'The truth being revealed, let error yield to truth, because Peter too, who at first circumcised, yielded to Paul preaching the truth.' This man, indeed, would not say 'custom,' but 'error'; nevertheless, when he says, 'because Peter too, who at first circumcised, yielded to Paul preaching the truth,' he sufficiently indicates that something else also used to be done concerning baptism. At the same time he also admonishes us that it was not impossible that Cyprian should hold something otherwise concerning baptism than the truth demanded — which was retained by the Church both before him and after him — if even Peter could hold something otherwise which the truth did not have, as we have learned from the apostle Paul as teacher. Likewise Felix of Buslacene said:
'In admitting heretics without the Church's baptism, let no one prefer custom to reason and truth, because reason and truth always exclude custom.' If reason, if truth — excellent. But this we shall soon see; meanwhile, from this man's words too it appears that the custom was otherwise. Likewise Honoratus of Tucca said: 'Since Christ is the truth, we ought to follow the truth rather than custom.' By all these opinions it is declared that we are not constituted outside the communion of the Church, until the truth, which they say ought to be preferred to this custom, has shone forth clearly.
But if the truth shall reveal that what that custom had prescribed is to be retained, it will be manifest both that that custom was not instituted in vain, and that, strengthened and even more vigilantly, after these disputations, the most salutary observance of so great a sacrament could not be changed in the Catholic Church, but, confirmed by the yet greater strength of councils, is most religiously guarded. Cyprian therefore writes to Iubaianus concerning the baptism of heretics, who seem to him placed outside and constituted beyond the Church, claiming for themselves a thing that is neither of their right nor of their power: 'which,' he says, 'we can consider neither ratified nor legitimate, since it is agreed that among them it is unlawful.'
Nor do we deny that he who is baptized among heretics or in some schism outside the communion of the Church does not profit thereby, in so far 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 rightly act in gathering outside the Church and thinking against the Church. But it is one thing not to have something, another to have it not by right, or to usurp it unlawfully. Not, therefore, on that account are they not the sacraments of Christ and of the Church, because not only heretics but even all the unjust and impious use them unlawfully. But nevertheless, those men are to be corrected or punished, while those sacraments are to be acknowledged and venerated.
He indeed says that concerning this matter not one, but two or more councils were held, yet nevertheless African ones. For in a certain one he records that there were seventy-one bishops, to the authority of all of whom we do not hesitate to prefer the authority of the universal Church, with far more bishops spread throughout the whole world — with the peace of Cyprian himself, who rejoiced that he was an ineradicable member of that universal Church. Now the water is not profane and adulterous over which the name of God is invoked, even if it be invoked by the profane and adulterous, because neither the creature itself nor the name itself is adulterous.
But the baptism of Christ, consecrated by the words of the Gospel, is holy both through adulterers and in adulterers, although they be shameless and unclean, because its own holiness cannot be polluted, and the divine power attends upon its sacrament, whether unto the salvation of those who use it well, or unto the destruction of those who use it ill. Or does the light of the sun, or even of a lamp, when it is diffused through filthy places, contract any defilement thence — and can the baptism of Christ be soiled by anyone's crimes? For if we turn our mind to the very visible things by which the sacraments are handled, who does not know that they are corruptible?
But if we turn to that which is effected through them, who does not see that it cannot be corrupted, although the men through whom it is effected may, according to their morals, either receive rewards or pay penalties? Rightly, moreover, was Cyprian not moved by what Iubaianus wrote, that the Novatianists rebaptize those who come to them from the Catholic Church. For not everything which heretics have perversely imitated is therefore not to be done by Catholics, because those men do the like; but there is one reason why heretics ought not to rebaptize, and another why the Catholic Church ought not. For heretics ought not to do it, not even if it were to be done in the Catholic Church, because they say that that is not among Catholics which they themselves, when they were there, received, and, when they departed, carried away.
But the Catholic Church ought not to repeat the baptism which was given among heretics, lest it should seem to judge that to be theirs which is Christ's, or that they do not have that which, when they received it within, they certainly could not lose by going forth outside. For this too Cyprian himself established with the rest, that if any who had been baptized in it should return from heresies to the Church, they should be received no longer through baptism, but through penance. Whence it is agreed that they cannot lose, when withdrawing, what they do not receive again when returning. But not — as heresy is theirs, as error is theirs, as the sacrilege of dissension is theirs — is baptism, which is Christ's, likewise 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. But the blessed Cyprian shows that he did not establish a new or sudden thing, because under Agrippinus it had already begun to be done. 'It is,' he says, 'many years and a long time since, under Agrippinus, a man of good memory, very many bishops assembling established this.' Accordingly, by Agrippinus himself the thing was made new. But how does he say: 'And from that time to the present day so many thousands of heretics in our provinces, turned to the Church, have not spurned nor delayed,
'nay rather, both reasonably and gladly they embraced it, that they might attain the grace of the vital laver and of saving baptism' — I do not see, unless perhaps he says 'from that time to the present day' because no question of any excommunication has arisen concerning those who, from the time they were baptized in the Church by the council of Agrippinus, were baptized. But if the custom of baptizing those coming from heretics endured from Agrippinus down to Cyprian, why were councils held by Cyprian concerning this matter? Why does he say to that same Iubaianus that he was not doing a new or sudden thing, but one instituted by Agrippinus? For why should Iubaianus be troubled about novelty, so that it was necessary to heal him by the authority of Agrippinus, if from Agrippinus down to Cyprian the Church held this?
Why, in fine, did so many of his colleagues in the council say that reason and truth are to be preferred to custom, and not rather say that those who wished to do otherwise were acting both against truth and against custom? But concerning the remission 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 briefly recall it.
If there takes place there a remission of debts through the holiness of baptism, the debts return again through the obstinacy of heresy or schism; and therefore such men have need to come to Catholic peace, so that they may now cease to be heretics and schismatics, and, by charity working in the bond of unity, may merit the purgation of those sins which had returned upon them.
But if, although the very baptism of Christ exists even among heretics or schismatics, it nonetheless does not there effect the remission of sins because of that same foulness of discord and iniquity of dissension, then that same baptism begins to avail for the forgiveness of sins when they have come to the peace of the Church, so that sins truly forgiven may not be retained, nor that baptism be reproved as though it were foreign or of another kind, so that a different one be conferred; but that this very same baptism, which because of discord was working death outside, may because of peace work salvation within. For it was the very same fragrance of which the Apostle says: 'We are the sweet fragrance 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 a fragrance of life unto life, but to others a fragrance of death unto death.' Although he said this of another matter, I have applied it to this, so that it may be understood that some good thing can work not only life for those who use it well, but even death for those who use it ill. Nor does it matter, when the integrity and holiness of the sacrament is under discussion, what he believes or with what kind of faith he is imbued who receives the sacrament. It matters indeed very greatly 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 intact the words of the Creed and yet does not believe rightly, whether concerning the Trinity itself or concerning the resurrection or some other matter. For it is no small thing, even within the Catholic Church itself, to hold the faith intact, so as to believe nothing at all otherwise than the truth is—not concerning any creature, but concerning God himself. Surely then, if one who has been baptized within the Catholic Church itself afterward, by reading, by hearing, and by discussing peaceably, comes to know—the Lord himself revealing it—that he had previously believed otherwise than he ought, is he to be baptized anew?
But what carnal and animal man does not wander off through the phantasms of his own heart and set up for himself a god such as pleases him according to his own carnal sense, and thus believe something as far removed from what God truly is as vanity differs from truth? For the Apostle, full of the light of truth, spoke a most true sentence: 'The animal man,' he says, 'does not perceive the things which are of the Spirit of God.' And yet he was saying this of those whom he himself makes clear had already been baptized. For he says to them: 'Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?'
These men therefore had the sacrament of baptism, and yet, thinking carnally, what could they believe about God except according to the sense of their own flesh, where the animal man does not perceive the things which are of the Spirit of God? To such 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 are you able even now; for you are still carnal.' Such also are carried about by every wind of doctrine, of whom he says: 'that we may be no longer little ones, tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine.'
Surely then, if these men should advance to the spiritual maturity of the inner man and, by the sincerity of understanding, come to know how far otherwise they had believed about God through the deception of their own phantasms than the truth required, are they to be baptized again? Thus too it can happen that a Catholic catechumen falls upon the book of some heretic and, not knowing how to distinguish error from truth, believes something contrary to the Catholic faith, an error which nevertheless the words of the Creed do not oppose; for under those very same words innumerable errors of heretics have arisen.
Supposing then that this man thinks the book to be by some great and learned Catholic, if while believing such things he is baptized in the Catholic Church, and afterward by diligence comes to know how he ought to believe, and having laid hold of the Catholic faith rejects that error from his heart—surely, if he has confessed this, is he to be baptized anew? Or if, before he learns and confesses, he is found to hold this opinion, and is taught what he ought to cast away and what he ought to believe, and it becomes manifest that he was baptized in that falsity of faith—is he to be baptized anew? Why so?
Because that holiness of the sacrament, consecrated by the words of the Gospel, remained intact upon him, just as he had received it in the form handed down, although he himself, being set in the vanity of a carnal mind, believed something else when he was baptized than he ought to have believed. Wherefore it is manifest that it can happen that, when the faith is not intact, the sacrament of baptism nevertheless remains intact in anyone. And therefore those things which are said concerning the diversity of the various heretics do not pertain to this question. For in each person that is to be corrected which he who corrects perceives to be depraved; that is to be healed which is diseased; that is to be given which is lacking—and above all the charity of peace, without which the rest can profit nothing.
But nevertheless, when these things are present, they are not to be conferred as though they were lacking, but so that they may be possessed fruitfully and not perniciously, we must act through the very bond of peace and the eminence of charity. 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, the sacrament was intact, although his faith, holding under those same words something other than the Catholic truth teaches, was not intact but defiled with 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 even the carnal little ones of the Church themselves, to whom the Apostle said:
'I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal')—if each one could be diligently questioned, would perhaps be counted as many diversities of opinion as there are men. For the animal man does not perceive the things which are of the Spirit of God. Yet do they for that reason not receive an intact sacrament? Or must what they received for that reason be repeated, if they advance and amend the vanity of their carnal opinions? Each receives according to his faith, but only so much as he grasps under the guidance of that mercy of God, presuming on which the same Apostle says: 'If in anything you think otherwise, this too God will reveal to you.'
The snares of heretics and schismatics, however, are for this reason exceedingly pernicious to carnal men, because their very advancement is cut off, once the opinion of vanity is confirmed against 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 perversely understood and handled in discord, just as the Scripture of the Gospel itself, if it is the very same, is everywhere intact, even if it is claimed for an innumerable variety of false opinions. For as to what Jeremiah says: 'Why do those who afflict me prevail? My wound is grievous; whence shall I be healed?'
'while it comes to pass, it has become to me like deceitful water that has no faithfulness'—if in the figurative and allegorical manner of prophetic speech water were nowhere set except that which signified baptism, we should labor to seek what these words of Jeremiah mean for themselves. But now, since in the Apocalypse the waters are most plainly expounded as set for peoples, why I should not understand deceitful water and water without faith as a lying and faithless people, I do not know. But as to the Holy Spirit, which is said to be given only in the Catholic Church through the laying on of hands—doubtless our forefathers wished this to be understood as that of which the Apostle speaks: 'because the charity of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us.'
For this is the very charity which those do not have who have been cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church; and on this account, even if they should speak with the tongues of men and of angels, if they should know all sacraments and all knowledge, and if they should have all prophecy and all faith so as to move mountains, and should distribute all their goods to the poor, and deliver up their body to be burned, it profits them nothing. But he does not have the charity 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 not received except in the Catholic Church.
For the Holy Spirit is not now given through the laying on of hands with temporal and sensible miracles attesting, as it was formerly given for the commendation of the fledgling faith and for the spreading abroad of the beginnings of the Church. For who now expects that those on whom hands are laid for the receiving of the Holy Spirit should suddenly begin to speak with tongues? But it is understood that invisibly and hiddenly, because of the bond of peace, divine charity is breathed into their hearts, so that they may be able to say: 'because the charity of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us.' Now there are many operations of the Holy Spirit, which the same Apostle, having recounted in a certain place as many as he judged sufficient, thus concluded:
'But all these things one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each his own as he wills.' Since therefore the sacrament is one thing, which even Simon Magus could have; the operation of the Spirit is another, which is wont to occur even in evil men, as Saul had prophecy; and the operation of the same Spirit yet another, which none but the good can have, as is 'the end of the commandment, charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned'—whatever heretics and schismatics may receive, the charity 'which covers a multitude of sins' is the proper gift of Catholic unity and peace, and not of all within it, because not all belong to it, as we shall see in its proper place.
Yet apart from this unity that charity 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, unlike baptism, is not something that cannot be repeated. For what else is it but prayer over a man? Now as to the power which the Lord gave to Peter as a figure of unity, that whatever he should loose should be loosed on earth, it is manifest that this unity was said to be perfected even in one dove. Surely then all the covetous do not belong to that same dove, over whom in that same Catholic Church the same Cyprian gravely groaned? For, as I think, plunderers may be called not doves but hawks.
How then did they baptize, who seized estates by treacherous frauds and increased their gain by multiplying usuries, if that dove alone baptizes—that is, that unity which cannot be understood except among the good, simple and chaste and perfect? Or is it perhaps through the prayers of the spiritual saints who are in the Church, as through the most frequent groaning of the dove, that the great sacrament and the hidden dispensation of God's mercy is carried out, so that even the sins of those are loosed who are baptized not through the dove but through the hawk, if they come to that sacrament with the peace of Catholic unity? And if it is so, why then are not their sins loosed through their prayers when anyone comes from heresy or schism to Catholic peace?
The integrity of the sacrament indeed is everywhere recognized, but toward that irrevocable remission of sins it will not avail outside the unity of the Church; nor can the prayers of the saints—that is, the groaning of that one dove—help a man established in heresy or schism, just as neither can they help one placed within, if he holds against himself, through a most wicked life, the debts of his sins, not only if he be baptized through a hawk, but even if through the pious ministry of the dove herself. 'As the Father has sent me,' he says, 'even so I send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed upon them and said to them: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. Whosesoever sins you remit, they shall be remitted unto them; whosesoever sins you retain, they shall be retained.'
Therefore if they bore the person of the Church, and this was said to them as though it were said to the Church itself, then the peace of the Church remits sins, and alienation from the peace of the Church retains sins—not according to the judgment of men, but according to the judgment of God and the prayers of the spiritual saints, who judge all things but are themselves judged by no one. For the rock retains, the rock remits; the dove retains, the dove remits; unity retains, unity remits. But the peace of this unity is only in the good—those already spiritual, or those advancing toward spiritual things by concordant obedience; but it is not in the evil, whether they make tumult outside or are borne within with groaning, and whether they baptize or are baptized.
But just as those who are borne within with groaning, although they do not belong to that same unity of the dove and to that glorious Church having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, nevertheless, if they are corrected and confess that they came to baptism as most wicked men, are not rebaptized, but begin to belong to the dove, through whose groaning their sins are loosed—sins by which, as alienated from her peace, they were held bound—so also those who are more openly outside, if they have received the same sacraments, when, being corrected, they come to the unity of the Church, are set free not by a repeated baptism, but by the same law of charity and bond of unity.
For if it is lawful to baptize only among those who are set as leaders in the Church and grounded in the evangelical law and the Lord's ordinance, were such the men who seized estates by treacherous frauds and increased their gain by multiplying usuries? For I judge that they are grounded in the Lord's ordinance to whom the Apostle, giving a rule, said: 'not covetous, not greedy of filthy lucre.' Yet such men baptized in Cyprian's own times, whom he confesses with great groaning to have been his fellow bishops, and endures with the great reward of forbearance. Yet they did not give the remission 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 her peace.
For the Lord would not say to plunderers and usurers: 'Whosesoever sins you remit, they shall be remitted unto them; whosesoever sins you retain, they shall be retained.' Outside indeed nothing can either be bound or loosed, where there is no one who can either bind or loose; but he is loosed who has made peace with the dove, and he is bound who has no peace with the dove, whether he be openly outside or seem to be within. But 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 set strange fire upon the altar, we know did not do so with impunity. Nor do we say that such crimes remain unpunished, unless such men correct themselves, if the patience of God, leading to repentance, grants a time for amendment.
Those indeed who say that baptism is not to be repeated for the reason that hands were only laid upon those whom Philip the deacon had baptized, say something not at all pertinent to the matter; and far be it from us, when we seek the truth, to use such arguments. Wherefore we the more do not yield to heretics if we say that what they have of Christ's Church is not their own, and if because of the crimes of deserters we are unwilling to fail to recognize the standards of our Emperor; the more so because, since the Lord our God is a jealous God, whatever of his we recognize in anyone, let us in no way concede to that person, so that he should think it to be his own.
God himself indeed, jealous, reproaches the woman that fornicates away from him—under the figure of the transgressing people—and says that she gave to her lovers the things which were his, and again received back from them things which were not theirs but his. Between the adulterous woman and the adulterous lovers God, as jealous, angrily recognizes his own gifts. And do we say that the baptism of heretics, consecrated with the words of the Gospel, is theirs—moved by their deeds, do we wish to attribute to them even the things which are God's, as though they could contaminate them or make God's things their own because they themselves refused to be God's? 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 linen and all things that befit me'? It is indeed permissible to understand this also of the transgressing nation of the Jews. But nevertheless, whom else do the pseudo-Christians imitate—for this is what all heretics and schismatics are—except the pseudo-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.' But who are the true Christians, except those of whom the same Lord says: 'He who loves me keeps my commandments'? And what is it to keep his commandments, except to persist in love? Whence also he says:
'A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another,' and again: 'By this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.' But who can doubt that this was said not only to those who then heard the words of him present through his flesh, but also to those who now know the words of him sitting in heaven through the Gospel? For he came not to loose the law but to fulfill it. Now the fulfillment of the law is charity, in which Cyprian greatly flourished, so that though he felt otherwise about baptism, he nonetheless did not desert unity, and was a fruitful branch rooted in the Lord's vine, which the heavenly husbandman would purge even with the iron of passion, that it might yield greater fruit.
But the enemies of this brotherly charity, whether they be openly outside or seem to be within, are pseudo-Christians and antichrists. For when occasions are found, they go outside, as it is written: 'He who wishes to depart from friends seeks occasions.' But even if occasions are lacking, when they seem to be within, they are separated from that invisible framework of charity. Whence 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.' He did not say that by going out they became foreign, but that they were foreign; and for this reason he declared that they went out.
The Apostle also speaks of certain men who had erred concerning the truth and were subverting the faith of some, whose word crept on like a canker; and though he said they were to be shunned, he nevertheless signifies that they were within one great house, but as vessels unto dishonor—I believe because they had not yet gone outside. Or if they had already gone out, how does he say they were in the same great house with the honorable vessels, unless perhaps because of the sacraments themselves, which are not changed even in the separated conventicles of heretics, so that he says all belong to the one great house, but by diverse merits—some unto honor, some unto dishonor? For thus he speaks, writing to Timothy: 'But shun profane novelties of words;