Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 25 part 7/16

Cyprian himself suffices us, through whom the Lord thundered so many most truthful things about zeal and envy and gave salutary precepts. Let us therefore read Cyprian's letter on zeal and envy, and let us see how great an evil it is to envy those who are better, whose origin he teaches from memory to have arisen from the devil himself. 'To be jealous,' he says, 'of what you see to be good, and to envy those who are better, seems to some a slight and trivial crime, most beloved brethren.' Then a little after, when he sought the head and origin of that evil: 'Hence the devil,' he says, 'at the very beginning of the world both perished first and destroyed.' And a little after:

'What an evil it is, most beloved brethren, by which an angel fell, by which that lofty and illustrious sublimity could be circumvented and overthrown, by which he himself who deceived was deceived. Thereafter envy stalks upon the earth, while he who is to perish through envy obeys the master of perdition, while he imitates the devil who is jealous, as it is written: but by the envy of the devil death entered into the world. They therefore imitate him who are of his part.' These words of Cyprian, well known to the people in the letter, we recognize how true, how mighty they are. Truly it became Cyprian both to reprove gravely and to warn about zeal and envy, from which so deadly an evil he proved his own heart to be utterly estranged by so great an abundance of charity.

Guarding this most vigilantly, with his colleagues who thought differently about baptism not out of malevolence, he himself too — not with malevolent contention, but through human temptation thinking otherwise, which God would afterward reveal to him as he persevered in charity when he willed — remained in the unity of communion, saying openly: 'judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he thinks differently. For none of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or drives his colleagues to the necessity of compliance by tyrannical terror.' And at the end of this letter:

'These things,' he says, 'I have written back to you briefly, according to our lowliness, dearest brother, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to hinder each of the bishops from doing what he thinks, having the free power of his own judgment. We, as far as in us lies, do not contend on account of heretics with our colleagues and fellow-bishops, with whom we hold divine concord and the Lord's peace, especially since the Apostle also says: but if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Church of God. There is preserved by us, patiently and gently, the charity of the mind, the honor of the college, the bond of faith, the concord of the priesthood.'

'For this reason, too, we have now, as far as our lowliness could avail, with the Lord's permission and inspiration, written a little book on the good of patience, which we have sent to you for our mutual love.' With this patience of charity that man bore not only, in an obscure question, good colleagues who thought otherwise without malevolence — just as he himself was borne with — until in the course of time the most salutary custom, when God willed, should, with the truth also made clear, be confirmed by a plenary council; but he bore also manifest evildoers, most well known to himself, who thought otherwise not through the obscurity of the question, but by the ways of a lost life acted contrary to what they preached, as the Apostle says of them: you who preach that a man should not steal, do steal.

For of such men that very Cyprian, in his letter, speaks concerning the bishops of his own time, his colleagues who remained in communion with him: 'while brethren in the Church go hungry, to wish to have silver in abundance, to seize estates by insidious frauds, to increase interest by multiplying usury.' Here indeed there is no obscurity of question. Openly Scripture cries out: neither the greedy nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God; and: he who has not put out his money at usury; 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.

Such greedy men, then — men who not only hoarded their own with cupidity, but also fraudulently snatched away what belonged to others — such idolaters, as he himself understands and convicts them to be, he surely would not have reproved unless he had known them; for he would not have borne false witness against his own fellow-bishops. And yet he bore with them for the sake of Christ, who died for the weak, lest before the time, the tares being rooted up, the wheat also should be rooted up together with them, bearing them with the bowels of paternal and maternal charity, imitating surely the apostle Paul, who bore with the malevolent and envious toward himself out of the same charity concerning the Church.

But nevertheless, since by the envy of the devil death entered into the world, and those imitate him who are of his part — not through that whereby they were created by God, but through that whereby they made themselves perverse, as Cyprian himself recounts, 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 devil's part? Without doubt, as the Lord himself says, an enemy man has done this, who over-sowed the tares. As therefore within, that which is the devil's is to be reproved, so also outside, that which is Christ's is to be acknowledged. Or does Christ, outside the unity of the Church, not have his own, and does the devil, within the unity of the Church, have his own?

This perhaps can be said of men, that so, outside the communion of the Church, God has none of his own — just as, among the holy angels, the devil has none of his own — but that to this Church, which still bears the mortality of the flesh, so long as it sojourns away from the Lord, it has been permitted to the devil to mingle tares, that is, evil men, and he has been allowed to do so for the sake of the Church's very pilgrimage, that the rest of that fatherland, which the holy angels fully enjoy, might be more ardently desired; but of the sacraments this cannot be said.

For just as they can have and handle these not unto salvation but unto their own ruin — the inner tares, which are destined for the fire — so also the outer tares, which they received from the inner ones as they departed, since in departing they did not lose them. And this is without doubt made manifest, when they return, that it is not restored to them, when perchance some of those very ones who had departed come back. Nor let anyone say: what wheat, then, have the tares? For if this be so, both within and outside, at least in this respect, the condition is equal. For neither are grains of wheat not found among the outer tares, and among the inner ones are they found.

But when the question is about the sacrament, it is not asked whether the tares have anything of wheat, but whether they have anything of heaven. For both to the outer and to the inner tares, together with the wheat itself, the rain is common, which is heavenly and sweet in itself, even though from it the tares grow up barrenly. So too the evangelical sacrament of Christ is divine and sweet, and is not to be disapproved because of the barrenness of those upon whom it also rains outside. Someone will say that the inner tares are more easily converted into wheat. I grant that it is so; but what does this pertain to the repeating of baptism?

For suppose that someone converted from the heretics should, by the timing and readiness of his conversion, outstrip another who within the Church is more slowly corrected and changed from his wickedness: is baptism therefore not to be repeated for him, while for the man who has been outstripped by one coming from the heretics it must be repeated, because he was corrected more slowly? It is therefore of no relevance to the matter now in question who converts sooner or later from his own perversity to the rectitude of faith, hope, or charity.

For although those who are inwardly evil can more easily be made good, yet sometimes even certain ones from the number of those outside outstrip by their conversion certain ones who are within; and while these latter remain in barrenness, the former, reconciled to unity, bring forth fruit with endurance, whether thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or a hundredfold. Or if only those are to be called tares which persist to the end in malicious error, then outside there are many grains of wheat and within there are many tares. But indeed the evil who are outside are worse than those who are within. It is truly a great question whether Nicolaus, already outside, was worse than Simon, still within, since the one was a heretic and the other a sorcerer.

But if division itself, because it is the most certain sign of violated charity, is reckoned the graver evil, I grant that it is so. Yet many who have lost charity nevertheless do not go outside, because they are held by worldly gain and, seeking their own things and not the things of Jesus Christ, are unwilling to withdraw, not indeed from the unity of Christ, but from their own advantages. Whence it is said in praise of charity: 'It seeketh not its own.' Now therefore it is asked how men who belong to the party of the devil can pertain to the Church which has no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, of which also it is said: 'My dove is one.' But if they cannot, it is manifest that she groans amid strangers, both those plotting from within and those barking from without.

Yet such men, even within, both receive baptism and possess it and hand it on—baptism holy in itself—nor is it in any part violated by their malice, in which they persist even to the 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 or malice adjoined or mingled, whether of those who receive or of those who administer—since he himself admonishes us of both points: that even within there were certain men who did not keep benevolent charity, but were involved in envy and malevolent dissension, of whom the Apostle Paul spoke, and that they belong to the party of the devil as being envious, as he most plainly testifies in the letter which he wrote on zeal and envy.

For which reason, since it is manifest that it can come to pass that in those who belong to the party of the devil the sacrament of Christ is nevertheless holy—not unto their salvation but unto their judgment—not only if they are perverted after receiving baptism, but even if they receive it while being such (as the same Cyprian shows), renouncing the world by words only and not by deeds; and since, if they are afterwards corrected, that which they had received while perverse is not to be repeated: it is now, I think, already clear and evident that in this question concerning baptism one must not consider who gives but what he gives, nor who receives but what he receives, nor who possesses but what he possesses.

For if men of the party of the devil, and therefore in no way belonging to the one dove, can nevertheless both receive and possess and give the holiness of baptism, in no way violated by their perversity—as we are admonished from Cyprian's own letters—why do we attribute to heretics what is another's? Why do we say that what is Christ's belongs to them, and do not rather recognize in them the standards of our Emperor and correct the deeds of deserters? Wherefore it is indeed one thing, as holy Cyprian says, for those who are within the Church to speak in the name of Christ, and another for those who are outside and act against the Church to baptize in the name of Christ. But also many who are within.

...act against the Church by living evilly and by drawing weak souls over into their own way of life; and some who are outside speak in the name of Christ, yet are prevented not from doing what is Christ's, but from being outside, when we either rebuke or reprove or exhort them that they may be healed. For that man too was outside who did not follow along with the disciples and yet cast out demons in the name of Christ—whom the Lord admonished should not be prevented—though certainly, in the point where he was wounded, he was to be healed by those words of the Lord where He says: 'He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.' And so some things are done outside in the name of Christ not against the Church, and within some things are done by the party of the devil against the Church.

What too of this—it is even wonderful—which one who diligently observes finds can come to pass: that certain men, with charity preserved, teach something useless, as Peter compelled the Gentiles to Judaize, and as Cyprian himself held that heretics should be baptized anew—whence to such good members, rooted in charity but in some point not walking rightly, the Apostle says: 'If in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also God shall reveal unto you'—and again that certain men without charity teach something wholesome, of whom the Lord says: 'They sit in the seat of Moses. What they say, do; but what they do, do not. For they say and do not.' Whence too the Apostle, concerning those envious and malevolent men who nevertheless announced Christian salvation, says:

'Whether in pretence,' he says, 'or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.' Wherefore both within and without the perversity of men is to be corrected, but the divine sacraments and utterances are not to be attributed to men. Thus he who does not attribute to heretics that which, though it is found among them, he yet recognizes not to be theirs, does not champion the heretics. We do not concede baptism to the heretic, but wherever we find the baptism of Him of whom it was said, 'This is he that baptizeth,' we acknowledge it.

But the treacherous and blasphemous man, if he remains in his treachery and blasphemy, receives remission of sins neither outside the Church nor within it; or if, on account of the force of the sacrament, he receives it for a moment of time, the same force operates both outside and within, just as the force of the name of Christ was operating the expulsion of demons even outside. But indeed we find that the apostles in all their epistles execrate and detest the sacrilegious depravity of heretics, so that they say their word spreads like a cancer. For what? Those too who said, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die'—does not Paul show them to be corrupters of good morals through evil conversations, immediately subjoining: 'Evil communications corrupt good manners'?

And yet he signified that they were within, when he said: 'How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?' But where does he not detest the covetous? Or indeed could anything be said more vehemently than that covetousness should be called the service of idols, as the same Apostle set it down and as Cyprian too understood it and inserted into his own letters where there was need? Yet he confesses that in his times there were in the Church not any sort of covetous men, but plunderers and usurers, and not just any sort of men, but bishops. And even those of whom the Apostle says, 'Their word spreads like a cancer,' I would wish to understand to have been outside; but Cyprian himself does not permit me.

For when, writing to Antonianus, he showed that before the time of the final separation of the just and the unjust there is by no means any withdrawing from the unity of the Church on account of the intermingling of the evil—where he declares how holy he is and most worthy of that glory of martyrdom which he merited—he says: 'How great is the swelling of arrogance, how great the forgetfulness of humility and gentleness, and how great the boasting of his own arrogance, that anyone should dare, or believe himself able, to do what the Lord did not grant even to the apostles—that he should think he can separate the tares from the wheat, or, as though it were granted to him to bear the winnowing-fan and cleanse the threshing-floor, should attempt to separate the chaff from the wheat—when the Apostle says:

'But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earthenware'—that he should seem to choose the gold and silver vessels, but to despise and cast away and condemn the wooden and earthen ones—when it is not until the day of the Lord that the wooden vessels shall be burned up in the burning of the divine fire, and the earthen ones shall be broken by Him to whom the rod of iron was given. Thus, then, Cyprian, reproving those who, as though shunning the fellowship of the evil, had torn themselves away from unity, shows that by the great house of which the Apostle spoke—where there were not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and earthenware—he understood nothing but the Church, where there are both good and evil, until at the end it is cleansed like a threshing-floor that has been winnowed.

And if this is so, then in that very Church, that is, in that very great house, there were vessels unto dishonour, whose word spread like a cancer. For when the Apostle spoke of them, he taught this: 'And their word,' he says, 'spreads like a cancer. Of whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is already past, and overthrow the faith of some. But the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal: The Lord knoweth them that are his, and let every one depart from iniquity that nameth the name of the Lord. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware.'

If therefore even these men, whose word spread like a cancer, were as vessels unto dishonour in the great house—which great house Cyprian understands to be the unity of the Church itself—did their cancer violate the baptism of Christ? Thus, then, neither outside nor within can anyone who belongs to the party of the devil defile, whether in himself or in another, the sacrament which is Christ's. And so the word that spreads like a cancer to the ears of hearers does not give remission of sins; but when baptism is given in the words of the Gospel, however great the perversity with which he through whom it is given, or he to whom it is given, may understand it, it is in itself holy on account of Him whose it is.

And if anyone, receiving it through a perverse man, receives not, however, the perversity of the minister, but only the holiness of the mystery, being joined in good faith and hope and charity to the unity of the Church, he receives remission of sins—not through words that spread like a cancer, but through the evangelical sacraments flowing from the heavenly fount. But if the one who receives is himself perverse, what is given profits not the perverse man unto salvation; and yet what is received remains holy in him, nor is it repeated for him if he is corrected. And so there is no participation between justice and iniquity, not only that which is outside, but also that which is within. For 'the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let every one depart from iniquity that nameth the name of the Lord.'

Likewise there is no communion between light and darkness, not only that which is outside, but also that which is within. 'For he that hateth his brother,' says John, 'is in darkness even until now.' And certainly those hated Paul who, proclaiming Christ in envy and malevolence and dissension, thought to stir up tribulation for his bonds—men whom the same Cyprian understands to have been within.

Since therefore darkness cannot enlighten nor iniquity justify, as the same man says, I ask how these can baptize within the Church itself; I ask how those vessels which the great house contains not in honour but in dishonour can, within that very great house, minister unto men to be sanctified that which is holy—unless it be that the holiness of the sacrament can be defiled by the unclean neither when it is given through them nor when it is received from them who are not changed for the better in heart and life. Of such men, placed within, he himself says: 'renouncing the world by words only and not by deeds.'

There are therefore even within enemies of God, and men whose breasts the spirit of antichrist has beset, and yet they bear spiritual and divine things, which can neither profit them unto salvation so long as they are such, nor can they themselves defile these things by their own uncleanness. So then, what he says—that nothing is permitted, as to ecclesiastical grace and saving grace, to those who, scattering and attacking the Church of Christ, are named by Christ Himself 'adversaries' and by His apostles 'antichrists'—is thus to be received: that such men are found both outside and within, but the separation of those who are within from the perfection and unity of that dove God knows in some, and men too in some.

Beholding the manifestly most wicked life and confirmed depravity of such men, and comparing it with the rules of the divine precepts, men understand with how many tares and how much chaff—placed whether outside or within, but at the end to be most openly separated—the Lord is about to say: 'Depart from me, ye that work iniquity,' and: 'Go into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels.' But concerning the conversion of no one is one to despair, whether he be set outside or within, so long as the patience of God leads him to repentance and visits their crimes with the rod and their sins with stripes. For in this way He does not scatter His mercy from them, if they too at some time have mercy on their own soul by pleasing God.

For just as the good man who shall have persevered unto the end, he shall be saved, so also the evil man, whether outside or within, who shall have persevered unto the end shall not be saved. Nor do we say, 'Wherever and howsoever they are baptized, they obtain the grace of baptism,' if by the grace of baptism is understood 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 possess the sacrament which is in itself holy.

Rightly therefore does the Lord admonish us in the Gospel that we should not consent to those who counsel evil and walk under the name of Christ; but these are found both within and without, since they do not go outside unless they have first been evil within. And certainly the Apostle spoke concerning the vessels placed in the great house: 'But if any man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, useful to the Lord, prepared unto every good work.' But how each one ought to purge himself from such, he shows a little above, saying: 'Let every one depart from iniquity that nameth the name of the Lord'—lest at the end he hear, along with the chaff, whether that which before flew off from the threshing-floor or that which is to be separated at the last: 'Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.'

Whence it indeed appears, as Cyprian says, that those things are not straightway to be taken up and adopted which are boasted of in the name of Christ, but those which are performed in the truth of Christ. But it is certainly not performed in the truth of Christ to seize estates by treacherous frauds, to increase interest by multiplying usury, to renounce the world by words only. And that all these things are done even within, he himself, a sufficiently competent witness, declares.

Now indeed as to what he pursues with many words—that those cannot be baptized in Christ who blaspheme the Father of Christ, since it is manifest that they blaspheme by error (for he who comes to the baptism of Christ does not openly blaspheme the Father of Christ, but is convicted of blaspheming by thinking of the Father of Christ otherwise than the truth teaches)—we have now sufficiently shown that to baptism which is consecrated by the words of the Gospel there pertains not the error of anyone, whether giver or receiver, though he think otherwise concerning the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit than the heavenly doctrine instils. For many carnal and animal men are baptized even within, whereas the Apostle plainly says:

'But the animal man perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God'; and, though baptism has already been received, he says that they are still animal. But according to the carnal sense the soul given over to bodily senses cannot but think of God carnally.

Whence many, making progress after baptism—and especially those who were baptized as infants or children—the more their understanding is cleared and enlightened, while the inner man is renewed day by day, cast away their former opinions, which they had held about God while they were deluded with their own phantasms, deriding and detesting and confessing them; nor yet are they on that account thought not to have received baptism, or said to have received such a baptism as was their error; but in them both the integrity of the sacrament is honoured and the vanity of the mind is corrected, even if it had grown hard, being confirmed and perhaps defended in many disputes.

Wherefore even the heretic who is plainly outside received there the evangelical baptism, and 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 had wrongly held is to be relinquished, the good which he had received is not to be relinquished along with it; nor, because his error is to be disapproved, is the baptism of Christ in him therefore to be blown away.

For now from the case of those whom it befalls to be baptized within while holding false opinions about God, it is sufficiently evident that the truth of the sacrament is to be distinguished from the error of the wrong believer, although both may be found in one man; and therefore, when even one set outside in some error has yet been baptized with the true sacrament, when he is restored to the unity of the Church, just as true faith succeeds to false, true baptism cannot in like manner succeed to true baptism, because the same thing cannot succeed to itself, since neither can it pass away. To this end therefore heretics come to the Catholic Church: that what is evil in them may be corrected, not that what is good of God may be repeated. Someone says:

'Is there then no difference, if two are set in equal error and malice, and, without change of life and heart, one of them is baptized outside and the other within?' I confess there is a difference. For he who is baptized even outside is worse—not by the fact that he is baptized, but by the fact that he is outside (for division itself is an evil neither non-existent 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 fragmentations of schisms; otherwise he too is to be reckoned among those who are outside. Let us then set up two men in this manner:

one of them, for example, to hold concerning Christ what Photinus opined, and to be baptized in his heresy outside the communion of the Catholic Church; but the other to hold this same thing, yet to be baptized in the Catholic Church, supposing it to be the Catholic faith itself. This latter I do not yet call a heretic, unless, when the doctrine of the Catholic faith has been made plain to him, he prefers to resist it and chooses that which he held. Before this happens, it is manifest that the one who is outside is the worse. And so in this one only the false opinion, but in that one the very division too, is to be corrected; but in neither of them is the truth of the sacrament to be repeated.