the baptism of Christ cannot be violated by the perversity of heretics when it is given and received among them. But even if it is not yet certain—at least that it is still doubtful, anyone who has weighed what has been said, even while still holding his own view, will confess. We do not, therefore, resist the most evident truth; rather, either we contend on behalf of a manifest truth, as I judge, or at any rate, as those may suppose who think this question not yet resolved, we are still seeking the truth. And so, if the matter stands otherwise than we say, we receive those baptized by heretics with the same simplicity with which those received them whom Cyprian, for the sake of unity, presumed to belong to pardon.

But if the baptism of Christ, as the many things now said indicate, can be whole even in one whose life or faith is not whole—whether of those who seem to be within and yet do not belong to the members of that one dove (See Song 6:8), or of those who so do not belong to it that they are even openly outside—then those who in those times repeated it earned the same pardon, for the sake of the love of unity, which Cyprian believed those had earned, for the sake of such love, whom he supposed to have been admitted without baptism. Therefore those who, with no cause existing (since, as the same Cyprian shows, evildoers cannot harm the good in unity), cut themselves off from the love of that same unity, lost all place of pardon; and since they would perish by the very crime of schism, even if after coming to the Catholic Church they did not rebaptize—how great a punishment do they deserve, who either try to give to Catholics, who already have it, what Cyprian affirms they do not have, or, as the matter itself makes manifest, charge the Catholic Church with not having what they themselves also have?

4. 4. But because now, as I had begun to say, we have undertaken to converse with Cyprian's letters, I would not, as I think, seem even to him, were he present, to struggle stubbornly and obstinately against brethren and fellow priests on behalf of heretics (Cyprian, Letter 73.23.1), when he took in the great considerations that move us, why we should believe that even among heretics, perverted in their malignant error, the baptism of Christ can nonetheless be in itself most reverend and most holy. And since he himself also testifies—whose testimony is of great weight for us—that such people were customarily admitted in the past in this way, whoever, moved by his words, does not doubt that heretics must be baptized anew, let him reckon those, to whom this has not yet been proven on account of the many things urged against it, to be such as those were in the past who simply admitted persons baptized in heresy, with only their own error corrected, and were able, together with them, to be saved through the bond of unity.

But whoever, from the Church's past custom, and from the later strength of a plenary council, and from so many and so great testimonies of the holy Scriptures, and from the many documents of Cyprian himself, and from the clear reasons of truth, understands that the baptism of Christ, consecrated with gospel words, is not made perverse by the perversity of any man whatever, let him understand that those to whom another view then seemed right, with love preserved, could be saved by that same bond of unity. And thereby it must at the same time be understood that those whom no tares, no chaff, could stain in the society of the Church spread throughout the whole world—had they themselves wished to be wheat—and who therefore, with no cause existing, broke away from that same bond of unity;

whichever of those two things be true—whether what Cyprian then held, or what the whole body of the Catholic Church, from which he did not withdraw, maintained—those most evidently set outside, in the manifest sacrilege of schism, cannot be saved; and all that they have of the divine sacraments and of the bounty of the one lawful Husband, as long as they are such, avails rather to their confusion than to their salvation.

5. 5. Wherefore, even if heretics truly wished, with their error corrected, 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 consent to a repetition of baptism for them; rather they should be taught that the integrity of baptism does not profit their perversity if they refuse to be corrected; that the whole baptism was not violated by their perversity as long as they refused to be corrected; and that it is not because they wish to be corrected that a better baptism comes to be in them; but that they themselves depart from malignity, while that which was formerly in them unto destruction begins now to profit unto salvation. For by learning these things they will both desire salvation in Catholic unity, and will not consider that to be their own which is Christ's, and will not mingle the sacrament of truth, though set within them, with their own error.

5. 6. To this is added that men so detest, by some hidden inspiration of God, that anyone should receive baptism again, which he had already received wherever it was, that the heretics themselves, when they dispute about it, rub their brow in shame; and nearly all their laity who have grown old among them, and have conceived a fierce stubbornness against the Catholic Church, confess that this alone displeases them there; and many who wish to cross over to them in order to gain some worldly advantages or to avoid some disadvantages strive by secret efforts to have this granted them as a kind of special and private favor, that they not be rebaptized; and some, believing their other empty errors and false accusations against the Catholic Church, are held back by this one thing, that they are unwilling to be joined to them lest they be compelled to be rebaptized.

Fearing this feeling, which thoroughly possesses the hearts of all men, these Donatists chose rather to accept the baptism that was given among the Maximianists, whom they had condemned, and in that way to cut out their own tongues and stop up their own mouths, than to baptize anew so many people of Musti and Assuras and the other communities, whom, along with Felicianus and Praetextatus and the others they had condemned and who were returning to them, they received back.

6. 7. For since this happens rarely, in individual cases, amid great intervals of place and time, the horror of the deed is not so felt; but if there were suddenly gathered together all those whom over so long a time—whether under the pressing perils of death or through the Paschal solemnities—the aforesaid Maximianists had baptized, and they were told that they must be baptized again, since what they had received in the sacrilege of schism was nothing: this indeed is what the stubbornness of their own error would compel them to say, that they might be able, by some false shadow of constancy, to cover the rigor and ice of their hardness against the warmth of truth; but because they could not bear this, and what was done in the case of so many people not even those who did it could tolerate—especially since these same men would rebaptize on Primianus's side those whom they had already baptized on Maximianus's side—the baptism of those people was accepted, and the swollen pride of these men was checked.

They would by no means have chosen to do this, had they not judged that the horror of men at a repeated washing was more opposed to them than the consideration of a lost defense. I have said this not because we ought to be deterred by human feeling, if truth compelled that those coming from heretics be baptized anew; but because holy Cyprian says that by this very thing the heretics could have been driven all the more to the necessity of coming, if they were to be baptized again in the Catholic Church (Cyprian, Letter 73.24.1-2); on this account I wished to recall how great a horror of this deed sits in the minds of nearly all, which I would believe to have been divinely instilled, so that against any disputations whatever which the weak cannot resolve, the Church might be fortified by that very horror.

7. 8. Indeed, when I consider Cyprian's very words, I am prompted to say some things very necessary for settling a question of this kind. For if they see, he says, it decreed and established by our judgment and sentence that the baptism with which they are baptized there is reckoned just and lawful, they will think that they also possess the Church and the other gifts of the Church justly and lawfully (Cyprian, Letter 73.24.2). He does not say: They will think that they possess the gifts of the Church; but, that they possess them justly and lawfully. Now we 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 gospel words. They have, therefore, a lawful baptism, but they do not have it lawfully. For whoever has it both in Catholic unity and living worthily of it, both has it lawful and has it lawfully; but whoever has it either within the Catholic Church, like chaff mixed with wheat, or outside, like chaff carried off by the wind, has this baptism lawful indeed, but not lawfully. For he has it in the manner in which he uses it; and he does not use it lawfully who uses it against the law, which everyone does who, having been baptized, lives in ruin, whether within or without.

8. 9. Wherefore, just as the Apostle said of the law, The law is good, if anyone uses it lawfully (1 Tim 1:8), so of baptism we can rightly say: Baptism is good, if anyone uses it lawfully. And just as those who did not use the law lawfully did not then make it cease to be good, or to be nothing at all, so in no way does anyone who, whether because he lives in heresy or because he lives in the worst morals, does not use baptism lawfully make it cease to be good, or to be no baptism at all. And therefore, when he is converted 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 same baptism lawfully. Nor does the remission of irrevocable sins follow baptism unless it is had not only lawful but also held lawfully; and yet, if it is not held lawfully, and sins are either not remitted or, once remitted, return, the sacrament of baptism in the baptized is not on that account either evil or nothing.

For just as Judas, to whom the Lord gave the morsel, gave place to the devil within himself not by receiving something evil, but by receiving it wickedly (See Jn 13:27), so whoever receives the Lord's sacrament unworthily does not bring it about, because he himself is evil, that it should be evil, or, because he does not receive it unto salvation, that he should have received nothing. For it was nonetheless the Body of the Lord and the Blood of the Lord even for those to whom the Apostle said, Whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment upon himself (1 Cor 11:29). Let not heretics, then, seek in the Catholic Church 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. Now the end of the commandment is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (1 Tim 1:5). As for the sacrament of the washing, let them hasten to the unity and truth of the Catholic Church, not that they may have it, if they have already been washed with that same washing, though in heresy, but that they may have it to their benefit.

9. 10. Now we must see what is said about the baptism of John (See Cyprian, Letter 73.24.3-25.1). For we read in the Acts of the Apostles that those who had already been baptized with the baptism of John were baptized by Paul (See Acts 19:3-5), for no other reason than that the baptism of John was not the baptism of Christ, but was granted to John by Christ in such a way that it would properly be called John's, as John himself says: A man can receive nothing, unless it has been given him from heaven (Jn 3:27). And lest perhaps it might seem that he had received this from God the Father in such a way that he did not receive it from the Son, speaking again of Christ himself he says: Of his fullness we have all received (Jn 1:16).

But John received this by the grace of a fixed dispensation, not to last long, but only as far as was enough to prepare the way for the Lord, whose forerunner he had to be. And as the Lord was to enter that way humbly and to lead to excellence those who humbly followed him, so, just as he washed the feet of his servants (See Jn 13:4-5), he willed to be washed with a servant's baptism (See Mt 3:13). For as he subjected himself to the feet of those whom he himself directed, so he subjected himself to John's office, which he himself had bestowed; that all might understand with how great a sacrilege of pride anyone would despise the baptism he ought to receive from the Lord, when the Lord himself had received what he had himself bestowed upon a servant so that the servant might give it as his own; and that, since John, than whom no one greater has arisen among those born of women (See Mt 11:11), bore such testimony to Christ that he confessed himself unworthy to loose the strap of his sandal (See Jn 1:27), Christ, by receiving John's baptism, should be found most humble among men, and, by taking away the place of John's baptism, should be believed to be the most high God—the same teacher of humility and giver of loftiness.

9. 11. For to none of the prophets, to no man at all, do we read in the divine Scriptures that it was granted to baptize in the water of repentance unto the remission of sins (See Mt 3:11), as was granted to John; by which marvelous grace, holding the hearts of the peoples in suspense upon himself, he would prepare in them the way (See Mt 11:10) 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 was pre-washing with such a baptism that, once it was received, the Lord's baptism too was still necessary—not that the latter should be repeated, but that to those who had received the baptism of John the baptism of Christ also, for which John was preparing the way, should be handed on.

For if the humility of Christ were not to be commended, there would have been no need even of John's baptism; and again, if there were an end in John, there would be no need of Christ's baptism after John's baptism. But because Christ is the end of the law, unto righteousness to everyone who believes (Rom 10:4), by John was shown the one to whom one was to proceed; and when one has reached him, there one remains. The same John, therefore, proclaimed both the loftiness of the Lord, when he set him far above himself, and his humility, when he baptized him as though he were the lowest. But if John had baptized Christ alone, John would be thought the dispenser of a better baptism—the one with which Christ alone was washed—than is the baptism of Christ with which Christians are washed; and again, if everyone had first to be baptized with the baptism of John and then with that of Christ, the baptism of Christ would rightly seem less full and less perfect, as not sufficing for salvation. Wherefore the Lord was both baptized with the baptism of John, that he might bend the proud necks of men to his saving baptism; and he was not the only one washed with that baptism, lest by this very thing he should show the former to be superior, in that he alone had been deemed worthy to be baptized with it; and he did not allow it to continue beyond that, lest this one baptism, with which he himself baptizes, should seem to need another preceding it.

10. 12. I ask, therefore: if sins were remitted by the baptism of John, what more could have been bestowed through the baptism of Christ on those whom the apostle Paul, after the baptism of John, willed to be baptized with the baptism of Christ (See Acts 19:3-5)? But if sins were not remitted by John's baptism, were they then better than John in Cyprian's times—those of whom he himself says that they seized estates by treacherous frauds and increased their gains by multiplying usury (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6)—and yet, when these baptized, remission 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 (See Jn 3:29), the preparer of the Lord's way, and the baptizer of the Lord himself? What madman would say this? Wherefore, although I believe that John baptized in the water of repentance (See Mt 3:11) unto the remission of sins in such a way that to those baptized by him sins were remitted in hope, but in reality this took place in the Lord's baptism—just as the resurrection that is awaited at the end has been wrought in us in hope, as the Apostle says, For he has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places (Eph 2:6), and the same says, For in hope we were saved (Rom 8:24); for John himself, though he says, I indeed baptize you in the water of repentance, unto the remission of sins (Mt 3:11), yet, seeing the Lord, says, Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29)—nevertheless, lest anyone contend that sins were remitted even in John's baptism, but that some fuller sanctification was conferred through the baptism of Christ on those whom Paul commanded to be baptized anew, I do not argue contentiously.

11. 13. For what most pertains to the matter at hand must be considered (however the baptism of John may stand, since it is manifest that he belonged to the unity of Christ): what cause brought it about that people had to be baptized after holy John, and did not have to be after avaricious bishops. For no one denies that in the Lord's field John was wheat, and, if it can be no more, then in a hundredfold abundance. Likewise no one doubts that avarice, which is the service of idols (See Col 3:5), is counted among the chaff in the Lord's harvest. Why, then, is one baptized after the wheat and not baptized after the chaff? If Paul baptized after John because he was better than John, why did not Cyprian also 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, then neither ought Paul to have baptized after John, since they were held within the same unity. Or do cheats and the rapacious perhaps belong to the members of that one dove (See Song 6:8), and he does not belong to whom the very power of the Lord Jesus Christ was shown by the Holy Spirit descending in the appearance of a dove (See Mt 3:16; Jn 1:33)? On the contrary, he belongs to it intimately, while those, whether by the occasion of some scandal or by the final winnowing to be separated from the wheat, in no way belong; and yet baptism took place after him, and is not done after these. What, then, is the cause, except that the baptism which Paul commanded them to receive was not this one which was given through John? And therefore, in that same unity of the Church, the baptism of Christ, if it is handed on by a usurer baptizing, cannot be repeated; but those who received the baptism of John even from John himself had afterward to be baptized with the baptism of Christ.

. . . baptism does not take place after Christ.

12. 14. Accordingly, I too, using the very words of blessed Cyprian, can turn the hearts of my hearers to the consideration of a certain marvel, if I say: That John, held to be the greatest among the prophets; he who, while still in his mother's womb, was filled with divine grace; he who was sustained by the spirit and power of Elijah, who was not the Lord's adversary but his forerunner and herald; who not only foretold the Lord in words but also pointed him out to the eyes; who baptized Christ himself, through whom the rest are baptized (Cyprian, Letter 73.25.1)—he was not deemed worthy to baptize in such a way that those baptized by him should not be baptized after him; and after the avaricious, the cheats, the rapacious, the usurers, will no one think that anyone in the Church is to be baptized?

When I have invidiously made this outcry, is it not answered me: Why do you think this unworthy, as though either John were dishonored or the avaricious man honored? But it was not fitting that his baptism should be repeated, of whom the same John says, This is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit (Jn 1:33). For through whatever minister it is given, it is the baptism of him of whom it was said, This is he who baptizes. But not even John's own baptism was repeated, when the apostle Paul commanded those baptized by him to be baptized in Christ. For what they had not received from the friend of the bridegroom (See Jn 3:29), this they had to receive from the bridegroom himself, of whom that friend had said, This is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.

13. 15. For the Lord Jesus could, if he had willed, have given the power of his baptism to some one or to certain chief servants of his, whom he had already made his friends, to whom he says, I will no longer call you servants, but friends (Jn 15:15); so that, just as Aaron was shown to be priest by the rod that flowered (See Num 17:8), so in his Church, where more and greater miracles have been done, ministers of more excellent holiness and dispensers of the mysteries, who alone ought to baptize, might be shown by some sign. But if this were done, their baptism, though assigned to them by the Lord, would even so now be called theirs, as the baptism of John was. Therefore Paul gives thanks to God that he had baptized none of them, who, as though forgetful in whose name they had been baptized, divided themselves under the names of men (See 1 Cor 1:12-15).

For since baptism given through a contemptible man avails as much as that given through an Apostle, it is recognized as belonging neither to the one nor to the other, but to Christ; which John testifies that he had learned, in the case of the Lord himself, through that appearance of the dove. For in what other respect he may have said, And I did not know him (Jn 1:33), I do not plainly see. For if he did not know him at all, he would not have said to him as he came to his baptism, I ought to be baptized by you (Mt 3:14). What, then, does he mean when he says, Because I saw the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it remained upon him. And I did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize in water, he himself said to me: Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending from heaven and remaining upon him, he it is who baptizes in the Holy Spirit (Jn 1:32-33).

The dove had certainly descended upon the baptized one. Yet earlier, to him coming to be baptized, John had said, I ought to be baptized by you (Mt 3:14). Already, then, he knew him. What, therefore, does he mean by I did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize in water, he himself said to me: Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending from heaven and remaining upon him, he it is who baptizes in the Holy Spirit (Jn 1:33)—since this took place after he was baptized—unless that in one respect he knew him, and in another respect did not yet know him?

He knew, namely, the bridegroom, the Son of God, of whose fullness all would receive (See Jn 1:16); but because he himself had so received from his fullness the power of baptizing that it was called John's baptism, he did not know whether he was going to give it thus to others as well, or rather to have his own baptism in such a way that, through whatever minister it was given—whether of more excellent grace or of lower, whether through a man of hundredfold fruit or of sixtyfold or of thirtyfold, whether through the wheat or through the chaff—it would be recognized as belonging to none but that one; and this he learned through the Spirit, like a dove descending and remaining upon him.

14. 16. And so we find it said by the Apostles, both my glory (1 Cor 9:15)—though, of course, in the Lord—and my ministry (Rom 11:13), and my understanding (Eph 3:4), and my gospel (2 Tim 2:8), though, of course, imparted and given by the Lord; but "my baptism" none of them said at all. For the glory of all is not equal, nor do all minister equally, nor are all endowed with equal understanding, and in evangelizing one works better than another, and therefore one can be called more learned than another and saving by his very teaching; but one cannot be called more or less baptized than another, whether he is baptized by a lesser or by a greater minister.

Accordingly, since the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, debaucheries, the service of idols, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkennesses, carousings, and the like (Gal 5:19-21)—if it is said as something marvelous, "People were baptized after John, and after heretics they are not baptized," why is it not said as something marvelous, "People were baptized after John, and after the envious they are not baptized"—since Cyprian himself testifies in his Letter on Jealousy and Envy that to be envious is to be on the devil's side, and Cyprian himself, from the apostle Paul, as we have already shown, makes plain that there were envious heralds of Christ in the Church of Christ in those very apostolic times (See Cyprian, Letter 73.24.3)?

15. 17. Since, therefore, the baptism of John was not the same as the baptism of Christ, I think it has been sufficiently shown; and therefore no argument can be drawn from it that baptism should be done after heretics on the ground that it was done after John, since John was not a heretic and could have a baptism that, though granted by Christ, was nonetheless not properly Christ's, since he had the love of Christ; whereas a heretic can have the baptism of Christ together with the perversity of the devil, just as within the Church another can have the baptism of Christ together with the envy of the devil.

15. 18. But, it is said, all the more must one be baptized after a heretic, since John was not a heretic, and yet baptism was done after him (See Cyprian, Letter 73.24.3). Just so, someone says, all the more must one be baptized after a drunkard, since John was sober, and yet baptism was done after him (See Cyprian, Letter 73.25.2); and we shall have nothing to answer him, except that the baptism of Christ was handed on to those baptized by John who did not have it; but in those in whom there is the baptism of Christ, by no perversities of theirs whatever can it come about that the baptism of Christ is not in them.

15. 19. It was not, therefore, that a heretic could obtain the right of baptism because he baptized first (Cyprian, Letter 11.1); but because he did not baptize with his own baptism. And even if he did not have the right of baptizing, nonetheless what he gave is Christ's, and what the other received is Christ's. For many things are given contrary to right, and yet they are not on that account said to be either nothing or not given. For neither does he who renounces the world in words only and not in deeds receive baptism by right; and yet he receives it. For Cyprian recalls that there were such people in the Church in his times, and we experience it, and groan.

15. 20. But it is strange how it can be said that baptism and the Church cannot be separated from each other and divided at all (Cyprian, Letter 73.25.2). For if baptism remains inseparably in the baptized, how can the baptized be separated from the Church and baptism cannot? But that baptism remains inseparably in the baptized is manifest; for into whatever depth of evils and into whatever horrible abyss of sins the baptized may rush, even to apostatic ruin, he does not lose baptism; and therefore, to one returning through repentance, it is not given back, because he is judged not to have been able to lose it. But who would doubt that the baptized can be separated from the Church? From there, indeed, have come all the heresies that deceive under the Christian name.

16. 20. Wherefore, since it is manifest that baptism is in the baptized, when the baptized is separated from the Church, the baptism that is in him is, of course, separated along with him. And therefore not all who hold baptism hold also the Church, just as not all who hold the Church hold also eternal life. Or, if we say that none hold the Church except those who keep the divine commandments, we grant that there are already many who hold baptism and do not hold the Church.

16. 21. Wherefore a heretic does not seize baptism beforehand (Cyprian, Letter 73.25.2), since he took it from the Church. Nor could he lose, when he withdrew, that which we say the Church no longer has, and yet we grant that he has baptism (See Cyprian, Letter 73.25.3). Nor does anyone take priority from himself and assign it to the heretic, because he says that the heretic carried off with himself what he would give not lawfully, but would yet give lawful, and would no longer have lawfully, but would have lawful.

But priority lies only in holy conduct and a good life, to which belong all those of whom, as of members, that bride consists who has neither spot nor wrinkle (See Eph 5:27), and that dove (See Song 6:8) groaning amid the wickedness of many crows—unless, perhaps, since Esau lost priority on account of his craving for a lentil dish (See Gen 25:29-34), we are to think that cheats, the rapacious, usurers, the envious, the drunken, and the rest of this kind hold priority—such as Cyprian groaned over, even in letters, as being in the Church of his time (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6). Wherefore, either to hold the Church is not the same as to hold priority in divine things; or, if everyone who holds the Church also holds priority, then all those wicked persons do not hold the Church who nevertheless are seen within both to give baptism and to have it, which is denied by none of us. For who would say that they have priority in divine things, except one who has no taste for anything divine?

17. 22. But now, all things being considered and thoroughly treated, we have come to those peaceful words of Cyprian, that is, to the end of the letter, which, as I read and often repeat them, do not satisfy me—so great is the pleasantness of brotherly love that breathes from them, so great the sweetness of love that overflows. These things, he says, we have written back to you briefly, according to our mediocrity, dearest brother, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to keep each bishop from doing what he thinks right, having the free power of his own judgment. We, as far as in us lies, do not contend with our colleagues and fellow bishops on account of heretics, with whom we hold concord and the Lord's peace; especially since the Apostle also says, 'But if anyone is minded to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Church of God' (1 Cor 11:16). Love of spirit, the honor of our college, the bond of faith, the concord of the priesthood are preserved by us patiently and gently. For this reason also we have written, as far as our mediocrity was able, the Lord permitting and inspiring, a little book on the Good of Patience, which we have sent to you for our mutual love (Cyprian, Letter 73.26).

17. 23. In these words many things are to be considered, in which the radiance of Christian love shines forth in this man who loved the beauty of the house of the Lord and the place of the tabernacle of his dwelling (See Ps 26:8 (25)).

First, because he did not keep silent about what he thought; next, because he put it forth so gently and peacefully; because he held ecclesiastical peace with those who thought otherwise; because he understood that there is such great soundness in the bond of unity; because he so loved it and soberly guarded it; because he saw and felt that even those who think differently can do so with love preserved—for he would not say that he held divine concord and the Lord's peace with the wicked, since a good man can indeed have peace toward the wicked, but cannot hold with them a peace which they themselves do not hold; finally, because, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to keep each bishop from doing what he thinks right, having the free power of his own judgment, he gave even to us, such as we are, a place for treating these matters peacefully with him.

For he is present, not only through his letters, but also through that very love which flourished most in him and could never die. Desiring, therefore, to cling and be cemented to him, if I am not hindered by the unfittingness of my sins, aided by his prayers, I shall learn, if I can, from his letters, with how great peace and with how great consolation the Lord governed his Church through him;

and, clothed in the bowels of humility through the affection of his discourse, if I hold any view more truly together with the whole world, I shall not set my own heart above him, even in this very thing, that, though thinking otherwise, he was nonetheless not torn away from the whole world.

For a greater strength of virtue stood out in him, while this question still wavered undebated, in that, thinking otherwise than many of his colleagues, he maintained such great moderation that he did not mutilate the holy society of the Church of God with any blemish of schism, than if, without that virtue, he had held all his views not only truly but also in agreement with others.

For I do not please him if I should attempt to set his genius and his power of speech and his abundance of teaching above the holy council of all the nations, in which he assuredly took part through the unity of the Spirit—especially now that he is set in such a light of truth, where he most certainly perceives what he here most peaceably was seeking.

For out of that abundance he derides these words of ours, which seem to be, as it were, the babblings of infancy; there he sees by what rule of devotion he here acted, so that nothing in the Church was dearer to him than unity; there too he beholds, with ineffable delight, with how provident and most merciful a dispensation the Lord, in order to cure our swellings of pride, chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (See 1 Cor 1:27);

and that he might so wholesomely arrange all things in the orders of the members of his Church, lest men should say that they had been chosen for the gospel's help on account of their genius or their letters—of whose gift they were as yet ignorant that they had them—and should thereby be puffed up with pestilent pride. How Cyprian rejoices, how much more serenely he beholds in that light, for how great a salvation of the human race it was brought about that something might be found which could deservedly be reproved, though in the Christian and devout writings of orators, and not be found in the writings of fishermen!

Wholly secure as I am about this joy of that holy soul, I dare neither think nor say that my own writings are free from all error; nor do I set my own opinion above his in that view in which it seemed right to him that those coming from heretics should be received otherwise than they either were received in the past, as he himself testifies, or are now received, as the reasonable custom has been confirmed by the plenary council (See Cyprian, Letter 73.23) of the whole Christian world; but I set above his opinion that of the holy Catholic Church, which he so loved and loves, in which he brought forth so abundant a fruit with endurance; whose universal body he himself was not, but in whose universal body he remained; whose root he never deserted, but, that he might be more fruitful in whose root (See Jn 15:1), he was pruned by the heavenly husbandman; for whose peace and salvation, lest the wheat be uprooted together with the tares, he both rebuked, with the liberty of truth, such great evils of men set together with him in unity, and bore them, with the strength of love (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6; Letter 11.1).

18. 24. Whence the same man most copiously admonishes us that many who are dead in their offenses and sins, although they do not belong to the society of Christ and to the members of that one innocent and simple dove (See Song 6:8) (which, if it alone baptized, those would assuredly not baptize), are nevertheless seen, in appearance, within, both to be baptized and to baptize. And that in them, though dead, his baptism lives—his who does not die, and over whom death shall no longer have dominion (See Rom 6:9).

Since, therefore, there are dead men even within, and not hidden ones (for Cyprian would not say such great things about them), who either do not belong to that living dove or do not yet belong to it; and there are dead men outside, who more manifestly either do not belong to it or do not yet belong to it; and since it is true that one who does not himself live cannot give life to another (Cyprian, Letter 71.1.3): it is manifest that those who within are baptized by such men, if they come with a true conversion of heart, are given life by him whose baptism it is. But if they renounce the world in words and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), such as Cyprian testifies are within as well, neither are they given life unless they are converted, and yet they have a true baptism, even if they are not converted. Whence it is likewise manifest that even the outwardly dead, although they neither live nor give life, nevertheless have a living baptism, which then profits them unto life, if they are converted to peace.

19. 25. Wherefore those who then received people coming from heresies in the same baptism of Christ which they had received outside, and said that they were following the old custom, as even now the Church receives them—in vain was it said against them that among the old heresies and schisms the first beginnings were still in their early stage, so that those were there who were withdrawing from the Church, and had first been baptized here, whom, then returning to the Church and doing penance, it was not necessary to baptize (Cyprian, Letter 71.2.1).

For as soon as each heresy arose and went out from the congregation of Catholic communion, it could—I do not say on another day, but on that very day—baptize any who rushed into it. And therefore, if this was the old custom, that they should be received in this way (which not even those who argued against it could deny), it can be in doubt to no one who attends a little more carefully that those too were received in this way who were baptized outside in heresies.

19. 26. But what reason there is in this I do not see: that one is said to be not yet a straying sheep (See Cyprian, Letter 71.2.2) to whom, while seeking Christian salvation, it has happened to fall into the error of heretics and to be baptized among them; while one is said to be already made a sheep, within the Catholic Church itself, who has renounced the world in words only and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), and in that falsity of heart has received baptism.

Or, if even such a one does not become a sheep until he turns to God with a true heart: just as this man is not baptized when he becomes a sheep, if he was already baptized, but the sheep does not yet pray; so too that man who comes from heretics that he may become a sheep is not then to be baptized, if among them he had already been baptized with the same baptism, although he was not yet a sheep. Wherefore, since all the wicked even within—the avaricious, the envious, the drunken, and those living against Christian discipline—can deservedly be called liars, and darksome, and dead, and antichrists, do they nonetheless on that account not baptize, because there can be nothing in common between a lie and the truth (2 Cor 6:14), between darkness and light, between death and immortality, between Antichrist and Christ (Cyprian, Letter 71.2.3)?

19. 27. He therefore does not presume upon custom alone, but also upon the reason of truth, who says that the sacrament of God is made perverse by the perversity of no men, since it is declared to be present even in the perverse. Certainly the apostle John says most plainly, He who hates his brother is in darkness even until now (1 Jn 2:9); and again, He who hates his brother is a murderer (1 Jn 3:15): why, then, do such men baptize within, whom Cyprian himself recalls to have been in malevolent envy (See Cyprian, Letter 73.14)?

20. 27. How does a murderer cleanse and sanctify the water? How does darkness bless the oil? But if God is present to his sacraments and his words, by whatever sort of men they are administered, then both the sacraments of God are everywhere upright, and the wicked men to whom they profit nothing are everywhere perverse.

20. 28. But what sort of thing is this, that a heretic is thought not to have baptism because he does not have the Church (Cyprian, Letter 70.1.2)? And surely when he is baptized, he is also questioned about the holy Church (Cyprian, Letter 70.2.1). As though, indeed, the man who within renounces the world not in deeds but in words (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1) were not questioned about this in baptism. As, therefore, this man's false answer does not bring it about that the baptism he receives is no baptism, so too that man's false answer about the holy Church does not bring it about that the baptism he receives is no baptism;

and just as that man, if afterward he truly fulfills what he had falsely answered, does not have baptism repeated for him, but his life is corrected; so too that man, if he afterward comes to the Church, about which, when questioned, he had answered falsely because he thought he had it while he did not, has given to him the very Church which he did not have, and what he had received is not repeated. But why God can still sanctify oil at words proceeding from the mouth of a murderer (See Cyprian, Letter 70.2.2), and cannot do so at the altar that heretics have set up (Cyprian, Letter 70.2.3), I do not know; unless perhaps a man's heart falsely converted within does not hinder, while wood falsely set up outside does hinder him from deigning to be present to his sacraments—he who is hindered by no falsehoods of men.

If, then, what was said in the Gospel, God does not hear a sinner (Jn 9:31; see Cyprian, Letter 70.2.3), avails to this, that the sacraments are not celebrated through a sinner, how does he hear a murderer praying, whether over the water of baptism, or over oil, or over the Eucharist, or over the heads of those on whom hands are laid? Yet all these things are both done and avail 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 (Cyprian, Letter 70.2.3), how does a murderer give the Holy Spirit (See Cyprian, Letter 70.2.3)? And yet he himself within does also baptize. God, therefore, gives the Holy Spirit even when that very man baptizes.

21. 29. But as for what he says, He who comes to the Church must be baptized and renewed, that within he may be sanctified by the holy (Cyprian, Letter 70.2.3)—what will he do, if even within he runs into men who are not holy? Or is a murderer perhaps holy? And if he is baptized in the Church for this reason, that he may lay aside even this very thing, that a man coming to God, while he seeks a priest, ran by the fraud of error into a sacrilegious one: where shall he afterward lay it aside, if perhaps within the Church itself, while he seeks a man of God, he runs by the fraud of error into a murderer (See Cyprian, Letter 70.2.3)? If there cannot be in a man something empty and something prevailing, why can there be in a murderer a holy sacrament, and not a holy heart? If whoever cannot give the Holy Spirit cannot baptize either (Cyprian, Letter 70.3.1), why does a murderer baptize within? Or how does a murderer have the Holy Spirit, since everyone who has the Holy Spirit is enlightened, while he who hates his brother is in darkness even until now (See 1 Jn 2:9)? If because there is one baptism and one spirit (Cyprian, Letter 70.3.1), those therefore cannot have one baptism who do not have one spirit, why do the innocent man and the murderer within have one baptism and not have the same spirit?

Thus, then, a heretic and a Catholic can have one baptism and not have one Church, just as within the Catholic Church the innocent man and the murderer can have one baptism and not have one spirit; for 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 recognized, and what he does not have is to be given to him (See Cyprian, Letter 70.3.2).

If nothing that those do can be ratified and firm with the Lord whom the Lord declares to be his enemies and adversaries, why is the baptism firm which murderers hand on? Or do we not call murderers enemies and adversaries of the Lord? But he who hates his brother is a murderer (1 Jn 3:15). How, then, did those baptize who hated Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus, and thereby hated Jesus too, who himself said even to Saul, Why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4), when he was persecuting his servants—and who at the end will himself say, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of mine, you did it not to me (Mt 25:45)?

Wherefore 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 whatever is there is wheat. And therefore 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 (1 Jn 2:19).

Wherefore God gives the sacrament of grace even through the wicked; but grace itself only through himself or through his saints. And therefore he works the remission 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 (Jn 20:23).

But baptism, which is the sacrament of the remission of sins, since it is in doubt to no one that even murderers can have it—who are in darkness even until now, because fraternal hatred has not been shut out from their hearts: whether no sins have been remitted to them, if they were baptized with no change of heart for the better, or, once remitted, returned at once—we recognize, by itself, because it is God's, to be holy, and, whether it is handed on or received by such men, to be violated by the perversity of none, whether within or without.

22. 30. Accordingly, we agree with Cyprian that heretics cannot give remission, but can give baptism—which indeed avails both to those who give and to those who receive it unto destruction, as to those who use so great a gift of God wickedly: just as the malicious and the envious too, whom he himself testifies to be within, cannot give remission of sins, although we all confess that they can give baptism. For if of those who had sinned against us it was said, If you do not forgive men their sins, neither will your Father forgive you your sins (Mt 6:15), how much more is it impossible that sins should be forgiven those who hate the brothers by whom they are loved, and are baptized in that very hatred—to whom, nevertheless, when they are afterward corrected, baptism is not given again, but the very pardon which they then did not deserve to receive is bestowed in true conversion.

And therefore the things that Cyprian wrote to Quintus, and those that, together with his colleagues Liberalis, Caldonius, Junius, and the rest, he wrote to Saturninus, Maximus, and others, when well considered, are in no way to be brought forth against the agreement of the whole Catholic Church, of which they rejoiced to be members, and from which they neither cut themselves off, nor, though thinking differently, allowed themselves to be cut off; until at length, in the will of the Lord, through a plenary council, though after many years, what was more right shone forth, established by no novelty, but strengthened by antiquity.

23. 31. Cyprian also writes to Pompeius (See Cyprian, Letter 74) about this same matter, where he openly indicates that Stephen, whom we have learned was then bishop of the Roman Church, not only did not agree with him on these things, but even wrote and gave instructions to the contrary. And Stephen certainly did not have communion with heretics (Cyprian, Letter 74.2.1) for the reason that he did not dare to disapprove the baptism of Christ, which he recognized to have remained whole in their perversity. For that those who think wrongly about God do not have baptism—that this can happen even within—has, I think, already been sufficiently argued. The Apostles, indeed, gave no instructions about this (Cyprian, Letter 74.2.2); but that custom which was set against Cyprian must be believed to have taken its origin 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, although they are not found in writing.

23. 32. But it is written of heretics that they are condemned by themselves (Tit 3:11; see Cyprian, Letter 74.2.3). What then? Are not those also condemned by themselves to whom it was said, For in that in which you judge another, you condemn yourself (Rom 2:1)? And to these the Apostle says, You who preach that one must not steal, do steal (Rom 2:21), and so on. And such, assuredly, were those who, though they were bishops and set in Catholic unity with Cyprian himself, seized estates by treacherous frauds (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6), while preaching to the people the words of the Apostle who says, Nor will the rapacious possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:10).

23. 33. Wherefore I shall not delay to run briefly through the other statements of that very letter which was written to Pompeius, according to the same rules.

By what passage of the holy Scriptures is it shown that it is against the commandment of God that those coming from heretics, if they have already received there the baptism of Christ, are not baptized? But it is plainly shown that many false Christians, although they do not have the same love as the saints—without which whatever holy things could be had profit nothing—nevertheless have baptism in common with the saints: which has already been sufficiently and most abundantly demonstrated.

He said that the Church and the Spirit and baptism cannot be separated from one another, and therefore those who are separated from the Church and from the Holy Spirit he would have understood to be separated also from baptism. But if this is so, then, when anyone has received baptism in the Catholic Church, it remains in him only so long as he himself remains in the Church; but if he withdraws from it, he withdraws from baptism (See Cyprian, Letter 74.4.2)—which is not so. For the reason it is not given back to one returning is that, when he withdrew, he did not lose it. But just as the Holy Spirit, as the beloved sons have it, the malicious sons do not have, and yet they have baptism, so too the Church, as Catholics have it, heretics do not have, and yet they have baptism. For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the feigned (Wis 1:5), and yet baptism will not flee him. And so, just as baptism can exist even where the Holy Spirit takes himself away, so baptism can exist where the Church is not.

But the laying on of hands (Cyprian, Letter 74.5.1), if it were not applied to one coming from heresy, he would be judged to be, as it were, free from all fault: but for the sake of the bond of love, which is the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, without which whatever other holy things have been in a man do not avail unto salvation, the hand is laid on heretics who are corrected.

24. 34. I recall having already discussed sufficiently the temple of God (See Cyprian, Letter 74.5.2) and how this is to be understood: As many of you as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ (Gal 3:27) (See above, 4.4.6). For the avaricious are not the temple of God, since it is written, What fellowship has the temple of God with idols? (2 Cor 6:16), and Cyprian took up the testimony of Paul that avarice is idolatry (See Eph 5:5; Cyprian, Letter 55.27). But men put on Christ sometimes only as far as the reception of the sacrament, sometimes even as far as the sanctification of their life; and that first can be common to both the good and the wicked, but this second is proper to the good and the devout. Wherefore, if baptism cannot exist without the Spirit, then heretics too have the Spirit; but unto destruction, not unto salvation, as Saul had it (See 1 Sam 19:23 (1 Kgs)). For through the name of Christ, in the Holy Spirit (See Cyprian, Letter 74.5.4), demons are cast out, which even that man could do who was outside the Church, about whom the disciples reported to the Lord (See Mk 9:37). As the avaricious have it, who nevertheless are not the temple of God, since what fellowship has the temple of God with idols? (2 Cor 6:16) But if the avaricious do not have the Spirit of God, and yet have baptism, then baptism can exist without the Spirit.

24. 35. If heresy cannot beget children to God through Christ because it is not the bride of Christ (Cyprian, Letter 74.6.2), neither can that crowd of the wicked set within the Church, since it too is not the bride of Christ. For the bride of Christ is designated as without spot and wrinkle (See Eph 5:27). Therefore either not all the baptized are sons of God, or even one who is not the bride can beget sons of God. But just as it is asked whether one has been born spiritually who received the baptism of Christ among heretics (Cyprian, Letter 74.7.2), so it can be asked whether one has been born spiritually who received the baptism of Christ in the Catholic Church without being turned to God with a true heart; and yet he did not on that account fail to receive baptism.

25. 36. The things that, provoked, he poured out against Stephen I do not wish to review, both because there is no need, since the very same things are said which have already been sufficiently discussed, and because it is better to pass over those things which carried the peril of pernicious dissension. Stephen, indeed, had even thought that those should be cut off from communion who were trying to overturn the ancient custom regarding the receiving of heretics; but Cyprian, moved by the very difficulty of the question, and most abundantly endowed with the holy bowels of love, judged that one must remain in unity with those who thought differently. And so, although he is indignant rather hotly, yet in a brotherly way, the peace of Christ nevertheless prevailed in their hearts, so that in such a dispute no evil of schism arose between them. Nor did heresies and schisms grow up more abundantly from this (Cyprian, Letter 74.9.3); for what in them is Christ's is approved, but what is their own is disapproved. For rather have those who held this law of rebaptizing been cut into more fragments.

26. 37. And now, when he says that a bishop ought to be teachable (2 Tim 2:24), and adds, And that man is teachable who is gentle and mild toward the patience of learning; for bishops must not only teach but also learn, since he too teaches better who daily grows and advances by learning better things (Cyprian, Letter 74.10.1)—by these words the holy man, endowed with devout love, sufficiently indicates that we need not fear so to read his letters that, if afterward the Church has confirmed anything ascertained by fuller and longer inquiries, we should not waver; for just as there were many things that the learned Cyprian might teach, so there was also something that the teachable Cyprian might learn. And what he admonishes us, that we run back to the source, that is, to the apostolic tradition, and from there direct the channel into our own times (Cyprian, Letter 74.10.2), is most excellent and is without doubt to be done. It has therefore been handed down to us, as he himself recalls, by the Apostles, that there is one God, and one Christ, and one hope, and one faith, and one Church, and one baptism (Cyprian, Letter 74.11.1; see Eph 4:5).

Since, then, in the very times of the Apostles we find that there were some who did not have one hope, and yet had one baptism, from that very source the truth is led down to us in such a way that it appears it can come about that, while there is one Church, just as there is one hope and one baptism, nevertheless those have one baptism who do not have one Church—just as even in those times it could come about that those had one baptism who did not have one hope. For how did those have one hope together with the saints and the righteous who said, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die (1 Cor 15:32), saying that there was no resurrection of the dead? And yet there were among them those to whom the same Apostle says, Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor 1:13) For he writes to them most plainly, saying, How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? (1 Cor 15:12)

27. 38. And as for the fact that in the Song of Songs the Church is described thus: A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride, a sealed fountain, a well of living water, a paradise with the fruit of apple trees (Song 4:12-13; Cyprian, Letter 74.11.2)—this I do not dare to understand except of the holy and the righteous, not of the avaricious and the cheats, and the rapacious, and usurers, and the drunken, and the envious; whom nevertheless, as I have often recalled, we learn and teach more abundantly from Cyprian's own letters (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6) to have 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 sealed fountain, whom Cyprian testifies to have renounced the world in words only and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 74.11.2), and yet to have been within. For if they too are there, and they too are the bride of Christ, is she then truly such, without spot and wrinkle (See Eph 5:27), and is that beautiful dove (See Song 2:10, 13-14) disfigured by such a part of her members? Or are these the thorns, in the midst of which she is like the lily that is spoken of in the same Song (See Song 2:2)?

In so far, then, as she is a lily, in so far is she also a garden enclosed and a sealed fountain: namely, in those righteous who are Jews in secret by the circumcision of the heart (See Rom 2:29) (for all the beauty of the king's daughter is within (Ps 45:13 (44))), among whom is the fixed number of the saints, predestined before the foundation of the world. But that multitude of thorns, whether by hidden or by open separations, lies outside, beyond the number. I have declared and have spoken; they are multiplied beyond number (Ps 40:5 (39)). That number, then, of the righteous, who are called according to his purpose (See Rom 8:28), of whom it was said, The Lord knows those who are his (2 Tim 2:19), is itself the garden enclosed, the sealed fountain, the well of living water, the paradise with the fruit of apple trees (See Song 4:12-13).

Of this number some live spiritually and enter upon the surpassing way of love (See Eph 3:19); and when they instruct, in the spirit of gentleness, a man overtaken in some offense, they take heed lest they themselves also be tempted (See Gal 6:1); and when perhaps they themselves too are overtaken, the affection of love is somewhat repressed in them, but not extinguished, and, rising up and burning again, is restored to its former course. For they know how to say, My soul slumbered for weariness; strengthen me in your words (Ps 119:28 (118)). But when they hold any view otherwise, that too God will reveal to them, as they remain in the ardor of love and do not break the bond of peace (See Phil 3:15).

But some, still carnal and animal, earnestly pursue their own advances, and, that they may become fit for the food of the spiritual, are nourished with the milk of the holy mysteries; the things that in depraved morals are manifest even to popular judgment they shun in the fear of God;

and they strive most vigilantly to be less and less delighted by earthly and temporal things; the rule of faith, diligently inquired into, they hold most firmly, and if they deviate from it at all, they are quickly corrected by Catholic authority, although in its words, on account of a carnal understanding, they still waver amid various crowdings of imaginings.

There are also some of that number who as yet 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, sealed fountain, well of living water, paradise with the fruit of apple trees (Song 4:12-13) consists. Of these the gifts granted by God are partly proper, such as, in this present time, untiring love, and in the world to come, eternal life; but partly common with the wicked and perverse, such as all the rest, among which are also the most holy mysteries.

28. 39. Hence, then, the consideration of that ark, of which Noah was the builder and steersman (See Gen 6-7), is now set before us more easily and readily. For Peter says, In the ark of Noah a few, that is, eight souls of men, were saved through water; which in a like form baptism also saves you—not the putting off of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience (1 Pet 3:20-21; see Cyprian, Letter 74.11.3).

Wherefore, if there appear to men, baptized in Catholic unity, those who renounce the world in words only and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), 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, using holy baptism wickedly, though they seem to be within, persevere even to the end of life in disgraceful and ruined morals? Or how were those not saved through water whom Cyprian himself recalls to have been in the past simply admitted into the Church 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 indulgence, and not to separate from the gifts of his Church those who, having been simply admitted to the Church, have fallen asleep in the Church (See Cyprian, Letter 73.23.1). 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. It can happen, therefore, that even some baptized outside are, by the foreknowledge of God, more truly reckoned baptized within, because there the water begins to profit them unto salvation; for they cannot otherwise be said to have been saved in the ark except through water;

and again, some who seemed to be baptized within are, by the same foreknowledge of God, more truly reckoned baptized outside; for, using baptism wickedly, they die through the water—which then happened to none except one who was outside the ark.

Certainly it is manifest that what is said—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 by which all who are outside in heart die, as adversaries of unity, whether they are also outside in body or not.

As, therefore, not another but the same water both saved those set in the ark and destroyed those set outside the ark, so by not another but the same baptism both good Catholics are saved and wicked Catholics or heretics perish.

But what the most blessed Cyprian thinks about the Catholic Church, and how by his authority heretics are utterly crushed—although I have said much, I have nevertheless determined, if it please the Lord, to say separately, somewhat more abundantly and plainly, when I have first said about his council what I think is owed by me, which in the will of God I shall take up in the following volume.

1. 1. It could perhaps already suffice that, by reasons so often repeated and turned over and handled in manifold disputation, with the documents of the divine Scriptures also added, and with so many testimonies of Cyprian himself supporting them, even those slower of heart, as I judge, now understand that the baptism of Christ can be violated by no perversity of man, whether of the giver or of the receiver. Nor for any other reason, in those times when this question was being discussed against a useful custom, with men disputing while love and unity were preserved, did it seem to certain distinguished men, prelates of Christ, among whom blessed Cyprian especially stood out, that the baptism of Christ could not exist among heretics or schismatics, except that the sacrament was not distinguished from the effect, or the use, of the sacrament. And because its effect and use, in liberation from sins and rectitude of heart, was not found among heretics, the sacrament itself too was thought not to be there.

But when men turned their eyes to the multitude of chaff within, since these too who are perverse and live in ruin in that very unity appear able neither to give nor to have remission of sins—because it was said not to the malicious but to the good sons, If you forgive anyone their sins, they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone, they will be retained (Jn 20:23)—yet that they have, and give, and receive the sacrament of baptism shone forth clearly enough to the pastors of the Catholic Church spread throughout the whole world, through whom afterward, by the authority of a plenary council, the original custom was confirmed;

and that even the sheep which was straying outside, and had received the Lord's mark from her deceitful plunderers outside, when she comes to the salvation of Christian unity, is corrected from error, freed from captivity, healed of her wound, while the Lord's mark in her is recognized rather than disapproved—since that very mark many wolves both have and stamp upon wolves, who indeed seem to be within, but are convicted, by the fruits of their morals, in which they persist to the very end, of not belonging to that sheep which even out of many is one; because, according to the foreknowledge of God, just as many sheep stray outside, so many wolves lie in wait inside; among whom nevertheless the Lord knows those who are his (2 Tim 2:19), 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 (Mt 23:3).

1. 2. 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 (See 1 Tim 1:5), can perceive something less clearly because of the body which is still corrupted and weighs down the soul (See Wis 9:15), and hold a view otherwise—which God, when he wills, will reveal to him as he remains in that same love (See Phil 3:15)—so in a carnal and perverse man some good and useful thing can be found, which is from elsewhere, not from himself. For just as in a fruitful branch there is found something that must be pruned, so that it may bear more fruit (See Jn 15:2), so too on a barren and dry or bound-up reed a grape sometimes hangs.

And therefore, as it is foolish to love the prunings of a fruitful branch, while he acts fittingly who does not spurn sweet fruits wherever they hang,

so whoever, cut off from unity, rebaptizes for the reason that it seemed right to Cyprian that those coming from heretics should be baptized anew, turns away from what is praiseworthy in so great a man, and pursues what is to be amended, and does not even attain that very thing which he pursues.

For he, while by zeal for God he gravely detested those who had separated themselves from unity, thought them separated even from baptism itself; but these, thinking it a small crime that they themselves are separated from the unity of Christ, contend that his baptism too is not there, and that it went out with them. So far, then, are they from the fruitfulness of Cyprian that they are not equaled even to his prunings.

2. 3. Likewise, whoever, not having love and entering upon the ruined ways of the worst morals, seems to be within while he is outside, and does not repeat the baptism of Christ even in heretics, is in no way helped in his sterility by the fact that he is fruitful not by his own fruit but is laden with another's. But it can happen that someone flourishes in the root of love, and holds rightly the very view in which Cyprian thought otherwise, and yet in Cyprian more things are fruitful than in this man, and in this man more things are to be pruned than in Cyprian.

And so we not only in no way compare wicked Catholics, but we do not easily make even good ones equal to blessed Cyprian, whom devout mother Church numbers among the rare and few men of most excellent grace—although these recognize the baptism of Christ even among heretics, while to him it seemed otherwise; so that through him, seeing something less and yet remaining most firmly in unity, it might be shown to heretics more plainly by how sacrilegious a crime the bond of peace was broken. For the blind Pharisees, though sometimes saying what ought to be done, were not to be compared with the apostle Peter, though sometimes saying what ought not to be done. And not only is the dryness of these men not to be set beside his greenness, but neither is the fruit of others to be made equal to his abundance.

For no one now compels the Gentiles to judaize (See Gal 2:14), nor yet is anyone now in the Church, however much he has advanced, to be compared with the apostolate of Peter. Wherefore, paying due reverence and rendering worthy honor, as far as I am able, to the peaceful bishop and glorious martyr Cyprian, I nevertheless dare to say that he thought otherwise about the baptizing of schismatics or heretics than the truth afterward brought forth—not by my opinion, but by that of the whole Church, strengthened and confirmed by the authority of a plenary council: just as, venerating Peter, the first of the Apostles and most eminent of martyrs, according to his merit, I nevertheless dare to say that he did not act rightly in compelling the Gentiles to judaize; for this too I say not by my opinion, but by the saving doctrine of the apostle Paul, held and preserved throughout the whole Church.

2. 4. Disputing, therefore, about Cyprian's opinion—set far below the merits of Cyprian—I say that both the good and the wicked can have the sacrament of baptism, can give it, can receive it: the good, indeed, profitably and wholesomely, but the wicked, perniciously and to their punishment; while nevertheless it is equally whole in both, and it makes no difference to its equal integrity in all how much worse the one is who has it among the wicked, just as it makes no difference how much better the one is who has it among the good.

And through this it also makes no difference how much worse the one is who hands it on, just as it makes no difference how much better;

and thus it makes no difference how much worse the one is who receives it, just as it makes no difference how much better. For it is in itself, both in those who are not equally righteous and in those who are not equally wicked, equally holy.

3. 5. But that the wicked, in no way changed for the better, have baptism, and hand it on, and receive it, we have, as I judge, sufficiently demonstrated both from the canonical Scriptures and from Cyprian's own letters; that they do not belong to the holy Church of God, although they seem to be within, appears most plainly from this, that they are avaricious, rapacious, usurers, envious, malevolent, and the rest of this kind;

but that one dove (See Song 6:8), modest and chaste, the bride without spot and wrinkle (See Eph 5:27), the garden enclosed, the sealed fountain, the paradise with the fruit of apple trees (Song 4:12-13), and the other things that are likewise said of her:

this is not understood except of the good and the holy and the righteous, that is, not only of those good according to the workings of the gifts of God common to the good and the wicked, but also of those having the Holy Spirit according to that inmost and surpassing love (See Eph 3:19), to whom the Lord says, If you forgive anyone their sins, they will be forgiven him; and if you retain anyone, they will be retained (Jn 20:23).

4. 6. And through this nothing fitting is said as to why a wicked man cannot also hand on baptism, who can have it; and as he has it perniciously, so too he can hand it on perniciously—not because he hands on something of such a 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 man, that is, to one changed by a true conversion in the bond of unity, between the good sacrament that is handed on and the good believer to whom it is handed on, the malice of the one who hands it on is overcome.

And when the sins of that man, truly converted to God, are forgiven, they are forgiven by those to whom he is joined by that true conversion. For it is the same Holy Spirit who forgives them, who is given to all the saints cleaving to one another in love, whether they know one another bodily or do not know one another. 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 by the turning-away of a depraved heart, whether they know him bodily or do not know him.

5. 7. Wherefore all the wicked are spiritually severed from the good; but if they are also bodily separated by open dissension, they become worse.

But, as has been said, it makes no difference to the holiness of baptism how much worse anyone is who has it, and to how much worse a man he hands it on: he can nonetheless hand it on though separated, just as he can have it though separated; but as perniciously as he has it, so perniciously does he hand it on.

But the one to whom he hands it on can receive it wholesomely, if he himself receives it not separated: as has happened to very many, that, with a Catholic mind and a heart not estranged from the unity of peace, by some necessity of pressing death they ran into some heretic, and from him received the baptism of Christ without his perversity, and, whether they died or were delivered, in no way remained among those to whom in heart they had never crossed over.

But if he himself also receives it separated, he receives it the more perniciously the more good is that which he receives not well; and it avails the more to the destruction of one separated, the more it could avail to the salvation of one joined. And therefore, if, corrected from that perversity and converted from separation, he comes to Catholic peace, under the same baptism which he had received his sins will be forgiven, for the sake of the bond of love, under which baptism his sins were retained, for the sake of the sacrilege of division: because that baptism is always holy, both in a righteous man and in an unrighteous man, and is neither increased by anyone's equity nor diminished by anyone's iniquity.

5. 8. Since these things are so, what does it hinder this now evident truth that many fellow bishops agreed with Cyprian in that opinion and put forth their own opinions converging on the same thing, except that the love of that man toward the unity of Christ becomes more and more known? For if, thinking these things, he remained alone with no one agreeing, he might seem to have grown cold from the crime of schism only because he was not finding partners in error; but, with so many agreeing with him, the fact that he remained in unity with the rest who thought differently shows that he preserved the most holy bond of Catholic universality not from fear of solitude but from love of peace.

Wherefore it might indeed already seem superfluous to review the individual opinions of the other bishops of that council too; but since those slower of heart do not think an answer has been given if it is given to some passage of anyone's discourse not there but elsewhere, even when what is said there could be applied to this case, men are much better worn down by reading, so as to be sharpened, than they complain through understanding little, so as to be refuted.

6. 9. First, then, we recall that Cyprian's own consultation, by which a peaceful soul, overflowing with the richness of love, is shown, and with which the council itself begins, must be considered again. You have heard, he says, most beloved colleagues, what Jubaianus our fellow bishop has written to me, consulting our mediocrity about the unlawful and profane baptism of heretics; and what I have written back to him, judging, namely, what once and again and often we have judged, that heretics coming to the Church ought to be baptized and sanctified with the baptism of the Church. Likewise there were read to you other letters of Jubaianus, in which, according to his sincere and religious devotion, writing back to our letter, he not only agreed but also gave thanks that he had been instructed. It remains that we each put forth what we think about this very matter, judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently. For none of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or drives his colleagues by tyrannical terror to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop has, by the licence of his liberty and power, 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 singly has the power both of setting us over the governance of his Church and of judging our acts (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface).

7. 10. Now, as I judge, we have sufficiently disputed in the foregoing books, as far as we could, not only against the letter he wrote to Jubaianus, but also against that which he sent to Quintus, and against that which, together with certain colleagues, he sent to certain colleagues, and against that which he sent to Pompeius—on behalf of the universality of Catholic agreement and of the council, in whose unity these men remained as devout members. Wherefore it now seems opportune to consider what the others too judged individually, with that liberty which he himself did not take away even from us, saying, Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently.

That he said this not in order to catch, with such security, the silent thoughts of his colleagues, as though dug out from a hidden place, but because he truly loved peace and unity, is most easy to see from other similar passages, where he writes to individuals, as to Jubaianus himself. These things, he says, we have written back to you very briefly, according to our mediocrity, dearest brother, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to keep each bishop from doing what he thinks right, having the free power of his own judgment (Cyprian, Letter 73.26.1).

And lest anyone, if by this same free power he thought differently, should seem to be expelled from the fellowship of the rest, he goes on and says, We, as far as in us lies, do not contend with our colleagues and fellow bishops on account of heretics, with whom we hold divine concord and the Lord's peace; and a little after, Love of spirit, the honor of the college, the bond of faith, the concord of the priesthood are preserved by us patiently and gently (Cyprian, Letter 73.26.2).

So too in the letter he wrote to Magnus, when it was asked, concerning the baptism of those immersed and those merely sprinkled, whether there was any difference: In this matter, he says, our modesty and reserve prejudges no one, so as to keep each from thinking what he shall have thought, and doing what he shall have thought (Cyprian, Letter 69.12.1).

By these words of his it appears clearly enough that these matters were handled by them at that time, when, not yet made clear, they were imbibed without ambiguity, but were still, being shut up, sought out with great effort. We, therefore, now holding the custom of the whole Church—concerning the simplicity of baptism to be recognized everywhere—strengthened also by universal councils, and having received also from Cyprian's words greater confidence, by which even then it might be permitted me, with the right of communion preserved, to think differently (See Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface),

with unity indeed set first and praised—such unity as blessed Cyprian and his colleagues, who held that council with him, maintained with those who thought differently—routing and overturning the seditious slanders of heretics and schismatics in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, speaking through his Apostle, says, Bearing with one another in love; striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:2-3); through whom he also says, If you think anything otherwise, that too God will reveal to you (Phil 3:15):

we undertake to consider and treat the opinions of the holy bishops, with the bond of unity and peace preserved with them—in retaining which we imitate them, as far as the Lord himself helps us.

8. 11. Caecilius of Bilta said: I know one baptism in the Church alone, and outside the Church none. This will be one where there is true hope and certain faith. For so it is written: 'One faith, one hope, one baptism' (Eph 4:5). Not among heretics, where there is no hope and faith is false, where all things are done through falsehood, where the demoniac performs the exorcism, where one whose mouth and words give off a cancer questions about the sacrament, where the unbeliever gives faith, the criminal grants pardon for offenses, and the antichrist baptizes in the name of Christ, one cursed by God blesses, the dead man promises life, the unpeaceful gives peace, the blasphemer invokes God, the profane administers the priesthood, the sacrilegious sets up the altar.

8. 12. To these things I answer that whoever, even within, confesses that he knows God but denies it by his deeds—such as are the avaricious and the envious, and those who, on account of fraternal hatred, are called murderers, not by my testimony but by that of the holy apostle John (See 1 Jn 3:15); and they do not have hope, because they bear a bad conscience; and they are faithless, because they do not do what they vowed to God; and they are liars, because they profess false things; and they are demoniacs, because they give place in their heart to the devil and his angels; and their words work rottenness, since they corrupt good morals by evil conversations (See 1 Cor 15:33);

and they are unbelievers, since they mock what God threatens against such; and they are criminals, because they live wickedly; and they are antichrists, because their morals are opposed to Christ; and they are cursed by God, because everywhere holy Scripture execrates such; and they are dead, because they lack the life of righteousness; and they are unpeaceful, because by contrary deeds they clash with the word of God; and they are blasphemers, because through their ruined acts the Christian name is disparaged; and they are profane, because they are shut out from that inner spiritual sanctuary of God; and they are sacrilegious, because in themselves they corrupt the temple of God by living wickedly; and they are prelates of the devil, because they serve fraud and avarice, which is idolatry.

But that there are some such people—indeed very many—even within, both the apostle Paul and the bishop Cyprian (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6) testify. Why, then, do these men baptize? Why are even some who renounce the world in words and not in deeds, and, unchanged from morals of this kind, baptized (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), and, when they are changed, not rebaptized?

And as for the fact that he is indignant and says, Behold, to what things the Church is compelled to consent, and is forced to communicate without baptism and without pardon for offenses—if there were not other bishops who were compelling others to these things, he certainly would not say it.

Whence it is also shown that those then thought more truly who did not withdraw from the ancient custom, which afterward was confirmed by the universality of a council. But what is it that he adds and says, This thing, brothers, we ought to flee and avoid, and separate ourselves from so great a crime? For if he says this in such a way that he himself does not do these things nor approve them, it is one matter; but if it is so as to condemn and segregate, first, those who think differently, he resists the words of Cyprian, by which he says, Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface).

9. 14. To the things that Felix of Misgirpa said, we say this: If there were no one and true baptism except in the Church, it certainly would 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. And as for what he says, For the things that are performed outside have no effect of salvation (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 2), I agree, and believe it to be wholly true. For it is one thing not to be there, and another to have no effect of salvation. For to those coming to Catholic peace the things that were within them outside, but did not profit, begin to profit.

10. 15. But to Polycarp of Hadrumetum (Cyprian, Letter 48.1-2), since he said, Those who approve the baptism of heretics make void our own (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 3), we answer: If that is the baptism of heretics which is given through heretics, then that is the baptism of the avaricious and of murderers which is given within by such men. But if the latter is not theirs, neither is the former theirs; and through this, among whomsoever it may be, it is Christ's.

11. 17. Novatus of Thamugadi said what he did, but did not bring forward anything by which he might show that he ought to have done what he did. For he named the testimony of the Scriptures and a decree of his colleagues (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 4), but brought forth nothing from these that we might consider.

12. 19. But Nemesianus of Thubunae (See Cyprian, Letters 62; 72.1; 76; 77) set down many testimonies of the Scriptures (See Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 5); yet he said much on behalf of the Catholic position, which we have undertaken to set forth and commend. Unless, perhaps, it is to be thought that he does not trust in false things who trusts in the hope of temporal things, as do all the avaricious and the rapacious, and those who renounce the world not in deeds but in words—such as nevertheless both baptize and are baptized within, of which Cyprian too is a witness (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1).

Such men also chase flying birds (Prov 9:12 (LXX)), because they do not lay hold of the things they crave. And he deserts the ways of his own vineyard, and strays from the path of his own little field; and he goes through trackless and dry places, and a land appointed to thirst, and he gathers with his hands what is unfruitful—not only the heretic, but everyone who lives wickedly: for all righteousness is fruitful, and all iniquity unfruitful. And those who drink another's water from a strange fountain (Prov 9:18) are not only heretics, but all who do not live according to what God teaches, and live according to what the devil teaches. For if he were speaking of baptism, he would not say, Nor will you drink from a strange fountain;

but, You will not wash yourself from a strange fountain. And now, as for what the Lord says, Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5), I do not at all see how it helps him toward what he thinks. For it is one thing to say: Everyone who will enter into the kingdom of heaven is first born again of water and the Spirit, because unless he is born again of water and the Spirit he will not enter into the kingdom of heaven—which the Lord said, and it is true; but it is another to say: Everyone who is born of water and the Spirit will enter into the kingdom of heaven—which is certainly false. For that Simon Magus too was born of water and the Spirit (See Acts 8:13), and yet did not enter into the kingdom of heaven. So it can happen to heretics too. Or if no one is born of the Spirit except one who is changed by a true conversion (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), then all who renounce the world in words and not in deeds are certainly born not of the Spirit but of water alone—who nevertheless are within, with Cyprian as witness. For it is necessary that one of two things be granted: either those who falsely renounce the world are born of the Spirit, though unto destruction, not unto salvation, and thus heretics too can be; or, if what is written, For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the feigned (Wis 1:5), avails also to this, that those falsely renouncing the world are not born of the Spirit, then one can be baptized with water and not be born of the Spirit; and in vain does Nemesianus say, Neither can the Spirit work without the water, nor the water without the Spirit. And now it has often been said elsewhere too how it can come about that those have one baptism in common who do not have one Church: just as it can come about, within the Church itself, that those holy by righteousness and those unclean by avarice do not have one Spirit, and yet have one baptism. For thus it was said, one body, that is, the Church, just as, one Spirit, and one baptism (Eph 4:4-5).

And now the other things he said support 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 (Jn 3:6); because God is spirit, and he is born of God (See Jn 4:24); and he inferred: Therefore all heretics and schismatics, in all things whatsoever they do, are carnal, as the Apostle says: 'For the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses'; and the rest that the Apostle says there, where he also recalled heresies, this man pursued: Since whoever do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21). Then he added and said: And so the Apostle, together with all the wicked, condemns also those who make division, that is, schismatics and heretics. Well; for in enumerating the works of the flesh, among which are also heresies, he found and said that the Apostle condemns all of them together. Let him, then, himself ask holy Cyprian, and hear from him how many even within live according to the wicked works of the flesh which the Apostle condemns along with heresies, and yet baptize and are baptized. Why, then, are heretics alone said not to be able to have the baptism which the partners of their condemnation have?

13. 20. 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 (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 6).

13. 21. To him it is answered: According to the authority of the holy Scriptures, the Catholic council of the whole world decreed that the baptism of Christ, even when found among heretics, is not to be disapproved. But if he set down testimonies of the Scriptures, we would show that they are either not against us, or even on our side: as, behold, the one who follows him.

14. 23. Lucius of Castra Galbae (See Cyprian, Letters 76 and 78) set down a testimony from the Gospel, the Lord saying (See Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 7): You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, that which shall be salted with it will be good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden underfoot by men (Mt 5:13)—as though we said that the men themselves who are cast out are good for anything, either for their own salvation or for that of others. But even those who seem to be such within are not only spiritually outside, but will also be bodily separated at the end. For all such are good for nothing; nor yet, on that account, is the sacrament of baptism that is in them nothing. For even in those very men who are cast out, if they come to their senses and return, the salvation which had departed returns to them; but baptism, because it had not departed, does not return.

And as for what the Lord says, Go, therefore, and teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19), he did not permit any but the good to baptize; for to the wicked he would not say, If you forgive anyone their sins, they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone, they will be retained (Jn 20:23). How, then, do the wicked baptize within, who cannot forgive sins? How do they also baptize the wicked who are unchanged, whose sins are still upon them, as John says, He who hates his brother is in darkness even until now (1 Jn 2:9)?

But if they are then forgiven, when they join themselves, by an inmost love, to the good and the righteous, through whom in the Church sins are forgiven, although they were baptized by the wicked: so too those who come from outside, and approach the same framework of the body of Christ by the inner bond of peace;

yet the baptism of Christ is to be recognized in both, and to be disapproved in none, whether before they are converted, though it profits them nothing, or when they are converted, that it may profit. Since they themselves, by withdrawing from the Church, which is one, have become tasteless and hostile, let it be done as it is written: 'The houses of those hostile to the law owe a cleansing' (Prov 14:9). And it is consequent, he says, that those who, baptized by the hostile, have been defiled, should first be purified, and then at last be baptized.

What then? Are not the rapacious and murderers hostile to the law that says, You shall not kill, you shall not steal (Exod 20:13, 15)? They owe, therefore, a cleansing: who would deny this? And yet not only those baptized within by such men, but even those who, being such and unchanged, are baptized, although they still owe a purification that they may be changed, are nevertheless not baptized further when they have been changed. So great is the power in the sacrament of simple baptism that, although we confess that one baptized and still living wickedly ought to be cleansed, we nevertheless forbid that he be baptized further.

15. 24. Crescens of Cirta (See Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 8) said: In so great an assembly of most holy fellow priests, the letters of our most beloved Cyprian to Jubaianus, and likewise to Stephen (See Cyprian, Letters 72 and 73), having been read—which contain in themselves so many most holy testimonies descending from the divine Scriptures that, united through the grace of God, we ought deservedly all to agree—I judge, therefore, that all heretics or schismatics who shall wish to come to the Catholic Church should not enter unless they have first been exorcized and baptized; except, indeed, those who were previously baptized in the Catholic Church, who are nevertheless to be reconciled to the penance of the Church by the laying on of hands (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 9).

15. 25. Here we are prompted to ask again why he said, except, indeed, those who were previously baptized in the Catholic Church. Was it because they had not lost what they had received within? Then what they could have outside, why could they not also hand on? Or is it handed on unlawfully outside? But neither is it had lawfully outside, and yet it is had: so it is given unlawfully outside, but nevertheless it is given. And what is bestowed on one returning who had received it within is bestowed on one coming who had received it outside; that is, that he may have lawfully within what he had unlawfully outside.

But someone may perhaps ask what blessed Cyprian's letter to Stephen, mention of which was made in this opinion, has about this matter, since it was not mentioned at the opening of the council—because, I believe, it was not thought necessary. For he said that this letter too was read in that assembly of fellow priests: which I do not at all doubt was done, as I judge, as is customary, so that the bishops, now gathered, might also learn together something about that cause which is contained in that letter. For it does not at all pertain to the present question; and I wonder more why this man wished to mention it than why mention of it was omitted at the opening of the council. But if anyone thinks that I was unwilling to bring out into the open something set down in it that is necessary to the present cause, let him read it and know that what I say is true; or, if he finds anything else, let him refute me. For that letter has, in short, nothing about baptism given among heretics or schismatics, which is what we are now treating.

16. 26. Nicomedes of Segermes said: This is my opinion, that heretics coming to the Church be baptized, in that they obtain no remission of sins outside, among sinners.

16. 27. To him it is answered: This is the opinion of the whole Catholic Church, that heretics, although already baptized in heresy with the baptism of Christ, coming to the Church, are not baptized. For if there is no remission of sins among sinners, then sinners within do not remit sins either; and yet those baptized by them are not rebaptized.

17. 28. Monnulus of Girba (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 10) said: The truth of the Catholic Church, our mother, has always remained and remains with us, brothers, and most of all in the Trinity of baptism, our Lord saying, 'Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Mt 28:19). Since, then, he says, we manifestly know that heretics have neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, those coming to the Church, our mother, ought to be truly born again and baptized, so that the cancer which they had, and the wrath of damnation, and the taint of error, may be sanctified by the holy and heavenly washing.

17. 29. To him we answer that all who are baptized with a baptism consecrated by gospel words have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit at least in the sacrament; but in heart and in life, not even those have them who within live in ruin and execrably.

18. 30. Secundinus of Cedias (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 11) said: Since our Lord Christ says, 'He who is not with me is against me' (Mt 12:30), and the apostle John calls those who go out from the Church antichrists (See 1 Jn 2:18): undoubtedly the enemies of Christ, who have been named antichrists, cannot administer the grace of saving baptism; and therefore I judge that those who flee from the snares of heretics to the Church are to be baptized by us, who have been called friends of God by his condescension (See Jn 15:14-15). There are also other enemies of Christ who give baptism.

18. 31. To him it is answered that all are adversaries of Christ to whom, as they say, Lord, in your name we did many mighty works (Mt 7:22), and the other things that are said there, he will say at the end, I never knew you; depart from me, all you who work iniquity (Mt 7:23): which whole chaff, if it perseveres in malice to the very end, whether before its winnowing it flies off outside or seems to be within, is destined for the fire. If, then, heretics coming to the Church are for this reason to be baptized, that they may be baptized by friends of God, are then those avaricious, rapacious, murderous men friends of God, or are those whom they have baptized to be baptized anew?

19. 32. Felix of Bagai (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 12) said: As a blind man leading a blind man fall together into the pit (See Mt 15:14), so a heretic baptizing a heretic fall together into death.

19. 33. This is true; but what he adds is not therefore true: And therefore, he says, the heretic is to be baptized and given life, lest we, the living, communicate with the dead. Were not those dead who said, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1 Cor 15:32)? They did not believe the resurrection of the dead. Those, then, who were corrupted by their evil conversations and followed them—did they not fall into the pit together with them? And yet among them were those to whom the Apostle wrote as already baptized, and yet not for that reason, if they were corrected, would they be baptized anew. Does not the same Apostle say, To be wise according to the flesh is death (Rom 8:6)? And certainly the avaricious, the cheats, the rapacious were wise according to the flesh, among whom Cyprian himself groaned (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6). How, then, did the dead harm one living in unity? Or who would say that the baptism of Christ, which such men had or gave, was violated by their iniquities?

20. 34. Polianus of Mileu said: It is just that a heretic be baptized in the holy Church (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 13).

20. 35. Nothing indeed could be said more briefly. But I think this too is brief: It is just that the baptism of Christ not be blown away in the Church of Christ.

21. 36. Theogenes of Hippo Regius said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 14): According to the sacrament of the heavenly grace of God which we have received, we believe in one baptism which is in the holy Church.

21. 37. This could be my opinion too. For it is so balanced that it has nothing against the truth. For we too believe in one baptism which is in the holy Church. But if he had said, We believe in the baptism which is in the holy Church alone, an answer would have had to be given as to the others.

But now, because it was so said, We believe in one baptism which is in the holy Church, in such a way that it was said indeed to be in the holy Church, but it was not denied to be also elsewhere: whatever he thought, there is no need to dispute against these words. For if I were asked about each point—whether there was one baptism—I would answer that there is one.

Then, if I were asked whether this was in the holy Church, I would answer that it is. Thirdly, if it were asked whether I believed in this baptism, I would answer that I so believe; and through this I would answer that I believe in one baptism which is in the holy Church. But if it were asked whether it was in the holy Church alone, and was not among heretics or schismatics, I would answer, with the whole Church, that I do not so believe. But because this man did not set this down in his opinion, I think it dishonest that I should add to him words against which I might dispute, which I did not find there. For if he were so to say, There is one water of the river Euphrates, which is in Paradise (See Gen 2:14), he would certainly say what is true. But if he were asked whether this water was in Paradise alone, and were to say that it was so, he would say what is false. For it is also outside Paradise, in these lands into which it flows from that source. But who is so rash as to say that he would have answered what is false, when he could perhaps answer what is true? Wherefore the words of this opinion ought not to meet with contradiction, since they in no way hinder the truth.

22. 38. Dativus of Vada (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 15) said: We, as far as in us lies, do not communicate with a heretic, unless he has been baptized in the Church and has received remission of sins.

22. 39. It is answered: If you wish him to be baptized for the reason that he did not receive remission of sins, then, if within you find someone who, holding hatred against his brother, was thus baptized—since the Lord cannot lie, who says, If you do not forgive, it will not be forgiven you (Mt 6:15)—will you, when he is corrected, command him to be baptized anew? Certainly not; so, then, neither the heretic. But indeed, why this man did not say briefly, We do not communicate with a heretic, but added, as far as in us lies, is not to be passed over.

For he saw that many agreed with this opinion, from whose fellowship, nevertheless, lest unity be violated, these men could not separate themselves; and he added, as far as in us lies, certainly showing that he did not communicate willingly with those whom he thought not to have baptism, but that all things were nevertheless to be tolerated for the good of peace and unity;

which those also did who thought that these men did not act rightly, and held that which the truth, afterward more clearly declared, taught, and which the more ancient custom, confirmed by a later council, more strongly urged: yet they tolerated one another, with anxious devotion, while thinking differently with love preserved, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (See Eph 4:2-3), until to one of the two parties, if they thought anything otherwise, God would reveal that too.

Let these men hear this, by whom unity is assailed through this council, through which council it is declared how greatly unity is to be loved.

23. 40. Successus of Abbir Germaniciana (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 16) said: To heretics either nothing is permitted, or everything is permitted. 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.

23. 41. To him it can be answered in almost as many words thus: To murderers either nothing is permitted, or everything is permitted. 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, when they have corrected themselves, are to be baptized. But this is not true. For he who hates his brother is a murderer (1 Jn 3:15). And Cyprian knew such men within, who certainly baptized. In vain, then, were such things said about baptizing heretics.

24. 42. Fortunatus of Tuccabori said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 17): Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, the Son of God the Father and Creator, built the Church upon Peter (See Mt 16:18), not upon heresy; and he gave the power of baptizing to bishops, not to heretics. Wherefore those who are outside the Church, and standing against Christ, scatter his sheep and flock, cannot baptize outside (See Jn 10:12).

24. 43. To this he added outside, so that he could not be answered so briefly. For to him too it would be answered in almost as many words thus: Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, the Son of God the Father and Creator, founded the Church upon Peter, not upon iniquity; and he gave the power of baptizing to bishops, not to the iniquitous. Wherefore those who do not belong to the rock, upon which build those who hear the words of God and do them, but who, living against Christ by hearing his words and not doing them, and thereby building upon sand, corrupt his sheep and flock by the example of their ruined morals, cannot baptize (See Mt 7:26).

Could this not be said with verisimilitude? And yet it is false. For the iniquitous do baptize, since those rapacious men are iniquitous whom Cyprian reproved as set in unity with him (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6).

But, he says, for this reason he added outside. Why, then, can those 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 the one is who hands it on. For there is not as great a difference between the wicked man and the worse as there is between the good man and the wicked; and yet when the wicked man baptizes, he gives no other thing than the good man. Therefore, even when the worse man baptizes, he gives no other thing than the one who is less wicked. Or does it perhaps pertain not to the merit of the man, but to the sacrament of baptism itself, that it cannot be given outside? If this were so, it could not be had outside either, and it would be necessary to be baptized as often as anyone, withdrawing from the Church, returned again to the Church.

24. 44. And now, if we ask more diligently what outside is—especially because he himself made mention of Peter, upon whom the Church is built (See Mt 16:18)—are not those in the Church who are in the rock, while those who are not in the rock are not in the Church either? Now, then, let us see whether those who hear Christ's words and do not do them set their building upon the rock. The Lord himself contradicts them, saying, He who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house upon the rock; and a little after, He who hears these words of mine and does not do them, I will liken him to a foolish man who builds his house upon the sand (Mt 7:24, 26). If, then, the Church is on the rock, those who are on the sand, because they are outside the rock, are assuredly outside the Church. Let us recall, therefore, how many Cyprian mentions, as though set within, who build upon the sand, that is, who hear the words of Christ and do not do them (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1). And therefore, because they are on the sand, they are convicted of being outside the rock, which is outside the Church; yet, both as long as they are so, and not yet, or never, changed for the better, they baptize and are baptized; and the baptism which they have remains whole, though they are destined for damnation.

24. 45. Nor can it be said in this place: For who does all the words of the Lord, which are written down in that very gospel discourse, in concluding which he said that the man builds upon the rock who heard those words and did them, but upon the sand the man who heard and did not do them? Because, even if all things are not fulfilled by some, in that same discourse he nevertheless set down the remedy, saying, Forgive, and it will be forgiven you (Luke 6:37). And after the Lord's Prayer, recalled and written down in that same discourse, he says, For I say to 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 (Matt 6:14–15). Hence Peter too says, Because love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8): which those certainly did not have, and through this built upon the sand, of whom the same Cyprian says that within, in malevolent envy, even in apostolic times, they consorted without love (See Cyprian, Letter 73.14); and therefore they seemed indeed to be within, but were outside, because they were not in that rock by which the Church is signified.

25. 46. Sedatus of Tuburbo said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 18): In so far as water, sanctified by the priest's prayer in the Church, washes away offenses, in so far does it, infected by a heretic's speech as by a cancer, heap up sins. Wherefore one must strive with all peaceful strength that no one infected and dyed with heretical error refuse to receive the singular and true baptism of the Church, with which whoever has not been baptized will become a stranger to the kingdom of heaven.

25. 47. To him it is answered that, if the water is not sanctified when the one praying pours out, through unskillfulness, some words of error, then many—not only the wicked, but even good brothers—in the Church itself do not sanctify the 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 should be made known that some were baptized when those prayers were said over the water, will they be commanded to be baptized anew? Why so? Because for the most part the affection of the one praying overcomes the fault of the prayer; and because those fixed gospel words, without which baptism cannot be consecrated, avail so much that through them whatever is said in a faulty prayer against the rule of faith is made void, just as a demon is shut out by the name of Christ (See Mark 16:17).

For certainly, if a heretic brings forth a faulty prayer, he does not have the good affection of love by which that unskillfulness might be overcome; and therefore he is like anyone within the Catholic Church who is envious and malevolent, such as Cyprian reproves there (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6): let such a one bring forth, as is wont to happen, some prayer in which he speaks against the rule of faith; for many rush into prayers composed not only by unskilled chatterers but even by heretics, and, through the simplicity of ignorance, not being able to discern them, use them, thinking them good; nor yet does what is perverse in them make void the things that are right there, but is rather made void by them: just as, in a man himself of good hope and probable faith, but a man nonetheless, if he holds any view otherwise, the things he holds rightly are not on that account made void, until God reveals to him also what he holds otherwise (See Phil 3:15).

But if he himself is wicked and perverse, even if he says a whole prayer, in no part opposed to the Catholic faith, he is not on that account upright himself, because the prayer is upright; and if in some parts he brings forth a perverse prayer, God is present to his own gospel words, without which the baptism of Christ cannot be consecrated, and he himself sanctifies his sacrament, so that to a man—whether before he is baptized, or when he is baptized, or afterward, whenever he is truly converted to him—that very thing may avail unto salvation which, unless he were converted, would avail unto destruction. For the rest, who does not know that it is not the baptism of Christ, if there are lacking there the gospel words of which the Creed consists? But heretics are more easily found who do not baptize at all than those who do not baptize with those words. And therefore we say that not every baptism (for in many sacrilegious rites of idols men are said to be baptized), but the baptism of Christ, that is, one consecrated with gospel words, is everywhere the same, and is violated by the perversity of no men whatever and of whatever kind.

25. 48. Indeed, in this opinion too, what he inserted here and said is not carelessly to be omitted: Wherefore one must strive with all peaceful strength that no one infected with heretical error, and the rest (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 18). For he had regard to those words of blessed Cyprian who says, Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface).

See how greatly the love of unity and peace avails in the good sons of the Church, that those whom they called sacrilegious and profane, admitted, as they thought, without baptism—if they could not, as much as they thought, correct them—they chose rather to tolerate than, on their account, to break that holy bond, lest, on account of the tares, the wheat be uprooted along with them (See Matt 13:29); permitting, as far as in them lay, just as in that most noble judgment of Solomon, the infant body to be nourished by a false mother rather than to be cut in two (See 1 Kgs 3:26). And this both those did who thought more truly about the sacrament of baptism, and these to whom, for the merit of so great a love, God was going to reveal it, if they thought anything otherwise (See Phil 3:15).

26. 49. Privatianus of Sufetula said: Whoever says that heretics have the power of baptizing, let him first say who founded heresy. For if heresy is from God, it can also have the divine indulgence; but if it is not from God, how can it either have the grace of God or confer it on anyone? (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 19)

. . . but neither do other sins.

26. 50. To him it can be answered in as many words thus: Whoever says that the malevolent and the envious have the power of baptizing, let him first say who founded malevolence and envy. For if malevolence and envy are from God, they can also have the 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 manifestly false, so too are those things for the refuting of which these were said. For the malevolent and the envious do baptize, as Cyprian himself grants (See Cyprian, Letter 73.14), since he testifies that they too are within. So, then, heretics too can baptize: because baptism is the sacrament of Christ, while envy and heresy are works of the devil, which, whoever has them, does not thereby bring it about that, if he has the sacrament of Christ, that too should be numbered among the works of the devil.

27. 51. Privatus of Sufes said: Those who approve the baptism of heretics, what else do they do but communicate with heretics? (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 20)

27. 52. To him it is answered: It is not the baptism of heretics that we approve in heretics, just as it is not the baptism of the avaricious, the treacherous, the cheats, the rapacious, the envious that we approve in them. For all these are iniquitous; but Christ is righteous, whose sacrament in them, as far as it pertains to him, they do not violate by their iniquity. Otherwise another could say: Those who approve the baptism of the iniquitous, what else do they do but communicate with the iniquitous? And if anyone should object this against the Catholic Church, it would be answered him as it has been answered to this man.

28. 53. Hortensianus of Lares said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 21): Let the presumptuous and the supporters of heretics see to it; we vindicate to the Church the one baptism, which we know to be nowhere but in the Church. Or how can those baptize anyone in the name of Christ whom Christ himself declares to be his adversaries (See Matt 12:30)? How, then, do other sinners baptize in the name of Christ?

28. 54. To him, in a similar tenor of words, we answer thus: Let the presumptuous and the supporters of the iniquitous see to it; we vindicate to the Church the one baptism, which we know to be the Church's, recalling it to the Church wherever it is found, when we can. Or how can those baptize anyone in the name of Christ whom Christ himself declares to be his adversaries? For to all the iniquitous he says, I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity (Matt 7:23): and yet when they baptize, it is not they who baptize, but he of whom John says, This is he who baptizes (John 1:33).

29. 55. Cassius of Macomades said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 22): Since there cannot be two baptisms, whoever grants baptism to heretics takes it from himself. I judge, therefore, that the weeping and wasting heretics are to be baptized when they begin to come to the Church, so that, washed by the sacred and divine washing, and enlightened by the light of life, they may be received into the Church not as enemies but as peaceful, not as strangers but as members of the household of the Lord's faith (See Gal 6:10), not as adulterous but as sons of God, made not of error but of salvation: apart from those who, faithful in the Church, having been supplanted, had crossed over to the darkness of heresy; but these are to be restored by the laying on of hands.

29. 56. Another could say: Since there cannot be two baptisms of Christ, whoever grants baptism to the iniquitous takes it from himself. But these men too would resist us and say: We grant baptism to the iniquitous; which is not from themselves in them, like iniquity, but from Christ, whose is righteousness, and whose sacrament, even among the iniquitous, is not iniquitous. What, then, they would say to us about the iniquitous, let them say to themselves about heretics. And therefore what follows ought rather to have been said thus: I judge, therefore, that the weeping and wasting heretics are not to be baptized when they begin to come to the Church, if they already have the baptism of Christ, but are to be corrected from their perversity.

For it can be said of the iniquitous too, of whom heretics are a portion: I judge, therefore, that the weeping and wasting iniquitous, if they are already 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 the words of Christ and do not do them (See Matt 7:24, 26); but, already washed by the sacred and divine washing, and then also enlightened by the light of life, they are to be received into the Church not as enemies but as peaceful—for the iniquitous do not have peace; not as strangers but as members of the household of the Lord's faith—for to the iniquitous it was said, How are you turned into the bitterness of a strange vine? (Jer 2:21); not as adulterous but as sons of God—for the iniquitous are sons of the devil; made not of error but of salvation—for iniquity does not save: that is, into that rock, into that dove (See Song 2:10, 14; 6:8), into that garden enclosed and sealed fountain (See Song 4:12), which is recognized only in the wheat, and not in the chaff, whether the chaff be separated far off by the wind or seem to be mixed with the grain up to the final winnowing (See Matt 3:12). In vain, then, did Cassius add, apart from those who, faithful in the Church, having been supplanted, had crossed over to the darkness of heresy. For if they too, by withdrawing from the Church, had lost baptism, let it be given back to them too; but if they had not lost it, let what was given through them be recognized.

30. 57. 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, in which we preside, so that, vindicating its baptism to it alone, we may baptize those whom the Church has not baptized (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 23).

30. 58. It is answered: Those whom the Church baptizes, that rock certainly baptizes, outside which are all who hear the words of Christ and do not do them (See Matt 7:26). Let all, then, be baptized who have been baptized by such men. But if this is not done, then, just as in these men, so in heretics the baptism of Christ, their iniquity and perversity being condemned or corrected, is to be recognized and approved.

31. 59. Another Secundinus, of Carpi, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 24): 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 such. Or to what will the word of the Lord pertain, who says, " He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters " (Matt 12:30)?

. . . are the iniquitous Christians? Why, then, do they baptize?

31. 60. To him it is answered: Are the iniquitous Christians or not? If they are Christians, why are they not in that rock on which the Church is built (See Matt 16:18)? For they hear the words of Christ and do not do them. If they are not Christians, let them become such. Or to what will the word of the Lord pertain, who says, He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters (Matt 12:30)? For they scatter his sheep who, by depraved imitation, lead them to the ruin of their own morals. Whence it is established that upon the strange sons (by which name all the iniquitous are called) and the offspring of the antichrist (which are all who are opposed to Christ) the Holy Spirit cannot descend merely by the laying on of hands, if a true conversion of heart is not present; since it is manifest that the iniquitous, as long as they are iniquitous, 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 thus 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 new plants firmly set in their youth, their daughters adorned like the likeness of a temple. Their storehouses are full, overflowing from this into that; their sheep are fruitful, multiplying in their goings forth; their oxen are fat: there is no breach in the wall, nor passage, nor outcry in their streets. They have called the people blessed that has these things; blessed is the people whose God is the Lord himself (Ps 144:11–15 (143)). If, then, these are the strange sons, who place their blessedness in temporal things and in the abundance of earthly happiness, and despise the divine precepts, let us see whether these are not the very same of whom Cyprian says thus, transferring them even into himself, so as to show that he speaks of those with whom he shared the sacraments: While we do not hold the way of the Lord, he says, nor keep the heavenly commandments given to us for salvation. Our Lord did the will of the Father, and we do not do the will of the Lord, devoting ourselves to patrimony and gain, pursuing pride, and the rest (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6). But if these men could both have and hand on baptism, why is it denied that it can be among the strange sons? Whom, nevertheless, he exhorts, that by keeping the heavenly commandments sent to them through the only Son, they may deserve to be his brothers and the sons of God.

32. 61. Victoricus of Thabraca said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 25): If heretics are permitted to baptize and to give remission of sins, why do we defame them, so as to call them heretics?

32. 62. What if another were to say: If the iniquitous are permitted to baptize and to give remission of sins, why do we defame them, so as to call them iniquitous? What would be answered to this man about the iniquitous, let the same be answered to that man about heretics; that is, that the baptism with which they baptize is not theirs, and that it does not follow that whoever has the baptism of Christ is also secure about the remission of sins, if he has this in the sacrament only, and is not converted by a true confession of heart, so that it might be forgiven him who forgives (See Matt 6:14).

33. 63. Another Felix, of Uthina, said: It is in doubt to no one, most holy fellow priests, that human presumption cannot do as much as the adorable and venerable majesty of our Lord Christ. Mindful, therefore, of the peril, this too we ought not only to observe but also to confirm for all of us, that all heretics who run to the bosom of mother Church be baptized; so that the heretical mind, which has been polluted by a long-lasting decay, may, cleansed by the sanctification of the washing, be reformed for the better (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 26).

. . . this would hold of the other iniquitous too. Therefore . . .

33. 64. Perhaps this man, who placed the cause why heretics ought to be baptized in the cleansing of a long-lasting decay, would spare those who, rushing into some heresy, had been there for a brief time, and, quickly corrected, had migrated thence to the Catholic Church.

Then he too pays too little attention to the fact that it can be said thus: that all the iniquitous who run to that rock on which the Church is signified be baptized, so that the iniquitous mind, which outside the rock was building on the sand by hearing the words of Christ and not doing them, may, cleansed by the sanctification of the washing, be reformed for the better; and yet it is not done, if they are already baptized, even if it is proven that they were such when they were baptized—that is, that they renounced the world in words and not in deeds (Cyprian, Letter 11.1).

. . . whether a dead man can baptize. Heretics are dead.

34. 65. Quietus of Buruch said: We who live by faith ought, by a believing observance, to obey the things that have been foretold for our instruction. For it is written in Solomon: " He who is baptized by a dead man, what does his washing profit? " (Sir 34:25). Which certainly speaks of those who are dyed by heretics, and of those who dye them. For if those who are baptized among them obtain eternal life through the remission of sins, why do they come to the Church? But if nothing of salvation is received from a dead man, and therefore, their former error recognized, they return with penance to the truth, they will have to be sanctified by the one vital baptism which is in the Catholic Church (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 27).

34. 66. What it is to be baptized by a dead man, without prejudice to a more diligent consideration of that same Scripture, we have already said elsewhere (See Answer to the Letter of Parmenian 2.10.22). But I ask why they wish heretics alone to be understood as dead, since the apostle Paul said generally of sin, The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23); and again, To be wise according to the flesh is death (Rom 8:6). And since he calls dead the widow who lives in pleasures (See 1 Tim 5:6), how are those not dead who renounce the world in words and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1)? What, then, does the washing profit of him who is baptized by such men—except that he too, if he is such, has indeed the washing, but it does not profit him unto salvation? But if the one by whom he is baptized is such, while this man is converted to God with no false heart, then he is not baptized by that dead man, but by that living one of whom it was said, This is he who baptizes (John 1:33), by whatever man baptizing bodily.

But as for what he says of heretics, For if those who are baptized among them obtain eternal life through the remission of sins, why do they come to the Church?—it is answered: They come for this reason, that, even if they have received the baptism of Christ as far as the celebration of the sacrament, they nevertheless do not obtain eternal life except through the love of unity: just as neither do those malevolent and envious men, to whom sins would not be remitted even if they did not hold hatred against those from whom they suffered injury; for the Truth said, If you do not forgive, neither will your Father forgive you (Matt 6:15): how much more when they hated those to whom they repaid evil for good (See Ps 35:12 (34))? And yet these men, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds, if afterward they were corrected, would not be baptized again, but would be sanctified by the one vital baptism. Which indeed is in the Catholic Church, but not in it alone; just as it is not in the saints alone, who are built upon the rock (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), and out of whom that one dove is made perfect (See Song 6:8).

35. 67. Castus of Sicca said: Whoever, despising the truth, presumes to follow custom is either envious and malicious toward the brethren, to whom the truth is revealed, or ungrateful toward God, by whose inspiration his Church is instructed (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 28).

35. 68. If this man could convict those who thought differently, and held that which the whole world too, afterward confirmed by a Christian council, maintained, of so following custom that they despised the truth, we would have to dread these words; but since that custom is found both to have been propagated from the truth and to be strengthened by the truth, we fear nothing in this opinion. And yet, if those men were envious and malicious toward the brethren, or ungrateful toward God (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface), behold with what sort of men they communicated, behold whom, thinking differently, they did not, as Cyprian foretold, remove from the right of communion, behold by whom they were not polluted in the preservation of unity, behold how greatly the bond of peace is to be loved; behold what they should consider who slander us about the council of our predecessor bishops, whose love they do not imitate, and by whose example, when it is considered, they are rightly condemned.

If there was a custom, as this opinion is witness, that heretics coming to the Church were received with the baptism they had, then 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 men are received in this way? But if the wicked do not stain the good in unity, how do they excuse themselves from the crime of sacrilegious separation?

36. 69. Eucratius of Theni said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 29): Our faith, and the grace of baptism, and the rule of ecclesiastical law, God and our Lord Jesus Christ, teaching the Apostles with his own mouth, fully completed, saying, " Go, teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit " (Matt 28:19). The false and iniquitous baptism of heretics, therefore, is to be driven off by us and refuted with all attestation, from whose mouth is expressed venom, not life, and not heavenly grace, but blasphemy of the Trinity. And therefore it is manifest that heretics coming to the Church ought to be baptized with the whole and Catholic baptism, so that, purified from the blasphemy of their presumption, they may be reformed by the glory of the Holy Spirit.

36. 70. Plainly, if it is not a baptism consecrated in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, let it be reckoned the baptism of heretics, and as iniquitous let it be refuted by us with all attestation; but if we recognize this name in it, we rather distinguish the gospel words from the error of heretics, and approve what is sound in them, and amend what is faulty.

37. 71. Libosus of Vaga said: In the Gospel the Lord says, " I am the truth " (John 14:6): he did not say, I am custom. And so, the truth having been made manifest, let custom yield to the truth: so that, even if in the past someone in the Church did not baptize heretics, now let him begin to baptize (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 30).

37. 72. This man tried to show nothing of how it is the truth, to which he says custom ought to yield. Yet he helps us more against these men who have divided themselves from unity by confessing that that custom existed than by judging that it ought to yield to a truth which he does not show. For that is the custom which, if it admitted the sacrilegious to the altar of Christ without the cleansing of baptism, and polluted none of the good in unity, then whoever vainly separated themselves from that same unity, in which they could be polluted by the contagion of no evildoers, committed the manifest sacrilege of schism.

But if through that custom all perished, polluted, from what cavern do these men come forth, without original truth and with the craftiness of slander? But if the custom by which heretics were thus received had been right, let them abandon their fury, let them confess their error; let them come to the Catholic Church, not to be dyed again with the sacrament of baptism, but to be cured of the wound of their cutting-off.

38. 73. Leucius of Theveste said: Heretics, blasphemers, and the iniquitous, plucking apart with various words the holy and adorable words of the Scriptures, I judge are to be execrated; and therefore to be exorcized and baptized (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 31).

38. 74. I too judge that they are to be execrated; but not therefore to be exorcized and baptized. For it is their own fiction that I execrate, but the sacrament of Christ that I venerate.

39. 75. Eugenius of Ammedera said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 32): I too judge this same thing, that heretics are to be baptized.

39. 76. To him it is answered: But the Church does not judge this, to whom God has now, even by a plenary council, revealed what some of you then still held otherwise (See Phil 3:15); and because in you love was preserved, you remained in unity.

40. 77. 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 contend that they were baptized among schismatics. For if, according to the guarded saying of Christ, our fountain is private (See Song 4:12), let all the adversaries of our Church understand that it cannot be another's, nor can he who is the shepherd of one flock bestow the saving water on two peoples. And therefore it is manifest that neither heretics nor schismatics receive anything heavenly, who dare to receive from sinful men and from men estranged from the Church. When there is no place for the giver, certainly there is no profit for the receiver either (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 33).

40. 78. To him it is answered that the divine Scriptures have nowhere commanded that heretics baptized among heretics be baptized anew; but have shown in many places that all who are not in the rock, and do not belong to the members of that dove, are estranged from the Church, and yet baptize and are baptized, and have the sacrament of salvation without salvation. But that our fountain, which is like the fountain of Paradise, flows out even, like it, outside Paradise, has already been sufficiently said (See above, 4.1.1; 6.21.37); and that he who is the shepherd of one flock cannot bestow the saving water on two peoples, that is, on his own and on the stranger, I grant and agree.

But because it is not saving to strangers, is it therefore not itself the same? For the water of the flood was saving to those set within the ark, but outside the ark it was death-dealing; yet it was the same water. And many strangers, that is, the envious, whom Cyprian says are on the devil's side and shows from the Scriptures (See Cyprian, On Jealousy and Envy 4), seem to be, as it were, within, and yet, unless they were outside the ark, they would not die by the water. For baptism kills such men, when they use it wickedly; just as to those of whom the Apostle speaks, the good odor of Christ was unto death (See 2 Cor 2:15–16). Why, then, do schismatics or heretics not receive something heavenly—just as thorns or tares receive rain (See Matt 13:24–25), just as those very men who were outside the ark did indeed receive the water coming from the floodgates of heaven, but unto destruction, not unto salvation? And therefore that which he put at the end, When there is no place for the giver, certainly there is no profit for the receiver either, I do not labor to refute: because we too say that it does not profit the receivers, when they receive it in heresy, consenting to heretics; and therefore they come to Catholic peace and truth, not to receive baptism, but that what they had received may begin to profit them.

41. 79. Likewise another Januarius, of Muzula, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 34): I wonder that, although all confess that there is one baptism, not all understand the unity of that same baptism. For the Church and heresy are two and diverse things. If heretics have baptism, we do not have it; but if we do not have it, heretics cannot have it. But there is no doubt that the Church alone possesses the baptism of Christ, which alone possesses both the grace of Christ and the truth.

41. 80. Another could similarly say, and similarly say what is not true: I wonder that, although all confess that there is one baptism, not all understand the unity of that same baptism. For righteousness and iniquity are two and diverse things. If the iniquitous have baptism, the righteous do not have it; but if the righteous have it, the iniquitous cannot have it. But there is no doubt that the righteous alone possess the baptism of Christ, who alone possess both the grace of Christ and the truth. This is certainly false, as even they confess. For those envious men who are on the devil's side and set within, as Cyprian says (See Cyprian, Letter 74.14), and most well known to the apostle Paul (See Phil 1:15), had baptism; nor did they belong to the members of that dove which is safe in the rock.

42. 81. Adelphius of Tasualte said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 35): Without cause do certain men, by a false and invidious word, assail the truth, so as to say that we rebaptize, when the Church does not rebaptize heretics, but baptizes them.

42. 82. On the contrary, indeed, now it does not rebaptize; because it baptizes none but those who are not baptized—which earlier custom the truth, more diligently examined, has confirmed even by a later council.

43. 83. Demetrius of Leptiminus said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 36): We who vindicate to the Catholic Church alone its own thing keep one baptism. But those who say that heretics truly and lawfully baptize are themselves the ones who make not two but many baptisms: for since there are many heresies, baptisms too will be counted according to their number.

43. 84. To him it is answered: If it is so, then let as many baptisms be counted as there are works of the flesh, of which the Apostle says, Since those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:21): among which heresies too are counted, and so many of these very works are tolerated within, as in chaff, and yet there is one baptism for all, which is violated by no work of iniquity.

44. 85. Vincentius of Thibaris said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 37): We know that heretics are worse than pagans. If, converted, they should wish to come to God, they have, of course, the rule of truth which the Lord, by a divine precept, enjoined on the Apostles, saying, " Go, in my name lay on the hand, drive out demons " (Mark 16:17). And in another place: " Go, and teach the nations, dyeing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit " (Matt 28:19). Therefore, first by the laying on of hands in the exorcism, secondly by the regeneration of baptism, then they can come to the promise of Christ; but it ought not to be done otherwise.

44. 86. By what rule he says that heretics are worse than pagans, I do not know; since the Lord says, If he will not hear even the Church, let him be to you as a pagan and a tax collector (Matt 18:17). Or is a heretic worse even than such a one? I in no way resist; yet not on that account, because the man himself is worse than a pagan, that is, than a Gentile and heathen, is the sacrament of Christ too, if he has any, mixed with his vices and morals, and corrupted and perishing by that same intermixture. For those who withdraw from the Church and become not only followers but even founders of heresies, if they withdraw already baptized, although according to this rule they are worse than pagans, nevertheless have baptism: for if, corrected, they return, they do not receive it; but if they had lost it, they would certainly receive it.

It can happen, therefore, that someone is worse than a pagan, and yet in him the sacrament of Christ not only is, but is even not worse than in a holy and righteous man. For although, as far as is in that man, he did not keep it but violated it in mind and will, nevertheless, as far as pertains to the sacrament itself, it has remained whole and inviolate even with its despiser and rejecter.

Were not the Sodomites pagans, that is, Gentiles? The Jews, then, were worse, to whom the Lord says, It will be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment than for you (Matt 11:24), and to whom the prophet says, You have justified Sodom (Ezek 16:51); that is, in comparison with you, Sodom has been made righteous. Were the divine sacraments which were among the Jews therefore such as the Jews themselves were—the sacraments which the Lord himself also received, and to whose celebration he sent the lepers whom he had cleansed (See Luke 17:14), and at which, while Zechariah ministered, an angel stood by and announced that he had been heard while sacrificing in the temple (See Luke 1:11–13)? These same sacraments were both in good men of that time and in wicked men worse than pagans are—since they were set above the Sodomites in malice; and yet those sacraments were in both whole and divine.

44. 87. For even the Gentiles themselves, if they could have anything divine and upright in their doctrines, our holy men did not disapprove, although those Gentiles, through their superstitions and idolatry and pride, and the rest of their ruined morals, were to be detested, and, unless they were corrected, to be punished by the divine judgment. For the apostle Paul too, among the Athenians, when he said certain things about God, bore witness that some of them had said something of the kind (See Acts 17:28): which certainly, if they came to Christ, would be recognized in them, not disapproved. And holy Cyprian uses such men as witnesses against those same pagans. For when he was speaking of the magi: Of whom, however, he says, the chief, Hostanes, both denies that the form of the true God can be seen, and says that true angels stand by his throne. With which Plato too agrees by like reasoning, and, keeping one God, calls the rest angels or daemons. Hermes Trismegistus also speaks of one God, and confesses him to be incomprehensible and inestimable (Cyprian, That Idols Are Not Gods 6). If, then, these men had come to receive Christian salvation, it would certainly not be said to them: This evil you have, or, This false thing you have; but plainly it would deservedly be said: This, though whole and true in you, would nevertheless profit you nothing, unless you came to the grace of Christ. If, then, even in the pagans themselves something divine can be found and rightly approved, although salvation is still to be bestowed on them by Christ, we ought not to be so moved, even if heretics are worse, that we should wish to correct what is the evil that is their own in them, and be unwilling to recognize what is the good of Christ in them. But now we shall undertake the treatment of the remaining opinions of this council from another beginning.

1. 1. Let us not be troublesome to our readers if we discuss the same things in varied 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, in this question about baptism—whether the same baptism that is in the Catholic Church can be also among heretics or schismatics—spread some fog, nevertheless, because to men not to be despised, and especially to Cyprian, set in that very unity, it once seemed otherwise, 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 all that we find about this matter in his council and his letters, to turn over this same question somewhat longer, as it were, in our hands, and to show how much more truly it pleased the universal body of the Catholic Church that heretics or schismatics who have already received the baptism of Christ there whence they come should be admitted into Catholic communion along with it, corrected from their error, rooted and grounded in love (See Eph 3:17); so that, as regards the sacrament of baptism, what was lacking may not be supplied, but what was present may profit.

And blessed Cyprian indeed, now that the body which is corrupted no longer weighs down the soul, nor the earthly habitation presses down the mind that thinks of many things (See Wis 9:15), perceives more serenely the truth which he deserved to attain through love. Let him therefore help us by his prayers, as we labor in the mortality of this flesh, as in a foggy cloud, that, the Lord granting, we may, as far as we can, imitate his good qualities.

But if he thought anything otherwise, and persuaded certain brothers and colleagues of it—which he now, with the one he loved revealing it, already perceives—let us, far unequal to his merits, yet following, in our weakness, the authority of the Catholic Church, of which he himself is a distinguished and most dear member, unravel the matter against heretics or schismatics: whom, cut off from the unity which he held, and withering from the love by which he flourished, and slipped from the humility by which he stood, he disapproves and condemns the more, the more he knows that they wish to search out what he wrote in order to lay snares, and are unwilling to imitate what he did in order to make peace.

Just as those who call themselves Nazarene Christians, and circumcise the carnal foreskin in the Jewish manner, born heretics out of that error from which Peter, deviating from Paul, was called back (See Gal 2:11–14), persist in it even to this day: just as, then, those, after Peter, crowned in the primacy of the Apostles with the glory of martyrdom, remained cut off from the Church in their perversity; so these, after Cyprian, received, through the abundance of his love, into the lot of the saints by the glory of his passion, acknowledge themselves to be exiles from unity, and set up against the homeland of unity, on behalf of their slanders, a citizen of unity.

And so now let us look, by the same method, at the remaining opinions of that council.

2. 2. Marcus of Mactaris said: It is not to be wondered at if heretics, the enemies and assailants of the truth, vindicate to themselves a thing of another's power and condescension; this is to be wondered at, that certain of our own, betrayers of the truth, support heretics and oppose Christians. Therefore we have decreed that heretics are to be baptized (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 38).

2. 3. To him we answer: On the contrary, it is rather to be wondered at, and to be proclaimed with great praise, that these men so loved unity that those whom they thought betrayers of the truth, while persevering in unity with them, they did not fear to be polluted by. For when this man had said, This is to be wondered at, that certain of our own, betrayers of the truth, support heretics and oppose Christians, he seemed about to say: Therefore we decree that they are not to be communicated with. He did not say this; but he said, Therefore we decree that heretics are to be baptized: preserving what the peaceful Cyprian had built beforehand, saying, Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface). Since, then, the Donatists slander us and call us traitors, if there should arise some Jew or pagan who, having read this council, should call both us and them, according to their rules, betrayers of unity, I would like to know, for the refuting and washing away of so grave a charge, how our common cause is to be pleaded. These men call those traitors whom neither at that time could they convict, nor now can they show to be such, and they themselves are shown rather to be in the same crime.

But what is that to us? About these betrayers, certainly, what shall we say? For if we, though falsely, are called traitors for the reason that they charge us with having succeeded traitors in the same communion, we have all succeeded those betrayers, because the party of Donatus had not yet divided itself from unity in the times of blessed Cyprian. For after his passion, forty years and more having passed, the handing over of the books took place, whence they began to be called traitors. If, then, we are traitors for the reason that we sprang from traitors, as they suppose or feign, both of us derive our origin from those betrayers. For there is no saying that these men did not communicate with them, since they call them their own; which the council states, which they themselves most of all bring forward: Certain of our own, it says, betrayers of the truth, support heretics (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 38).

There is added also the testimony of Cyprian, sufficiently demonstrating that he remained in communion with them, by saying, Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently. For it was they who thought differently, whom this man calls betrayers, namely because they supported heretics by receiving them into the Church without baptism. That this too was the custom, that they should be so received, both Cyprian himself in many places, and several bishops in this council, make plain. Whence it appears that, if heretics do not have baptism, the Church of Christ of those times was full of betrayers, who, supporting them, received them in this way.

Let the common cause, then, be pleaded against the crime of betrayal which they cannot deny, and there our cause will be pleaded against the crime of treachery which they could not prove. But let us plead as though they had proved it: what we shall both answer to those who object to us the betrayal of our forebears, this we shall answer to these men who object to us the treachery of our forebears. For if, through the treachery of our forebears, from whom these men divided themselves, we are dead, then likewise, through the betrayal of the forebears who were the parents both of us and of them, both we and they are dead. But because they say that they live, they believe that that betrayal does not pertain to them: then neither does that treachery pertain to us. And that betrayal indeed, according to them, is certain; but according to us, neither is the earlier betrayal true—for we say that even heretics can have the baptism of Christ—nor the later treachery, because in that cause they themselves are overcome. These men, then, have no reason to be separated from us by the wicked crime of schism: because our forebears, if they were not traitors, as we say, then it in no way pertains to us at all; but if they were traitors, as they themselves say, it pertains to us just as little as those betrayers pertain either to us or to them. And through this, since from the iniquity of our forebears there is no crime of ours, from their own schism the crime of those men is certain.

3. 4. Satius of Sicilibba said: If sins are forgiven to 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, there is nothing that heretics can fear concerning the judgment of Christ, if they have obtained remission of sins (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 39).

3. 5. This too could be our opinion; but let its author see in what spirit it was said. Yet it is so modified in its words that I am not loath to consent and subscribe to it in the spirit in which I too hold that heretics can indeed have the baptism of Christ, but do not have remission of sins. For he does not say: If heretics baptize or are baptized; but, If sins are forgiven to heretics, he says, in their own baptism, they come to the Church without cause.

For let us put, in place of heretics, those whom Cyprian knew in the Church, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1); in as many words we too can most truly state this opinion: If sins are forgiven, in their own baptism, to those falsely converted, they are afterward led to a true conversion without cause. For since on the day of judgment it is sins that are punished, there is nothing that those who renounced the world in words only and not in deeds can fear concerning the judgment of Christ, if they have obtained remission of sins.

But this reasoning is completed by such a connection that we add, saying: But they ought to fear the judgment of Christ, and at some time be converted with a true heart; and when they have done this, it is certainly not necessary that they be baptized again. They were able, therefore, to receive baptism and not receive remission of sins, or, their sins remitted, at once to be burdened again. So, then, are heretics too.

4. 6. Victor of Gor said: Since sins are remitted only in the baptism of the Church, whoever admits a heretic to communion without baptism does both things against reason: he neither purifies heretics nor stains Christians (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 40).

4. 7. To him we answer that the baptism of the Church is even among heretics, although they themselves are not in the Church: just as the water of Paradise is in the land of Egypt, although it is not in Paradise. We do not, therefore, admit heretics to communion without baptism; and because they come corrected from their perversity, we receive not their sins, but the sacraments of Christ; and concerning the remission of sins, what we said above, we say here too. As for what he put at the end, saying, he does both things against reason: he neither cleanses heretics nor stains Christians, this Cyprian himself, with his colleagues who agreed with him, rejected first and most of all; for he did not believe himself to be stained, when he decreed that such men were to be communicated with for the sake of the bond of peace, saying, Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface).

Or, if heretics admitted to communion, if they are not baptized, stain it, then the whole Church was stained through that custom which is so often recalled here. And just as these men call us traitors on account of our forebears, in whom they could prove nothing of the kind when they made the charge; if everyone becomes what he is with whom he communicates, then all became heretics at that time. But if anyone says this, he is mad; therefore what this man says is false: Whoever admits a heretic to communion without baptism neither purifies heretics nor stains Christians. Or, if this is true, they were not admitted without baptism, but had the baptism of Christ, although given and received among heretics—those who, according to that custom which these men confess, were so admitted: and through this, rightly even now are they so admitted.

5. 8. Aurelius of Utica said: Since the Apostle says that one must not communicate with another's sins (See 1 Tim 5:22), what else does he do but communicate with another's sins, who communicates with heretics without the baptism of the Church? And therefore I judge that heretics are to be baptized, that they may receive remission of sins, and so be communicated with (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 41).

5. 9. It is answered: Then Cyprian and all these men communicated with another's sins, because they remained in communion with such people, when they removed from the right of communion no one who thought differently (See Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface). Where, then, is the Church? Then, to be silent about heretics—since the words of this opinion can be said also of other sinners, such as Cyprian saw, groaned over, reproved, and bore with among his own people in the Church (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6)—where is the Church, which, according to these words, is thought already then to have perished by the contagion of sins?

But if, as the most firm truth holds, the Church remained and remains, then the communion of sins which the Apostle forbids (See 1 Tim 5:22) is to be understood only as consent to them. But let heretics be baptized again, that they may receive remission of sins, if the perverse and envious are baptized again—who, while they renounced the world in words and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), were able indeed to receive baptism, but did not obtain remission of sins, the Lord saying, If you do not forgive, neither will your Father forgive you (Matt 6:15).

6. 10. Iambus of Germaniciana said: Those who approve the baptism of heretics disapprove our own; so that they deny that those outside the Church—I will not say washed, but defiled—ought to be baptized in the Church (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 42).

6. 11. To him it is answered that none of us approves the baptism of heretics, but that of Christ, though among heretics as among outer chaff, just as among other iniquitous men as among inner chaff. For if those who are baptized outside the Church are not washed, but defiled, then assuredly those who are baptized outside the rock, on which the Church is built, are not washed, but defiled. But all are outside that same rock who hear the words of Christ and do not do them. Or, if they are indeed washed by baptism, but remain defiled by their iniquities, from which they were unwilling to be changed for the better: so too are heretics.

7. 12. Lucianus of Rucuma said: It is written: " And God saw the light, that it was good, and divided between the light and the darkness " (Gen 1:4). If light and darkness can agree, there can be something in common between us and heretics. Therefore I judge that heretics are to be baptized (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 43).

7. 13. To him it is answered: If light and darkness can agree, there can be something in common between the righteous and the unrighteous. Let him, then, judge that those unrighteous men are to be baptized anew whom Cyprian reproved in the Church itself; or, if those are not unrighteous who renounce the world in words and not in deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), let him say so who can.

8. 14. Pelagianus of Luperciana said: It is written: " Either God is God, or Baal is God " (1 Kgs 18:21 (3 Kgs)). So now too, either the Church is the Church, or heresy is the Church: now if heresy is not the Church, how can the baptism of the Church be among heretics? (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 44)

8. 15. To him we can answer thus: Either Paradise is Paradise, or Egypt is Paradise: now if Egypt is not Paradise, how can the water of Paradise be in Egypt? But it will be said to us: It reaches there too by flowing out. So, then, does baptism reach heretics. Likewise we say: Either the rock is the Church, or the sand is the Church. Now, because the sand is not the Church, how can baptism be among those who build upon the sand, by hearing the words of Christ and not doing them (See Matt 7:26)? And yet it is. So, then, is it also among heretics.

9. 16. Iader of Midila said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 45): We know that there is but 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 himself baptized outside the Catholic Church.

9. 17. To him it is answered that, if this were said of those iniquitous men who are outside the rock, it would certainly be said falsely. So, then, is it of heretics.

10. 18. Likewise Felix of Marazana said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 46): One faith, one baptism (See Eph 4:5); but of the Catholic Church, to which alone it is permitted to baptize.

10. 19. To him it is answered: What if another were to say thus: One faith, one baptism; but of the righteous only, to whom alone it is permitted to baptize? Just as these words would be refuted, so let that 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 (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), belong to the members of the Church? Let them see whether she is that rock, whether she is that dove, whether she is that bride without spot and wrinkle (See Eph 5:27).

11. 20. Paulus of Obba said: It does not move me if someone does not vindicate the faith and truth of the Church, since the Apostle says, " For what? Because some of them have fallen away from the faith, has their faithlessness made void the faith of God? By no means: for God is truthful, but every man a liar " (Rom 3:3–4). But if God is truthful, how can the truth of baptism be among heretics, among whom God is not? (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 47)

11. 21. To him it is answered: What? Is God among the avaricious? And yet there is baptism: so too among heretics. For those among whom God is, are the temple of God (See 1 Cor 3:16). But what agreement has the temple of God with idols? (2 Cor 6:16) Further, that avarice is idolatry Paul holds (See Eph 5:5), Cyprian agrees (See Cyprian, Letter 55.27.1); and that same Cyprian dwells, with the great reward of his endurance, among rapacious colleagues who nevertheless baptized.

12. 22. Pomponius of Dionysiana said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 48): It is manifest that heretics cannot baptize and give remission of sins, since they do not have the power either to loose or to bind anything on earth (See Matt 18:18).

12. 23. It is answered: Neither do murderers have this power, that is, those who hate the brothers (See 1 John 3:15). For it was not to such men that it was said, If you forgive anyone their sins, they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone, they will be retained (John 20:23). And yet they baptize, and Paul tolerates them (See Phil 1:15) in the same communion of baptism, and Cyprian recognizes them (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6 and Letter 11.1).

13. 24. Venantius of Tinisa (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 49) said: If a husband, setting out abroad (See Matt 25:14), had entrusted his wife to his friend to be kept, that friend would preserve her, entrusted to him, with all the diligence he could, lest her chastity and holiness be adulterated by anyone. Christ, our Lord and God, setting out to the Father, entrusted his bride to us; do we keep her uncorrupted and inviolate, or do we betray her integrity and chastity to adulterers and corrupters? For whoever makes the baptism of the Church common with heretics betrays the bride of Christ to adulterers.

13. 25. We answer: What of those who, when they are baptized, are converted to God with the lips, not the heart—do they not bear an adulterous mind? Are they not themselves lovers of the world, who renounced it not in deeds but in words (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), and therefore corrupt good morals by evil conversations (See 1 Cor 15:33), saying, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die (1 Cor 15:32)? Was not the apostolic word watchful against these too, where it says, But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds too may be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ (2 Cor 11:3)? Since, then, Cyprian had the baptism of Christ in common with such men, was he therefore betraying the bride of Christ to adulterers, and not rather recognizing the bridegroom's necklace (See Isa 61:10) even on an adulteress?

14. 26. Aymnus of Ausuagiga said: We have received one baptism, and that we practice; but whoever says that it is permitted to heretics too to baptize, he himself makes two baptisms (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 50).

14. 27. To him it is answered: Why does not he too make two baptisms who says that the iniquitous also baptize? For since the righteous and the iniquitous are contrary to one another, the baptism which the righteous give—such as Paul was, or such as Cyprian was—is not contrary to the baptism which those iniquitous men gave who hated Paul (See Phil 1:15), whom Cyprian understands to be not heretics but wicked Catholics (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6): and since the continence which was in Cyprian and the avarice which was in Cyprian's colleagues are contrary to one another, nevertheless the baptism which Cyprian gave was not contrary to the baptism which they gave, but one and the same: because he baptizes of whom it was said, This is he who baptizes (John 1:33).

15. 28. Saturninus of Victoriana (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 51) said: If heretics are permitted to baptize, they are excused and defended in doing unlawful things; nor do I see why either Christ called them his adversaries, or the Apostle called them antichrists (See 1 John 2:22).

15. 29. To him it is answered: We say that it is not permitted to heretics to baptize in the same way that we say it is not permitted to cheats to baptize. For not to a heretic only, but to a sinner, the Lord says, Why do you recount my justifications, and take up my covenant in your mouth? (Ps 50:16 (49))—to this one certainly he said, If you saw a thief, you ran along with him (Ps 50:18 (49)). How much worse, then, were those who did not run along with thieves, but themselves seized estates by treacherous frauds (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6)? But Cyprian did not run along with them, although he tolerated them in the Catholic crop, lest the wheat be uprooted along with them. And yet even the baptism which they gave was the same; because it was not theirs, but Christ's. As, therefore, these men, although the baptism of Christ is recognized in them, are nevertheless not excused and defended in doing unlawful things, and Christ rightly calls them his adversaries, because, persevering in such things, they are to hear, Depart from me, you who work iniquity (Matt 7:23)—whence they are called antichrists, because they are contrary to Christ, while they live against what he commands: so too are heretics.

16. 30. Another Saturninus, of Tucca, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 52): The Gentiles, although they worship idols, nevertheless know and confess the most high God, the Father, the Creator. Against him Marcion blasphemes, and some are not ashamed to approve the baptism of Marcion (See Cyprian, Letter 74.7). How do such priests either keep or vindicate the priesthood of God, who do not baptize the enemies of God, and thus communicate with them?

16. 31. It is answered: Indeed, when such things are said, the measure is exceeded, and it is not considered that they themselves too communicated with such people, judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if they thought differently (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface). But this man has, in this very opinion of his, something by which he might be admonished, if he noticed, that in each person what is depraved is to be corrected, but what is upright is to be approved: since he says, The Gentiles, although they worship idols, nevertheless know and confess the most high God, the Father, the Creator.

If, then, such a Gentile came to him, would he wish to correct and change in him the fact that he confessed and knew God the Father, the Creator? But he would amend in him idolatry, the evil he had; and would hand on the Christian sacraments, which he did not have: and if he knew anything upright in him, he would approve it; if he found anything perverse, he would amend it; if anything was lacking, he would give it. So too in a Marcionist heretic he would recognize the integrity of baptism, correct his perversity, teach the Catholic truth.

17. 32. Marcellus of Zama said: Since sins are remitted only in the baptism of the Church, whoever does not baptize a heretic communicates with a sinner (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 53).

17. 33. What of him who communicates with the one doing this—does he not communicate with a sinner? But what else did all do who judged no one, nor removed from the right of communion one thinking differently (See Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface)? Where, then, is the Church? Or do these things not harm those who are patient and who tolerate the tares lest the wheat be uprooted (See Matt 13:29)? Let these men learn, then, who, by vainly separating themselves from the whole world, committed the sacrilege of schism, why they have in their mouth the opinion of Cyprian who do not have in their heart the patience of Cyprian. But to this Marcellus it is answered, from what was said above about baptism and about remission of sins, how baptism can be in a man, although remission of sins is not in him.

18. 34. Irenaeus of Ululi said: If the Church does not baptize a heretic for the reason that he is said to be already baptized, the heresy is greater (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 54).

18. 35. It is answered: In this way it could be said: If the Church does not baptize an avaricious man for the reason that he is said to be already baptized, the avarice is greater. But this is false: so, then, is that.

19. 36. Donatus of Cibaliana said: I know one Church and one baptism of hers. If there is one who says that the grace of baptism is among heretics, it is first necessary that he show and prove that the Church is there (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 55).

19. 37. To him it is answered: If you say that the grace of baptism is that which baptism is, it is among heretics; but if baptism is the sacrament of grace, while grace itself is the abolition of sins, then the grace of baptism is not among heretics. But baptism is one and the Church is one in the same way that hope is one (See Eph 4:4–5). As, therefore, the good and the wicked, not having one hope, can nevertheless have one baptism, so those for whom the Church is not common can have baptism in common.

20. 38. Zosimus of Tharassa (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 56) said: The truth having been revealed, let error yield to the truth: for Peter too, who at first circumcised, yielded to Paul preaching the truth (See Gal 2:11–14).

20. 39. It is answered: This too can be our opinion, and so it happened in this question about baptism. For when the truth was afterward revealed more clearly, error yielded to the truth, when that most wholesome custom was confirmed even by the authority of a plenary council. Yet it is well that they so often remembered that even Peter, the first of the Apostles, could think otherwise than the truth required; which we believe happened to Cyprian too, without any reproach to him—whoever of us love Cyprian: because it is not right that he be loved with a greater love than Peter.

21. 40. Julianus of Telepte (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 57) said: It is written: No one can receive anything, unless it has been given him from heaven (See John 3:27). If heresy is from heaven, it can give baptism.

21. 41. Let him hear another saying too: If avarice is from heaven, it can give baptism. And yet the avaricious do give it: so, then, do heretics.

22. 42. Faustus of Timida Regia said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 58): Let those who patronize heretics not flatter themselves. Whoever intercedes for heretics by ecclesiastical baptism makes them Christians and us heretics.

22. 43. To him it is answered: If anyone should say that one who, when he received baptism, did not receive remission of sins because he held fraternal hatred in his heart, is not to be baptized again when he dismisses that hatred from his heart—does he then intercede by ecclesiastical baptism for murderers, or make them righteous and us murderers? Let him, then, understand this of heretics too.

23. 44. Geminius of Furni said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 59): Some of our colleagues can set heretics above themselves; they cannot set them above us: and therefore what we have once decreed, we hold; that we baptize those coming from heretics.

23. 45. And here he confesses most plainly that some of his colleagues thought differently: whence the love of unity is confirmed again and again, in that they were not separated from one another by any schism, until to one of the two parties, if they thought anything otherwise, God should reveal it (See Phil 3:15). But to him it is answered that his colleagues did not set heretics above themselves; rather, they recognized the baptism of Christ, just as it is recognized in the avaricious, in cheats, in the rapacious, in murderers, so also in heretics.

24. 46. Rogatianus of Nova said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 60): Christ instituted the Church, the devil heresy: how can the synagogue of Satan have the baptism of Christ?

24. 47. To him it is answered: Because Christ instituted the devout, and the devil the envious, can it therefore not have the baptism of Christ, which, in the envious, is convicted of being a part of the devil?

25. 48. Therapius of Bulla said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 61): Whoever grants and betrays the baptism of the Church to heretics, what else does he stand forth as but a Judas to the bride of Christ?

25. 49. O great conviction of the schismatics, who separated themselves by a wicked sacrilege from the inheritance of Christ spread throughout the whole world! For if Cyprian communicated with such men as the traitor Judas was, and yet was not stained by them; or, if he was stained, then all became Judases; therefore even now all are Judases; or, if they are not, then the crimes of the former do not pertain to those who came after, although propagated from the same communion.

Why, then, do they object to us traitors whom they have not convicted, and not object to themselves Judas, with whom Cyprian and his colleagues communicated? Behold the council in which these men are wont to glory. We indeed say that he who approves the baptism of Christ even in heretics does not thereby betray the baptism of the Church to heretics, just as he who approves the baptism of Christ even in murderers does not betray the baptism of the Church to murderers; but because these men, from this council, aim to prescribe to us what we ought to think, let them themselves first agree with it.

Behold, those were compared to the traitor Judas who said that heretics, although baptized in heresy, ought not to be baptized again. But Cyprian communicated with such men, who said, Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface). That such men had also been in the Church before is made plain by that opinion where he says, But someone says: What then will become of those who in the past were admitted into the Church without baptism? (Cyprian, Letter 73.23.1) That such was the custom of the Church, they themselves, who hold this council, often recall. If, then, whoever does this stands forth as nothing else but a Judas to the bride of Christ, as that opinion was pronounced—and Judas, as the Gospel teaches, was a traitor—then all communicated with traitors who at that time said these things too, and, before they said these things, all had become traitors through that custom which the Church then retained. All, then—that is, both we and they, because we are propagated from that unity—are traitors.

But we are defended in two ways: both because we do not consent to this council, where this was pronounced, with the right of unity preserved, as Cyprian himself foretold; and because we judge that the wicked in Catholic unity do no harm to the good, until at the end the chaff is separated from the wheat. But these men, because they both bring forth this council as though on their own behalf, and contend that the good perish by communion with the wicked as though by contagion, find no way to say either that the earlier Christians, from whom they are propagated, were not traitors—because they are convicted by this council—or that the crimes of the earlier ones do not pertain to them—because they object to us our forebears.

26. 50. Likewise another Lucius, of Membresa, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 62): It is written, " God does not hear a sinner " (John 9:31). One who is a sinner, how can he be heard in baptism?

26. 51. We answer: How is the avaricious man heard, and the rapacious, and the usurer, and the murderer? Or are these not sinners?—whom nevertheless Cyprian rebukes and tolerates in the Catholic Church (See Cyprian, The Lapsed 6).

27. 52. Likewise another Felix, of Buslaceni, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 63): In admitting heretics without the baptism of the Church, let no one set custom before reason and truth; for reason and truth always exclude custom.

27. 53. To this the reply is: you do not show the truth, but you confess the custom. We would therefore rightly hold to the custom, confirmed by a later plenary council, even if the truth were still hidden—the truth that we believe has now been made manifest.

28. 54. Another, Saturninus of Abitinae, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 64): If antichrist can give anyone the grace of Christ, then heretics too can baptize, for they have been called antichrists.

28. 55. What if someone else were to say: if a murderer can give anyone the grace of Christ, then those too who hate their brothers can baptize, for they have been called murderers (See 1 John 3:15)? Surely it would seem he was speaking the truth, and yet they can; so likewise can the heretics.

29. 56. Quintus of Aggya said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 65): He can give something who has something; but what can the heretics give, who, as is agreed, have nothing?

29. 57. To this the reply is: if, then, he can give something who has something, it is clear that heretics can give baptism, because when they withdraw from the Church they keep the sacrament of the washing that they had received there; for on returning they do not receive it again, since they had not lost it when they withdrew.

30. 58. Another, Julian of Marcelliana, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 66): If a man can serve two masters, God and mammon (See Matt 6:24), then baptism too can serve two, the Christian and the heretic.

30. 59. On the contrary, if it can serve the self-controlled and the greedy, the sober and the drunkard, the devout and the murderer, why not also the Christian and the heretic? It does not in fact serve them; rather it is administered to them, or by them—to salvation for those who use it well, and to judgment for those who use it badly.

31. 60. Tenax of Horrea Celiae said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 67): There is one baptism, but it belongs to the Church; where the Church is not, there baptism cannot be.

31. 61. To this we reply: why, then, can it be where there is no rock but only sand, since the Church is on the rock and not on the sand?

32. 62. Another, Victor of Assuras, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 68): It is written that God is one, and Christ one, and the Church one, and baptism one (See Eph 4:4–5). How can anyone be baptized there where there is no God and Christ and Church?

32. 63. How can he be baptized even on that sand, where there is neither the Church, since it is on the rock, nor God and Christ, since the temple of God and Christ is not there?

33. 64. Donatulus of Capsa said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 69): I too have always held this, that heretics, who have obtained nothing outside, should be baptized when they are converted to the Church.

33. 65. To this the reply is: outside they have indeed obtained nothing toward salvation, but not nothing toward the sacrament. For salvation is proper to the good, whereas the sacraments are common to the good and the bad.

34. 66. Verulus of Rusicade said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 70): A heretical man cannot give what he does not have; much less can a schismatic, who has lost what he had.

34. 67. We have already shown that they have it, because they do not lose it when they withdraw. For they do not receive it again when they return. Therefore, if they seemed unable to give precisely because they were thought not to have it, let them now be understood to be able to give, because they are understood also to have.

35. 68. Pudentianus of Cuicul said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 71): The newness of my episcopate, dearly beloved brothers, has made me wait to see what those of greater standing would judge. For it is clear that heresies have nothing and can do nothing; and so, if any come from them, it has most justly been decreed that they be baptized.

35. 69. As the reply was given to those above, whom he was here waiting upon to see what they would judge, let it be understood that the same reply has been given to this man too.

36. 70. Peter of Hippo Diarrhytus said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 72): Since there is one baptism in the Catholic Church, it is clear that one cannot be baptized outside the Church; and therefore I judge that those dipped in heresy, or in schism, when they come to the Church, ought to be baptized.

36. 71. The one baptism is so in the Catholic Church that, when some have gone out from it, in those who go out it does not become two, but the same one remains. What, then, is recognized in those who return is recognized also in those who received it from those who withdrew—the very thing that those who withdrew did not lose when they withdrew.

37. 72. Again, another, Lucius of Ausafa, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 73): According to the prompting of my mind and of the Holy Spirit, since there is one God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one Christ, and one hope, one Spirit, one Church, there ought also to be one baptism (See Eph 4:4–5). 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.

37. 73. Let what they baptize, then, be annulled—those who hear the words of God and do not do them (See Matt 7:26)—when they begin to pass over 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 the heretics as well. For neither do they have the same hope, so long as they are on the sand, as those who are upon the rock; yet the baptism is the same in both, although, just as the hope is called one, so too the baptism is called one.

38. 74. Felix of Gurgites said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 74): I judge that, according to the precepts of the holy Scriptures, those unlawfully baptized by heretics outside the Church, if they wish to take refuge in the Church, should obtain the grace of baptism where it is lawfully given.

38. 75. The reply is: rather, let them begin to have lawfully unto salvation what they had unlawfully unto ruin; for under the same baptism under which a person was being judged—when, in receiving it, he had renounced the world by words only and not by deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1)—he is justified when he turns to God with a truthful heart.

39. 76. Pusillus of Lamasba said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 75): I believe that baptism is not saving except in the Catholic Church. Whatever is outside the Catholic Church is a sham.

39. 77. This indeed is true, that baptism is saving only in the Catholic Church. For it can exist even outside the Catholic Church, but there it is not saving, because there it does not work salvation—just as that good fragrance of Christ is certainly not saving in those who perish (See 2 Cor 2:15), not through its own fault but through theirs. Whatever is outside the Catholic Church is a sham, but only insofar as it is not catholic. Yet something catholic can exist outside the Catholic Church, just as the name of Christ could exist outside the assembly of Christ—the name in which that man who did not follow along with the disciples cast out demons (See Mark 9:38). For a sham can exist even within the Catholic Church, namely in those who renounce the world by words and not by deeds (See Cyprian, Letter 11.1), and yet the sham is not catholic. As, therefore, there is within the Catholic Church what is not catholic, so there can be outside the Catholic Church something that is catholic.

40. 78. Salvianus of Gazaufala said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 76): It is agreed that heretics have nothing; and therefore they come to us, so that they may be able to receive what they did not have.

40. 79. We reply: then those very men who founded the heresies are not heretics, because they withdrew from the Church and certainly had what they had received there. But if it is absurd to say that those are not heretics through whom the rest become heretics, then it can happen that a heretic has something which, by using it badly, he ruins.

41. 80. Honoratus of Tucca said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 77): Since Christ is the truth, we ought to follow the truth rather than custom; so that we may sanctify with the Church's baptism the heretics who come to us precisely because outside they could receive nothing.

41. 81. This man too is a witness to the custom, where he helps us most, whatever else he may seem to say against us. But it is not because they received nothing outside that the heretics come to us; rather, they come so that what they received may begin to be of use to them—for outside it can be of use in no way.

42. 82. Victor of Octavum said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 78): As you yourselves also know, I was not appointed bishop long ago, and so I was awaiting the counsel of my predecessors. I therefore judge thus: that whoever come from heresy should without doubt be baptized.

42. 83. Let the reply that was given to those whom he was awaiting be taken as given to this man as well.

43. 84. Clarus of Mascula said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 79): Plain is the sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ, who sent his Apostles and entrusted to them alone the power given to him by the Father—to whom we have succeeded, governing the Lord's Church with the same power and baptizing the faith of believers. And therefore heretics, who have neither power outside nor the Church of Christ, can baptize no one with his baptism.

43. 85. Have ungodly 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 where he said he would build his Church (See Matt 16:18–19).

44. 86. Secundianus of Thambei said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 80): We ought not by our presumption to deceive heretics, lest, not having been baptized in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ and so not having obtained the forgiveness of sins, when the day of judgment comes they charge against us that 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 both the Church and the baptism of the Church.

44. 87. On the contrary, let them, transferred to the rock and joined to the dove, receive the forgiveness of sins, which they could not have outside the rock and outside the dove—whether openly outside, like the heretics, or as though within, like ruined Catholics; who nonetheless, as is clear, both have and give baptism without the forgiveness of sins, since even from such men those receive it who, not changed for the better, honor God with their lips while their heart is far from him (See Isa 29:13). Yet the baptism is one in the same way that the dove is one, since those who are not in the dove in fellowship can still have baptism in common.

45. 88. Again, another, Aurelius of Cillae, said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 81): The apostle John set down in his Epistle: 'If anyone comes to you and does not have the doctrine of Christ, do not receive him into your house, and do not say to him, Greetings. For whoever says to him, Greetings, shares in his evil deeds' (2 John 10–11). How can such men be rashly admitted into the house of God, who are forbidden to be admitted into our own private house? Or how can we have communion with them without the baptism of the Church—men with whom, if we so much as say Greetings, we share in their evil deeds?

45. 89. On this testimony of John there is no need to dwell long, since it does not pertain at all to the question of baptism that we are now treating. For he says: If anyone comes to you and does not have the doctrine of Christ (2 John 10). But heretics, leaving behind the doctrine of their error, are converted to the doctrine of Christ, so as to be incorporated into the Church and to begin to belong to that dove whose sacrament they had; and so what was not hers they are given—namely, peace, and love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (See 1 Tim 1:5). But what was hers is recognized in them and received without any reproach—just as in the adulteress God recognizes his own gifts, even while she follows her lovers; for when her fornication is corrected, when she is converted to chastity, those gifts are not blamed, but she herself is set right (See Hos 2).

But just as Cyprian could defend himself, if this testimony of John were brought against him while he was in communion with such men, so let those defend themselves against whom it is alleged. For, as I have said, it does not pertain at all to this question. John says that those who hold an alien doctrine are not to be greeted; but the apostle Paul says still more forcefully: If anyone who bears the name of brother among you is either greedy or a drunkard, and so on, not even to eat with such a one (1 Cor 5:11)—and yet with colleagues who were moneylenders, treacherous, defrauders, and robbers, Cyprian shared not a private table but the common altar of God. How this is to be defended has already been said sufficiently in other books.

46. 90. Litteus of Gemellae said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 82): If a blind man leads a blind man, both fall into the pit (See Matt 15:14). Since, then, it is agreed that heretics cannot give light to anyone, being themselves blind, their baptism is of no force.

46. 91. Nor do we say that it has force unto salvation so long as they are heretics, just as we do not say it of those murderers so long as they hate their brothers (See 1 John 2:9); for they too are in darkness, and if anyone follows them, they fall together into the pit. Yet not for that reason do they either fail to have baptism or fail to hand it on.

47. 92. Natalis of Oea said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 83–85): I, here present, as well as Pompeius of Sabrata and also Dioga of Leptis Magna, who have charged me to speak for them, absent in body but present in spirit (See 1 Cor 5:3), judge what our colleagues also judge: that heretics cannot have communion with us unless they have been baptized with the baptism of the Church.

47. 93. By communion, I believe, he means that which pertains to the fellowship of the dove; for in the sharing of the sacraments they were beyond doubt in communion with them, judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he held a different view (See Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops, preface). But however he meant it, these words need not be greatly refuted. For certainly a heretic does not have communion unless baptized with the baptism of the Church. And it is agreed that the baptism is ecclesiastical even among heretics when it is consecrated with the words of the gospel—just as the Gospel itself is ecclesiastical and does not belong to their perversity, but certainly retains its own holiness.

48. 94. Junius of Neapolis said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 86): From what I have once judged I do not withdraw, namely that we should baptize heretics coming to the Church.

48. 95. Since here he brought forward no reasoning or testimony of the Scriptures, he need not detain us long.

44. 96. Cyprian of Carthage said (Cyprian, Sentences of the Bishops 87): My view is most fully expressed by the letter that was written to our colleague Jubaianus—that heretics, called, according to the gospel and apostolic testimony, adversaries of Christ (See Matt 5:25) and antichrists (See 1 John 2:22), when they come to the Church, are to be baptized with the one baptism of the Church, so that they may be made friends out of adversaries, and Christians out of antichrists.

44. 97. What else is to be argued here, when we have treated with all the diligence we could the very letter he mentioned, the one sent to Jubaianus? And let us remember that what he said here can be said of all the wicked—who, as he himself testifies, are even within the Catholic Church and both have and give baptism, as none of us doubts. For those come to the Church who cross over from the party of the devil to Christ, and build upon the rock, and are incorporated into the dove, and are kept safe in the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain (See Song 4:12); where there are not all those who live against the precepts of Christ, wherever they may seem to be. For in the letter he wrote to Magnus, when dealing with this very matter, he himself plainly enough warned us in what sort of fellowship the Church should be understood to consist. For he says, speaking of a certain man: Let him become a stranger and profane to the Lord's peace, and an enemy of the Lord's unity, not dwelling in the house of God, that is, in the Church of Christ, in which none dwell but the harmonious and like-minded (Cyprian, Letter 69.5.1).

Let those, then, who would prescribe to us on the authority of Cyprian attend a little to what we are to say here. For if in the Church of Christ none dwell but the harmonious and like-minded, then beyond doubt those did not dwell in the Church of Christ—although they seemed to be within—who through envy and contention, without love, were proclaiming Christ; whom he himself understands (See Cyprian, Letter 73.14) to be not the heretics or schismatics mentioned by the apostle Paul, but false brothers living inwardly among them. These certainly ought not to baptize, since they did not dwell in the Church (See Phil 1:15–17), in which he himself says none dwell but the harmonious and like-minded—unless perhaps someone so shrinks from the truth as to say that the envious and ill-willed and the quarrelsome who lack love were harmonious and like-minded. And yet they baptized, nor did this detestable perversity of theirs in any way diminish or violate the sacrament of Christ, which was handled and dispensed through them.

50. 98. It is worth our while, indeed, to treat the whole passage set down in that same letter to Magnus, which he framed thus. Not dwelling, he says, in the house of God, that is, in the Church of Christ, in which none dwell but the harmonious and like-minded—since the Holy Spirit speaks in the Psalms and says: 'God who makes the like-minded to dwell in a house' (Ps 68:6 (67:7)). Finally, the Lord's own sacrifices declare that Christians are bound to one another in like-mindedness by a firm and inseparable love. For when the Lord calls his body bread (See John 6:51), made up out of the gathering together of many grains, he indicates our people, whom he bore, made one; and when he calls his blood wine (See Matt 26:26–29), pressed out of many clusters and grapes and brought together into one, he likewise signifies our flock joined by the mingling of a multitude made one (Cyprian, Letter 69.5.1–2).

These words of blessed Cyprian show that he both understood and loved the beauty of the house of God (See Ps 26:8 (25:8)), which house he affirmed consists of the like-minded and harmonious, and which he taught both by prophetic testimony and by the signification of the sacraments. In that house certainly there were not those envious and loveless ill-willed men, who nonetheless baptized. From which it appears that the sacrament of Christ can be in them, and can be given by them, who are not in the Church of Christ, in which Cyprian himself testifies that none dwell but the like-minded and harmonious. For it cannot even be said that they could baptize so long as they were hidden, since those men were not hidden from the apostle Paul, whom in his Epistle that most truthful witness marks out, and says that he rejoices because they too were proclaiming Christ. For of them he says: Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice (Phil 1:18).

51. 99. Having considered all this, I think I may say without rashness 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 upon the rock (See Matt 16:18), which is called the one dove (See Song 6:9), which is the beautiful bride without spot or wrinkle (See Eph 5:27), and the enclosed garden, the sealed fountain, the well of living water, the paradise with the fruit of its trees (See Song 4:12–13)—the house that also received the keys, and the power of loosing and binding (See Matt 16:19). If anyone despises this house when it rebukes and corrects him: Let him be to you, he says, as a Gentile and a tax collector (Matt 18:17). Of this house it is said: O Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house, and the place where your glory dwells (Ps 26:8 (25:8)); and: Who makes the like-minded to dwell in a house (Ps 68:6 (67:7)); and: I was glad in those who said to me, We will go into the house of the Lord (Ps 122:1 (121:1)); and: Blessed are those who dwell in your house; for ages of ages they will praise you (Ps 84:4 (83:5)); and countless such passages.

This house is also called the wheat, bearing fruit—thirtyfold, or sixtyfold, or a hundredfold—with patient endurance (See Matt 13:23; Luke 8:15). This house is in vessels of gold and silver (See 2 Tim 2:20), and precious stones, and imperishable 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 (Eph 4:2–3); and: For the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor 3:17). For this house exists in the good faithful and the holy servants of God dispersed everywhere and bound together in spiritual unity in the same communion of the sacraments, whether they know one another by sight or do 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 its fruitful and peaceful righteousness (See 2 Cor 9:10); rather they are, as it were, the chaff among the grain. For we cannot deny that these too are in the house, since the Apostle says: In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; and some are for honor, but others for dishonor (2 Tim 2:20). Out of this innumerable number not only does a crowd within press upon the heart of the few who are holy by comparison with so great a multitude, but, by the breaking of the nets, heresies and schisms also arise among those who must now be said to be from the house rather than in the house, of whom it is said: They went out from us, but they were not of us (1 John 2:19). For those now even bodily separated are more separated than those who live inwardly in a carnal and animal way and are spiritually separated.

52. 100. Now of all these kinds, those first ones who are in the house of God in such a way that they themselves are the house of God—whether they are already spiritual, or are still little ones nourished with milk (See 1 Cor 3:2) but nonetheless advancing with intent heart toward the spiritual condition—no one doubts that they both have baptism profitably and hand it on profitably to those who imitate them;

whereas to the pretenders, whom the Holy Spirit flees (See Wis 1:5), even if they themselves, so far as in them lies, hand it on profitably, those nonetheless receive it unprofitably, since they do not imitate those through whom they receive it. But those who are in the great house as vessels for dishonor (2 Tim 2:20) both have baptism unprofitably and hand it on unprofitably to those who imitate them; yet those receive it from them profitably who are joined not to them in heart and conduct but to the holy house.

But those who are more separated, being not so much in the house as from the house, neither have it profitably at all, nor is it received from them profitably—unless perhaps the necessity of receiving presses, and the mind of the one receiving 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 receiving; and for this to become profitable, one must withdraw from the heresy or schism and cleave to that house. This is what not only heretics and schismatics ought to do, but also those who are in the house through the communion of the sacraments in such a way that they are outside the house through the difference of their conduct; for thus the sacrament begins to be profitable even to them, which is otherwise unprofitable.

53. 101. It is also commonly asked whether what is received from one who has not received it is to be approved, if perhaps he has learned out of some curiosity how it is to be given; and whether it makes no difference with what intention he receives to whom it is given, with pretense or without pretense:

if with pretense, whether deceiving, as in the Church, or in what is thought to be the Church, or in jest, as in a stage play; and which is the more wicked, to receive deceitfully in the Church, or in heresy or schism without deceit, that is, with an unfeigned mind; and whether to receive deceitfully in heresy, or in a stage play with faith, if anyone should in the course of the acting be moved by a sudden devotion.

And yet, if we compare such a person even with one who receives deceitfully within the Catholic Church itself, it would be strange to be in doubt which is to be preferred to the other; for I do not see what profit the mind of the one giving truthfully brings to the one receiving deceitfully. But let us suppose someone giving even deceitfully, where both the one handing it on and the one receiving act deceitfully within Catholic unity itself: is this baptism more to be accepted, or that which is given in a stage play, if there should be someone who, suddenly stirred, receives it faithfully? Or, so far as the men themselves are concerned, while there is a great difference between one believing in a stage play and one mocking in the Church, yet as to the integrity of the sacrament itself does it make no difference?

For if it makes no difference to the integrity of the sacrament within the Catholic Church itself whether some perform it deceitfully or truthfully, since both nonetheless perform this same thing, I do not see why it should make a difference outside—when the one who receives is not cloaked in pretense but changed in religion. Or do those who are truthful, among whom it is performed, avail more to confirm the sacrament than those who are deceitful, by whom and in whom it is performed, avail to frustrate it? And yet if it is afterward disclosed, no one repeats it, but that pretense is either punished by excommunication or healed by penance.

53. 102. But it is safe for us not to advance with any rashness of judgment in matters that have been begun in no catholic regional council and concluded in no plenary one; and yet to assert, with the confidence of a sure voice, what has been strengthened, under the governance of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, by the consent of the universal Church. Nevertheless, if anyone should perhaps press me—set in a council where a question of such matters was being debated, with no such predecessors whose judgments I would rather follow—to say what I myself thought: if I were disposed as I was when I was dictating these things, I would by no means doubt that those have baptism who, wherever and from whomever, had received it consecrated with the words of the gospel, without pretense on their own part and with some faith—although it would not profit them unto 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 as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2).

As by the past decrees of those of greater standing, I do not doubt that those too have baptism who, though they receive it deceitfully, nonetheless receive it in the Church, or where it is thought to be the Church by those in whose fellowship it is received—of whom it has been said: They went out from us (1 John 2:19). But where there is neither any fellowship of those so believing, nor would the one who received it there himself so believe, but the whole thing were carried on in sport and mimicry and jest, as to whether the baptism so given should be approved, I would judge that the divine judgment must be implored through the oracle of some revelation, with harmonious prayer and with groanings of suppliant devotion lavishly poured out—yet in such a way that I would humbly await those who were to give their opinions after me, lest they bring forward something already examined and known. How much more, then, am I now to be taken as having said this without prejudice to a more diligent inquiry or a greater authority?

54. 103. But now, as I think, it is time to bring even these books on the question of baptism to their due conclusion. In them our Lord God has shown us, through the peaceable bishop Cyprian and those who agreed with him, how greatly catholic unity is to be loved—so that in the matter on which they thought otherwise, until God should reveal that too (See Phil 3:15), they would rather bear with those who held a different view than separate themselves from them by a wicked schism. By this the mouths of the Donatists are utterly shut, even if we say nothing of the Maximianists.

For if the wicked contaminate the good within unity, then not even Cyprian himself found any Church to which he might be joined. But if the wicked do not stain the good within unity, then the sacrilegious Donatist puts forward no cause for separation. And as for baptism, if so many others have and hand it on who do the works of the flesh—such that those who do them will not possess the kingdom of God (See Gal 5:19–21)—then heretics too, who are numbered among those works, both have it and hand it on; for, since they did not lose it by withdrawing, they were able also to hand it on while remaining. But such men do so for such men as fruitlessly and unprofitably as do all the rest who are their equals, in this, that they will not possess the kingdom of God.

And just as, when they are corrected, baptism does not begin to be present where it was lacking, but to profit where it was already present, so it is also with heretics. Hence Cyprian, and those who held his view, could not prescribe to the Catholic Church, which they were unwilling to cut off. That they thought otherwise we do not dread, because together with them we venerate Peter as well; but that they did not withdraw from unity we rejoice, because together with them we are built upon the rock (See Matt 7:24).