To answer those who think differently and who err from the rule of truth, brother Constantine, we are very often compelled — even concerning those matters which we have treated again and again in various discourses. Which I think is done to advantage, both on account of the duller minds of those who suppose that something else is being said when they read something said in another way, and on account of the very abundance of discussions, so that a rare thing may reach not only the diligent, but that some one of many may fall even into the hands of the more negligent.
Accordingly, a discourse concerning the one baptism, composed by those who repeat baptism — which you gave to me, when we were together in the country, having received it from some Donatist presbyter or other, and earnestly begged that I would answer it — a discourse puffed up with nothing but the noise of words and roughened with slanderous accusations: see with what ease, by the Lord's help, I refute it. The first grievance there is that a secret matter is bandied about in public. Let them therefore be silent, who think this ought not to be done; or if they say they are compelled to speak, in order to answer those who hold contrary views, this is our cause also, that we should answer not only those who hold contrary views, but even those who do contrary deeds.
For that ought to be openly refuted which harms in secret, since it is also openly defended when it is urged that it may harm in secret when it is carried out. For who baptizes anyone in the presence of the profane? And yet no profane person is ignorant that Christians are baptized, who hears in public that which, if he believes, he receives in secret. Let us therefore see what they say concerning the repetition of baptism, who are ashamed to say openly that which would that they feared to commit openly! 'Where the true baptism is,' he says, 'is the question'; then he adds: 'It is so far mine that what has been given by me as unique is not repeated even by the sacrilegious themselves.' To whom we reply: he is not sacrilegious who does not dare to repeat the one baptism — not that which is yours, but that which is Christ's.
For the consecration of a man in baptism, once for all, is Christ's; but the repetition of the one baptism is yours. I correct in you what is yours; I acknowledge what is Christ's. For this is just, that when we reprove the evils of men, we should approve whatever good of God we find in them. This, I say, is just, that even in a sacrilegious person I should not violate the true sacrament which I find, lest I so amend the sacrilegious man as to perpetrate sacrilege in him. For these men are evil in a good baptism, just as the Jews are evil in a good law. And so, as they will be judged by that very law which by their malice they did not make evil, so too these will be judged by that very baptism which, being good, evil men held.
Therefore, just as when a Jew comes to us that he may become a Christian, we do not destroy in him the good things of God, but his own evils — for as to his erring by not believing that Christ has already come and been born and suffered and risen again, this we amend; and, that infidelity being destroyed, we build up the faith by which these things are believed; likewise, as to his erring by clinging to the shadows of the old sacraments, we dissuade him, and we demonstrate that the time has now come, in which the prophets had foretold that these things were to be taken away and changed;
but as to his believing that one God is to be worshiped, who made heaven and earth, that he detests all the idols and sacrileges of the nations, that he awaits a future judgment, that he hopes for eternal life, that he does not doubt concerning the resurrection of the flesh — this we praise, we approve, we acknowledge; as he believed the things to be believed, so we confirm the things to be held as he held them — so also, when a schismatic or a heretic comes to us that he may become a catholic, by dissuading and destroying we rescind his schism and heresy; but the Christian sacraments, if we find them the same in him, and whatever other truth he holds — far be it that we should violate them, far be it that, if we know they were once for all to be given, we should repeat them, lest, while we cure human faults, we should condemn the divine remedies, or, by seeking to heal what is not wounded, we should wound a man where he is whole.
Accordingly, if I find a heretic dissenting concerning some matter pertaining to the Christian and catholic faith — if, finally, dissenting even concerning the very unity of the Trinity — and yet baptized according to the evangelical and ecclesiastical rule, I correct the man's understanding; I do not violate God's sacrament. I speak of Jews and schismatics or heretics erring in some fashion under the name of Christ. Concerning the very Gentiles and worshipers of idols, who indeed differ from us by great diversity, the apostle shows us nothing other than this: that in them too we should so correct whatever is perverse, as to approve whatever perchance is right.
For indeed the apostle was reproving idolaters, and — what is graver — not only the worshipers, but even the very inventors of images, when he says: 'Who, knowing God, glorified Him not as God, nor gave thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. Saying that they were wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of serpents.' For such indeed we know were the images of the Egyptians, where a more manifold and far more shameful idolatry is reported to have been established. Yet did he deny that the knowledge of God was in them, or did he not rather confirm it, saying:
'Knowing God, they glorified Him not as God'? If therefore he had endeavored to refute and destroy that knowledge as though it were a falsehood, because he had found it in the sacrilegious, would he not — which be far from it — become an enemy of the truth? And therefore that which they changed into their own falsehood — for here too he said: 'They changed the glory of God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man,' namely, fashioning such a god as God is not, and handing Him on to men not as they had known Him; and a little later he says of such: 'Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever';
for the truth of the creature is from God — it is not God — which they turned into a lie, as though worshiping as gods the sun and the moon and whatever things celestial and terrestrial: therefore, that which they changed into their own lie, he blames, detests, overthrows; but that which they preserved as true in a doctrine, although mixed and confused with many falsehoods, he approves, attests, affirms. For here too he began that same passage in such a way as to say:
'For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and unrighteousness of those men who hold the truth in iniquity' — not denying the truth, although held in iniquity. And in the Acts of the Apostles, when he was teaching the Athenians concerning the one and true God, that 'in Him we live and move and are,' he immediately added: 'as certain also of your own have said.' This, therefore — that in God we live and move and are — is from that truth which even those impious worshipers of images hold in iniquity, who, knowing God, glorified Him not as God.
Yet this truth, as we see, when found among the impious and sacrilegious, the apostle does not destroy, but confirms, and uses its testimony to teach those who were ignorant of these things. A follower of this apostolic rule, the bishop Cyprian, disputing concerning the one true God against the worshipers of many and false gods, brings forth many testimonies from the books of those whom they hold as illustrious authors — that is, from that truth which they hold in iniquity. But far more wonderful is what the apostle did: going about their shrines, he found a certain altar among the altars of the demons, on which was written:
'To an unknown God'; and neither by denying nor refuting did he destroy this, but rather by confirming it he found here also a most opportune opening for his discourse, saying: 'Whom you worship in ignorance, Him I proclaim to you.' Following, therefore, this apostolic rule, handed down to us through our elders, if we find anything right even in the perverse, when their perversity has been corrected, we by no means violate that which is right — so that in one man, out of the true things he holds, the false things also may be amended, not that out of the false things convicted the true things also may be destroyed. In the times of the apostles, those who said, 'I indeed am of Paul, but I of Apollos, and I of Cephas,' although not by the names of the impious but of the holy, yet were themselves making impious schisms;
this was their own detestable fault, peculiar to them. But that they knew Christ was crucified for them, and that they were baptized in His name, was not of their error, but of the divine gift among them; this truth of God they held in the iniquity of their schisms. Laying hold of this, the most blessed Paul does not, by those faults being destroyed, destroy this also, but by this, being confirmed, convicts those to be amended — 'Was Paul,' he says, 'crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?' — so that through the true thing of God which they held, they might blush at their own false thing which they were doing. As therefore it is said to a Jew: 'Hold the faith of the resurrection of the dead as you held it, but believe now that Christ has risen from the dead, which you did not believe;
for you hold the truth of God concerning the dead who are to rise again in your iniquity, by which you do not believe that Christ has risen'; as it is said to an idol-worshiper: 'Hold that the world was created by the one true God, as you held, but do not believe that woods and stones are gods, and any particles whatever of the world itself which you worshiped; for you hold in your iniquity the truth of God, by which you believe the world was created by Him, in that you will be a worshiper of false gods': so also is it said to a heretic who has changed by no falsehood of his own the Christian sacraments, as they are handed down in the catholic Church:
'Hold the Christian baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, as you held it, but acknowledge the Church of Christ growing throughout the whole world, as it was prophesied, which you cursed with sacrilegious voice; for you hold the truth of God concerning the unity of baptism in the iniquity of your division. Correct the iniquity of the heretical fabrication, lest it destroy you, and do not be proud of the truth of the Christian sacrament, which is there that it may judge you.'
But far be it from me to detest your iniquity in such a way that I should deny the truth of Christ, which I find in you unto your own condemnation; far be it from me so to correct you that I should destroy that very thing by which I correct you — unless perhaps I ought to destroy the truth which I find in the soul of heretics, when the Apostle did not destroy the truth which he found upon the altar-stone of the pagans. Greater is one God than one baptism — for baptism is not God, yet it is something great, precisely because it is a sacrament of God — and nevertheless that one God Himself was worshipped even outside the Church by those who did not know Him. So then one baptism also is given even outside the Church by those who do not know it.
Whoever says that it could not come to pass that the one and true God should be worshipped by those who did not know Him outside the Church, let him consider what answer he can give — not to me, but to the Apostle himself, who says: 'Whom therefore you worship in ignorance, Him I proclaim to you.'
Wherefore, just as it profited nothing unto salvation for those who worshipped the true God while yet not knowing Him — nay rather it worked to their ruin, in that by worshipping false gods together with Him they did sacrilegious injury to that same true God — so it profits nothing unto salvation for heretics that outside the Church they both hand on and hold true baptism in ignorance; nay rather it works to their condemnation, that amid the sacrilegious iniquity of human error they hold fast the truth even of a divine sacrament, not as a means by which they are cleansed, but as a means by which they are the more severely judged.
And just as the Apostle, when he was correcting those sacrilegious men, rather acknowledged than denied the true God who was worshipped outside the Church by them in their ignorance, so also we, when we correct the errors of heretics in their sacrilegious separation, ought assuredly to acknowledge and not to deny the true baptism which through ignorance they hand on outside the Church. But, they say, when Paul had come to Ephesus, he commanded certain men who said they had been baptized with John's baptism to be baptized in Christ. Whoever thinks from this example that schismatics and heretics are to be baptized, let him dare to say, if he can, that John was a heretic or a schismatic.
If it is unlawful to say this, then assuredly what was lacking was given to those men, not what was already present disapproved — whether they had lied in saying that they had John's baptism, as some suppose, or because John's baptism was not the baptism of Christ, yet was serving Christ, just as the old sacraments of the Law discharged a certain forerunning and prefiguring office. But, they say, if baptism was administered after John, the friend of the bridegroom, how much more must it be administered after a heretic! Another, stirred by a like and seemingly just indignation, may say: If baptism was administered after John, who drank no wine at all, how much more justly must it be administered after a drunkard! Let these men then do this, if they can;
let them baptize after their own drunkards, if the apostles baptized after the sober John. What answer do they give to this, save that they do not rebaptize after these men because through those who were baptized they received not the baptism of those men, but the baptism of Christ? Let them then believe that baptism was administered after John for this reason: that those men either had no baptism at all, or did not yet have the baptism of Christ. Indeed this very objection the man to whom we are replying set against himself, yet having set it he did not solve it. For he says: 'Perhaps someone will say: But these whom Paul baptized again had been washed with the baptism of John, not with the baptism of Jesus Christ. Hence I say that those who are known to have been baptized by traditors, yet in the name of Christ, ought not to be rebaptized.'
When he had set this before himself, mark how vainly he attempted to answer it. He says: 'To this matter the Lord Christ answered in these words: He who does not gather with me scatters; and again: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. For many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works? And then I will declare to them: I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity. There is no doubt, therefore, that those men have lost a false work, who, though in the name of Jesus Christ, yet as sacrilegious men have dared to work.'
Willingly or unwillingly, therefore, traditors by their sacrilegious sacraments the more offend Christ, who, if they should even dare to say, 'In your name we prophesied,' He will say to them as to the rest: Depart from me, you workers of iniquity; I never knew you. Rightly will He say this to them, since indeed in unworthy men the cases are not dissimilar — to baptize, to drive out demons, and to have done the other marvelous works. See how many things he said, and how what he set against himself from the opposing side he was utterly unable to solve; and not only did he not solve it, but he even reminded us ourselves of what we ought to say against them. For these evangelical testimonies not only give him no help at all, but they even greatly support our cause.
It was John's baptism that was in question, and if the Apostle baptized certain men who had been baptized with it, he assuredly did not give John's baptism again to those who had John's baptism, but commanded those who did not have Christ's baptism to be baptized in Christ; and by this he destroyed neither, but distinguished both. This too was seen by this man against whom we are arguing; for when he had objected to himself, as from the adversary's side, that those whom they call traditors both baptize and are baptized with the baptism of Christ, not of John, and that therefore after them baptism ought neither to be rescinded nor repeated, he said that Christ answered this question when He said: He who does not gather with me scatters — as though Christ had said:
'In those who do not gather with me, let even what has been found to be true and mine be denied, blown away, destroyed.' He says also that to certain men saying, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?' He would answer: I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity. Did He here too say: 'On account of your iniquity I will deny even my own truth held fast within your iniquity'? For He will receive into His kingdom not all in whom He has found some truth, but those in whom He has found a love agreeing with the truth — which love, if it be lacking, there will be iniquity.
Yet the truth held fast within that iniquity is not to be denied; rather the iniquity itself is to be condemned, without the truth being destroyed. Whence also the Apostle says: And if I should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all prophecy and all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. He said that he himself would be nothing if he had not love — not that the mysteries and knowledge and prophecy and faith would be nothing. For those things are great, even though he be nothing who possesses them without love and holds their truth within his own iniquity. This too we say to these heretics:
'We do not destroy the truth of baptism which you hold fast within your iniquity; but when we correct you, we destroy and overthrow that iniquity, whereas this truth we acknowledge and hold.' And so those many evangelical testimonies help this man in nothing. But observe how they even most greatly support us. See, attend to his very own words: 'There is no doubt,' he says, 'that those men have lost a false work who, though in the name of Jesus Christ, yet as sacrilegious men have dared to work.' This is entirely true, since those who as sacrilegious men have dared to work in the name of Jesus Christ have lost their own false work: yet is the very name of Jesus Christ therefore sacrilegious, even when sacrilegious men work something through it?
Who would dare to say this, even the most demented? Who at this time now, even a pagan, would dare to affirm it? Whence also Jesus Christ Himself, though He most truly said: He who does not gather with me scatters, yet when His disciples had told Him that they had found a certain man casting out demons in His name, and had forbidden him because he did not follow the Lord together with them, answered thus: Do not forbid him; for no one does a mighty work in my name and can readily speak evil of me. In this indeed there was his own iniquity, because he did not gather with the Lord, nor did he follow the Shepherd together with the disciples in the unity of His flock; yet within this iniquity of his he held fast a truth not his own, in that he cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ and did not speak evil of Him.
And so the Lord condemns this man's iniquity in those words where He says: He who does not gather with me scatters; yet He does not deny nor disapprove the truth that is his, when He says: Do not forbid him; for no one does a mighty work in my name and can readily speak evil of me. Following this example of the Lord, we too, according to our strength, cannot deny the truth of baptism and whatever else true the heretics hold; we dare not disapprove and destroy it; but their iniquity, whereby they gather not with Christ but scatter, we rightly detest, and while the truth that is in them remains inviolate, we condemn it, or so far as we are permitted, we amend it. Let this man then discern with what error he said what, following on, he added:
'Willingly or unwillingly, traditors by their sacrilegious sacraments the more offend Christ.' It is one kind of rashness, but somehow tolerable, that he calls men traditors whom he does not prove to be such; but who could endure this — that he calls the sacraments of Christ sacrilegious, even if they were, as he falsely charges, held by traditors, sacraments which are celebrated in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit according to the evangelical rite? Here perhaps he may say that it is no longer the sacrament of Christ, because it is given by sacrilegious men. Why then does he not say that it is no longer even the name of Christ, because it is uttered by sacrilegious men? Which he by no means dared to say. For he says:
'There is no doubt, therefore, that those men have lost a false work who, though in the name of Jesus Christ, yet as sacrilegious men have dared to work.' 'Though,' he says, 'in the name of Jesus Christ.' Did he say that it is not the name of Jesus Christ? As therefore it profits sacrilegious men nothing that they work in the name of Jesus Christ, so it profits heretics nothing that they baptize or are baptized in the baptism of Jesus Christ. But nevertheless, as that is the name of Jesus Christ, so also this is the baptism of Jesus Christ, and both are to be acknowledged and approved, not denied and destroyed, lest an injury be done to such great gifts of God, when the life of sacrilegious men who make evil use of those same goods is corrected. He says that the Lord will say to sacrilegious men:
Depart from me, you who work iniquity — meaning those who outside the Church baptize, or cast out demons, or work certain mighty works in the name of Jesus Christ. But we say — nay, the very Truth says — that the Lord will say this to all such, even to those who within the very nets of unity swim as bad fish together with the good until they reach the shore. For what else will be said to them, when the good have been gathered into vessels and those bad ones, separated, shall be cast forth, save: Depart from me, you who work iniquity? And yet we do not on that account destroy the sacraments of Christ in them, when we acknowledge such men, whether baptizing or baptized, within these same nets of unity.
Nor do I think that they themselves are so shameless as to dare to say to the many wicked and criminal men who are in their party — men ruined and defiled by manifest disgraces and crimes, that is, the greedy and the plunderers, or the savage usurers, or the bloodthirsty Circumcellions — that the Lord will not say: Depart from me, you who work iniquity; and yet they know, they see, they maintain that many such men baptize, that many are baptized by such men, nor do even those to whom the crimes of those men are displeasing violate the sacrament of Christ in them. Therefore not only did he say nothing against us when he brought forward these evangelical testimonies, but he even reminded us of what we ought to say against them. Accordingly, as to what follows, which he exultingly says:
'I have briefly solved the question' — truly he did solve it, but for us; since, by saying that in unworthy men the cases are not dissimilar — to baptize, to drive out demons, and to have done the other not dissimilar mighty works, to those who say, 'In your name we did these things,' He is going to say: I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity — he made manifest that it is as true that they baptize with the baptism of Jesus Christ, even those who are separated from the Church, as it is true that they drive out demons in the name of Jesus Christ; but that neither of these leads them to eternal life, nor delivers them from eternal punishments.
And by this means, just as, if any of those from whom that man drove out demons — the man whom the disciples saw driving out demons in the name of Jesus Christ though separated from the flock — should come to the Church, in no way would the mighty work that had been done in him be denied, but what was lacking would be added to him; so whoever outside the Church shall have been consecrated by heretics or schismatics with the baptism of Christ, when he comes to the Church, the sacrament of truth with which he is imbued is not to be denied, but the piety of unity from which he was separated is to be added — the unity without which that sacrament could indeed be present in him, but could not profit him.
This we do, this we have received as handed down from our elders, this we guard in the Catholic Church, which is spread throughout the whole world, against all the mists of falsehood. What more, then, is to be argued by us on this matter, when he himself briefly solved the question by recalling the evangelical testimonies — by which assuredly, if he were unwilling to be contentious, he would both condemn his own error and recognize the truth of baptism? What need, then, is there to unweave all his words, in which he seems to himself to speak cleverly and to turn over with much loquacity the notion that true baptism is present among them because it is acknowledged and not denied by us?
For whoever holds firmly and unshaken that which the most true and inviolable rule of truth shows — that in each thing what is false and vicious is to be disapproved or amended, but what is true and right is to be acknowledged and accepted — sees at once both what we detest in the heresy of the Donatists and what we ought by no means to violate. For since within the iniquity of their separation they hold fast the truth of baptism, their iniquity is blamed by us, but the truth of baptism is everywhere acknowledged and approved. For whoever says that the baptism of Christ is to be destroyed when heretics baptize with it, it follows that he should say that Christ Himself is also to be denied when the demons confess Him.
For this Peter was praised, when he said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God; and the demons were cast out saying this very thing: We know who you are, the Son of God. Therefore this confession, fruitful to Peter, ruinous to the demons, was in both cases nevertheless not false but true, not to be denied but acknowledged, not to be detested but approved. So also the truth of baptism is given by upright Catholics as that confession by Peter, and is given by perverse heretics as the same confession by the demons; it helps the former, it condemns the latter, yet in both it is to be approved by being acknowledged, in neither to be violated by being denied.
Whence also the Apostle James, when he refuted certain men who were saying that true faith suffices for a man and were not joining to it the works of love, convicted them by this comparison with the demons, lest they should think themselves to belong to God for the reason that they believed what was true concerning God, even if they took no care to join good works to their faith. You believe, he says, that there is one God? You do well; the demons also believe and tremble. Those, therefore, who believe what is true concerning God and yet live wickedly, he compared to the demons; yet he did not, out of hatred of the demons, destroy by denial that very truth which the demons believe concerning God. Wherefore, since this very man against whom we are arguing has set forth the Apostle as saying: