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but when the true property of another is given by someone, even if it be given by a forger, although he is not truthful, yet what is given is true. Petilian said: Or if anyone holds the songs of a priest by memory, is he thereby a priest, because with sacrilegious mouth he publishes the priest's song? Augustine replied: You say this as though we were now inquiring who is a true priest, and not what is true baptism. For that anyone may be a true priest, it is necessary that he be clothed not with the sacrament alone, but also with righteousness, as it is written: 'Let your priests be clothed with righteousness.'
But he who is a priest by the sacrament alone, as was the high priest Caiaphas, the persecutor of the one and most true Priest — although he himself is not truthful, yet what he gives is true, provided he gives not his own but God's, as was said concerning Caiaphas himself: 'Now this he said not of himself, but being high priest he prophesied.' And yet, to make use of that very comparison which you yourself have set forth: if you should hear from someone, even a profane person, a priestly prayer framed in the words and mysteries of the Gospel, can you say to him, 'It is not true' — although he himself is not only not a true priest, but is no priest at all — when the apostle Paul declared a certain testimony to be true, the testimony of some Cretan prophet or other, who was not reckoned among the prophets of God? For he says:
'One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said: The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This testimony is true.' If therefore the apostle, because he found it to be true, himself also bore witness to the testimony of some foreigner or other, why do we, when we find in anyone whatsoever that which is Christ's and is true — even if the one in whom it is found is perverse and deceitful — not distinguish the vice which the man has from the truth which he has, not as his own but as God's, and say, 'This sacrament is true,' just as that man said, 'This testimony is true'? Do we therefore say, 'The man himself also is truthful,' because we say, 'This sacrament is true'?
Just as the apostle: did he therefore reckon that prophet among the prophets of God, because he affirmed that what he found true in him was true? Likewise the same apostle, when he was at Athens, noticed among the altars of the demons a certain altar on which was written, 'To the unknown God,' and he took up this testimony for building up those men in Christ, so that he made mention of it in his discourse and added: 'Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare we unto you.' Did he, because he found that altar erected either among the altars of idols or by sacrilegious men, on that account condemn or reject what was true in it? Or did he, on account of the truth which he had read on it, persuade men that even the sacrileges of the pagans were to be followed?
And consequently, when he wished to make known to them the Lord Himself, who was unknown to them but known to himself, and who was to become known even to their knowledge — as he judged fitting — he said among other things: 'And indeed He is not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own have said.' Did he here too, because he found among the sacrilegious testimonies of the truth, either approve of those men on account of these truths, or condemn these truths on account of those men? But you must needs err always, so long as, on account of the vices of men, you violate the sacraments of God; or, on account of the sacraments of God, which we are unwilling to violate in you, you suppose that we too must take up the sacrilege of your schism. Petilian said:
'For all power is from God, not in the man of the power, as the Lord Jesus Christ answered Pontius Pilate: You would have no power against me, unless it were given you from above; and again, John saying: A man can do nothing, unless it be given him from heaven. Teach therefore, O traitor, when you received the power of feigning mysteries.' Augustine answered: Do you rather teach, O whole world of the earth, throughout which the inheritance of Christ is spread, and that multitude of so many nations where the apostles founded churches — when it lost the power of baptizing.
You will never teach it — not only because you slander those men, whom you do not prove to be traitors, but because, even if you should prove it, the crime of any wicked men whatsoever — whether of unknown men, or of deceitful men, or of men to be tolerated like tares or chaff — cannot overturn the promises of God, so that in the seed of Abraham all nations should not be blessed; from which promises you make yourselves aliens, you who are unwilling to have the communion of unity with all nations. Petilian said: For although the baptism is one, yet it is consecrated in three degrees. John gave water without the name of the Trinity, as he himself professed, saying: I baptize you in the water of repentance; another shall come who is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear;
he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.' Christ gave the Holy Spirit, as it is written: 'He breathed on their face and said: Receive the Holy Spirit'; and that same fire, the Paraclete, blazing with crackling flames, came upon the apostles. O true divinity, which seemed to kindle, not to burn! As it is written: 'Suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as if a mighty wind were borne along, and it filled the whole house where the apostles were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with various tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance.'
You therefore, O persecutor, do not have even the water of repentance, you who retain the power not of John who was slain, but of Herod the slayer. You therefore, O traitor, do not have the Holy Spirit of Christ; for Christ was delivered up to death, He did not deliver anyone up to death. For you the fire in the spirit is alive among the dead below, which, blazing with famished points, is able to scorch your limbs throughout the age, but not to make an end of them, as it is written concerning the infernal punishment of the guilty: Their fire shall not be quenched. Augustine answered: You are that cursing reviler, not a truth-speaking disputant.
Will you not at some time cease to say such things, which, if you do not prove them, pertain to no one, but if you do prove them, pertain in no way at all to the unity of the whole world, which is among the saints as among the wheat? If it should please us also to repay curses for curses, perhaps we too could revile eloquently, we could say: 'with crackling flames' — but in no way does that sound eloquent to me which is said ineptly; we too could say: 'blazing with famished points' — but we do not wish the points of our writings, when they are read by any sound man, to be judged famished of the juice of gravity, and the man himself, while he is fed by no useful judgments, to labor under a superfluous fast.
Behold, I say that your circumcellions burn not with crackling but with headlong flames of fury. If you should answer, 'What is that to us?' — why, when you have alleged against us whomever you please, will you not in turn hear, 'We too do not know them'? If you should answer, 'You will not prove it' — why should not the whole world in turn answer you, 'Neither do you prove it'? Let us therefore bargain, if it please you, that neither you allege against us the wicked whom you suppose to be ours, nor I against you those who are yours. So you will see that, by this bargain, so just an agreement being made and confirmed, you have nothing to allege against the seed of Abraham in all nations. And against you I clearly find a great thing to allege: why then have you impiously separated yourselves from the seed of Abraham which is in all nations? This assuredly you have no way to defend.
For we both cleanse ourselves from the crimes of others; but this — that you do not have communion with all the nations which are blessed in the seed of Abraham — is a great crime, and not of some of you, but of all. And yet you know and mention that the Holy Spirit came in such a way that those whom He had then filled spoke with all tongues. What did that sign and wonder mean? Why is the Holy Spirit now given in such a way that no one to whom He is given can speak with all tongues, unless it be because that miracle then portended that all nations would believe, and that thus the Gospel would be in all tongues? This too was foretold so long before in the psalm: There are no speeches nor languages whose voices are not heard.
This was said on account of those who, having received the Holy Spirit, were to speak with all tongues. But because this very thing signified that the Gospel was to be in all the tongues of the nations, and that the body of Christ would resound with all tongues throughout the whole world, he went on to say: Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. Hence it comes that the true Church is hidden from no one. Whence is that which He Himself says in the Gospel: A city set upon a mountain cannot be hid. And therefore in the same psalm it is joined: In the sun He has set His tabernacle — that is, in manifestation, as we read said in the books of Kingdoms:
What you did in secret, you shall suffer in the sun — and He Himself, as a bridegroom coming forth from His chamber, rejoiced as a giant to run His course: His going forth is from the highest heaven — behold, you have the coming of the Lord in the flesh — and His circuit even to the height thereof — behold, you have the resurrection and the ascension — and there is no one who can hide himself from His heat: behold, you have the coming of the Holy Spirit, whom He sent in tongues of fire, that He might show the fervor of charity, which assuredly he does not have who, with the Church that is in all tongues, does not keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Now indeed, as to your saying that the baptism is one, but nevertheless consecrated in three degrees, and that you have distributed these three things severally among individual persons, so that you assigned water to John, the Holy Spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the third thing, fire, to the Paraclete sent from above — consider for a little how great is the error. For you were led to think thus because John says: I indeed baptize in water, but He who comes after me is greater than I; He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire; and you were unwilling to consider that these three are not fitted severally to three, water to John, the Spirit to Christ, fire to the Paraclete, but that these three pertain rather to two, one to John and the other two to the Lord. For it was not said:
'I indeed baptize you in water, but He who comes after me is greater than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit, but He who is to come after Him, the Paraclete, shall baptize you in fire.' Rather it says: I indeed, he says, in water; but He who comes after me, in the Holy Spirit and in fire. He assigns one thing to himself, the two to Him. You see therefore how the number deceived you. Attend further. You said the baptism is one, consecrated in three degrees — water, Holy Spirit, and fire — and you set three persons over the several things: John over water, Christ over spirit, the Paraclete over fire.
If therefore John's water pertains to the same One in whom unity is commended, then those whom Paul the apostle had found baptized by John ought not to have been baptized at the apostle's command; for they already had the water pertaining, as you say, to the same baptism. It remained that they should receive the Spirit and the fire, because these had been lacking to John, that the baptism consecrated, as you assert, in three degrees might be completed. But when by apostolic authority they were commanded to be baptized, it was sufficiently declared that that water of John did not pertain to the baptism of Christ, but had belonged to another dispensation for a necessary time.
Finally, what did you have in mind, that when you wished to prove that the Holy Spirit was given by Christ, and had adduced from the Gospel the testimony that, rising from the dead, He breathed on the face of the disciples, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit — you wished to point, for that last fire which was named together with the baptism, to the tongues of fire which were displayed at the coming of the Paraclete? For you said: And that same fire, the Paraclete, blazing with crackling flames, came upon the apostles — as though the Holy Spirit whom He gave by breathing on the face of the disciples were one, and He who after His ascension came upon the apostles were another. Are there then two Holy Spirits? What man, however utterly mad, would say this?
And so Christ Himself gave the same Holy Spirit, whether by breathing on the face of the disciples, or by sending Him from above on the day of Pentecost with a sure commendation of the sacrament. Accordingly, it was not that Christ gave the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete gave the fire, so that, as it were, what had been said might be fulfilled — 'in the Holy Spirit and in fire' — but the same Christ gave the Holy Spirit, whom, while placed on earth, He displayed by His breath, and while placed in heaven, He displayed by tongues of fire. For that you may know that what was said was not then fulfilled:
He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit — when He breathed on their face, so that now they should seem to be baptized not in the Spirit but in fire by the Paraclete who was to come — recall the most plain Scripture and see what He said to them when the Lord Himself ascended into heaven: John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom also you shall receive not many days hence — that is, at Pentecost. What is clearer than this testimony? But according to your meaning He ought to have said: 'John indeed baptized with water;
but you were baptized with the Holy Spirit when I breathed on your face, and thereafter you shall be baptized in fire, which you shall receive not many days hence' — so that, forsooth, those three degrees might be completed by which you say the one baptism is consecrated. So it comes about that you still do not know what is meant by what was said: He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire, and yet rashly wish to teach what you do not know. Petilian said: But that I may fully discuss the baptism of the Trinity, the Lord Christ said to His apostles: Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you. Whom do you teach, O traitor? Whom do you condemn? Whom do you teach, O traitor? Whom do you slay? Finally, whom do you teach?
Or him whom you have made a murderer? How then do you baptize in the name of the Trinity? You cannot call God Father. For since the Lord Christ said: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God, you who do not have a peaceable soul do not have God for Father. And how do you baptize in the name of the Son, you who betray and do not imitate that same Son of God by any sufferings or crosses? And how do you baptize in the name of the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit came upon those apostles who were not traitors? Since therefore God is not your begetter, nor are you born by the true water of baptism, none of you at all has been born, and you have neither a father, O impious ones, nor a mother.
You therefore of this sort I ought not to baptize, even if, as the Jews as it were baptize the flesh, you should wash yourselves a thousand times. Augustine answered: Certainly you had proposed to discuss fully the baptism of the Trinity, and had made us very attentive; but, of course — which is easiest for you — how quickly you turned to your accustomed curses! This indeed you do copiously. For you set before yourself whomever you wish, against whom you may inveigh as much as you wish; in which great breadth of speech, by one very short word which is said, 'prove it,' you are hemmed into the narrowest straits. For this the seed of Abraham says to you, in whom, since all nations are blessed, they care not when they are cursed by you.
But nevertheless, since you are treating of baptism, which you suppose to be true when it is in a just man, but false when it is in an unjust man — behold, I too, according to your rule, if I should discuss the baptism of the Trinity, could say (more copiously, I think) that he does not have God for Father to whom God is a companion, nor believes Him to be his Christ except one for whom he has suffered, nor has the Holy Spirit who in a far different manner has, with tongues of fire, set wretched Africa ablaze. How then does he have baptism, or how does he give it in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Certainly you now perceive that in an unjust man there can be, and by an unjust man there can be given, a baptism not unjust but just and true — not because it is his, but because it is God's.
And I bring no false charge against you concerning this, which you do not cease to do to unknown men of the whole world — and, what is more intolerable, you prove nothing even about them. But this indeed I do not know how it can be tolerated, that you not only bring false charges against holy men on account of unjust men, but even against holy baptism itself — which in any unjust man whatsoever must needs be holy — you procure a crime from the contagion of the sins of men, so that you say the baptism is such as is he from whom it is had, or by whom it is given, or from whom it is received.
Furthermore, if the man becomes such as was he with whom he approaches the holy things, and the sacraments themselves become such as were the men in whom they are, it suffices for holy men, as a solace, to hear the false charge in common with holy baptism from you. Only look how by your own mouth you are condemned, if both your sober men are drunkards from the contagion of your drunkards, and your merciful men are robbers from the contagion of robbers, and whatever is found among you in wicked men, this those who are not such are compelled to be; and baptism itself is unclean in all your unclean ones, and is diverse according to the diversity of their uncleanness, if it is compelled to be such as is he from whom it is had and given.
These things assuredly are false, and therefore do us no harm, since you say them against us and do not look to yourselves; but they harm you, because when you say these false things they do not fall upon us, but because you think them true, they fall back upon you. Petilian said: For if it was lawful for those apostles to baptize those whom John had washed with the baptism of repentance, shall it not be lawful for me to baptize you sacrilegious ones? Augustine answered: Where then is what you had said above, that there was not one baptism of John, another of Christ, but one baptism consecrated in three degrees, of which three degrees John gave the water, Christ the Spirit, the Paraclete the fire?
Why then did the apostles repeat the water in those to whom John had already given the water pertaining to the one baptism consecrated in three degrees? You surely perceive how necessary it is that each one should know what he is saying. Petilian said: For neither can the Holy Spirit be implanted in anyone by the imposition of the bishop's hand, unless the water of a pure conscience, the begetter, has gone before. Augustine answered: In these few words of yours there are two errors. And one indeed does not greatly pertain to the question which is being discussed between us, but it convicts you of ignorance.
For upon the hundred and twenty men the Holy Spirit came without anyone's imposition of hands; but upon Cornelius the centurion and those who were with him the Holy Spirit came even before they were baptized. But the other error in these words of yours utterly destroys your whole cause. For you say that the water of a pure conscience, the begetter, must go before, so that the Holy Spirit may follow.
Accordingly, either all water consecrated in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is of a pure conscience — not on account of those by whom it is ministered or by whom it is received, but on account of Him who instituted this baptism, being immaculate — or, if it is not a pure conscience that makes the water of a pure conscience except the pure conscience both of the ministering man and of the one receiving, what do you do about those whom you find baptized by men who, not yet exposed, bore a spotted conscience — especially if among those baptized there should be someone who confesses that he had a bad conscience when he was baptized, because through that occasion perchance he had been unwilling to come to some disgraceful deed?
When therefore it has been made manifest to you that neither he who ministered nor he who received baptism had a pure conscience, will you judge that he must be baptized anew? By no means will you say this, by no means will you do it. Therefore the purity of baptism is altogether distinct from the purity or uncleanness of the conscience, whether of the giver or of the receiver. Dare then now to say that a defrauder, a robber, an oppressor of orphans and widows, a separator of marriages, a betrayer, seller, and divider of others' patrimonies, was of a pure conscience.
Dare also to say that those were of a pure conscience whom it is difficult to have been lacking in such times — if perchance some, not for the sake of Christ nor for the sake of eternal life, but for the sake of procuring earthly friendships and satisfying earthly desires, sought from him to be baptized. Furthermore, if you dare not say that these were of a pure conscience — if you find any of that number baptized — give to them the water of a pure conscience which they did not receive; but if you do not do this, cease to boast against us of what you do not know, lest you be compelled to answer against yourselves what you do know. Petilian said:
This Holy Spirit assuredly could not come into you, whom not even the baptism of repentance has washed, but the deplorable water of the traitor has polluted — which is true. Augustine answered: Traitors indeed you not only do not prove us to be, but neither could your fathers prove our fathers to be so. And if they had been proved such, they would surely not be our fathers, according to your own earlier assertion, whose deeds we would not have followed; nor yet on their account would we be torn away from the fellowship of unity and from the seed of Abraham in whom all nations are blessed.
Nevertheless, if the water of Christ is one thing and the water of the traitor another, because Christ was not a traitor, why should not the water of Christ be one thing and the water of the robber another, because Christ certainly was not a robber either? Baptize therefore after your robber, and I will baptize after a traitor neither mine nor yours — or, if the documents produced are to be believed, both mine and yours; but if credence is to be given to the communion of the whole world rather than to the party of Donatus, then not mine but yours. But by a better and sounder judgment, since according to the apostolic voice each one of us shall bear his own burden, neither is that robber yours, however many of you are not robbers, nor is any traitor either ours or yours, however many of us are not traitors.
And therefore we are catholics, who according to this judgment do not forsake unity; but you are heretics, who on account of the crimes of certain men, whether true or false, are unwilling to keep charity with the seed of Abraham. Petilian said: But that these things done by the apostles may shine forth, we are taught by their Acts, as it is written: Now it came to pass, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper coasts, came to Ephesus; and having found certain disciples, he said to them: Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? But they said: We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Spirit. And Paul said: In what then were you baptized? And they answered, saying: In John's baptism. Then said Paul:
John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people that they should believe on Him who was to come after him, that is, on Jesus Christ our Lord. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came upon them; and they spoke with various tongues and prophesied. And they were in all about twelve men. If therefore those were baptized that they might receive the Holy Spirit, why do you not, if you wish to receive the Holy Spirit, receive the true newness after your lies? And if we do this wrongly, why do you seek us out? Or certainly, if it is a crime, condemn Paul first:
For that Paul at any rate washed what had already been, but we baptize in men what is not yet. For you do not, as we have often already said, dip men with true baptism, but you defame it with the empty name of a false baptism. Augustine answered: We do not accuse Paul, who gave men the baptism of Christ, because they did not have the baptism of Christ, but the baptism of John, according to their own reply; for when they were asked in what they had been baptized, they answered, 'in the baptism of John,' which does not pertain to the baptism of Christ, nor is it any part or degree of it.
Otherwise, either the water of Christ's baptism was then repeated, or, if Christ's baptism was then completed by two waters, it is now less perfect, because that which was given through John is not given. But to suppose either of these is impious and sacrilegious. Paul therefore gave the baptism of Christ to those who did not have the baptism of Christ but of John. But why the baptism of John was necessary at that time, which is now no longer necessary, I have both said elsewhere, and it does not now pertain to the matter which is treated between us, except only that it may be seen that the baptism of John was one thing, and that of Christ another;
just as that baptism was another in which the apostle says our fathers were baptized in the cloud and in the sea, when through Moses they crossed the Red Sea. For the law and the prophets, until John the Baptist, had sacraments foretelling a thing to come; but the sacraments of our time testify that that has come which those proclaimed was to come. John therefore, the nearest of all who went before, was the announcer of Christ. And because all the just and prophets of former times desired to see fulfilled that which, by the revelation of the Spirit, they discerned was to come — whence the Lord Himself also says:
For many just men and prophets have desired to see the things which you see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things which you hear, and have not heard them — therefore John was called more than a prophet, and among those born of women there was none greater, because to the former just men it was granted only to foretell Christ, but to this one both to foretell Him absent and to see Him present, so that to him is found to have been laid open what those men desired. And therefore the sacrament of his baptism still pertains to the foretelling of Christ, but plainly the last, since up to him there were foretellings of the Lord's first coming, of which coming there are now announcements, no longer foretellings.