For neither can Judas, by his perfidy and betrayal which he wickedly wrought against the Savior, be deemed worthy, as though he himself had provided the occasion of such great goods, in that through him the world and the people of the nations were freed by the Lord's passion. But let these things, meanwhile, which have been done by Stephen be passed over, lest, while we recall his audacity and insolence, we bring upon ourselves a longer sorrow over the things wickedly done by him. But learning concerning you that, according to the rule of truth and the wisdom of Christ, you have ordered this matter now in question, with great joy we have exulted and given thanks to God, that we have found in brethren placed so far away so great a oneness of faith and truth with us.
For the grace of God is mighty to couple and join, by the bond of love and unity, even those things which seem to be divided by a longer space of lands—just as of old the divine power joined to the bond of one-mindedness those who were separated by an interval of times, Ezekiel and Daniel, who were later in age, to Job and Noah, who had been among the first; yet, although they were sundered by long ages, they nevertheless perceived by the same divine inspiration. This too we now observe in you: that you, who are separated from us by the most distant regions, have nevertheless proved yourselves to be coupled with us in mind and spirit. And all this comes about by the divine unity.
For since the Lord, who dwells in us, is one and the same, He everywhere joins and couples His own by the bond of unity. Whence their sound has gone out into all the earth—of those who were sent by the Lord, running swiftly in the spirit of unity. Just as, on the contrary, it profits nothing that some should be near and joined to one another in body, if they are at variance in soul and mind, since souls can by no means be united which have divided themselves from the unity of God. For behold, He says, they who remove themselves far from You shall perish. But such shall undergo the judgment of the Lord according to their desert, withdrawing from the words of Him who prays to the Father for unity and says: Father, grant that as I and You are one, so these also may be one in Us.
But we have received the things written by you as though they were our very own, and have not read them in passing, but, often repeated, have committed them to memory. Nor is it without profit to the saving usefulness either to weave the same things over again for the confirmation of the truth, or even to add certain things for the heaping up of the proof. But if anything be added by us, it is not so added as though something had been said too little by you, but because the divine word surpasses human nature, and the soul cannot conceive the whole and the perfect; therefore the number of the prophets is so great, that the manifold and divine wisdom may be distributed through many. Whence also the one speaking first in prophecy is commanded to be silent, if it has been revealed to a second.
For which cause it of necessity comes about among us, that year by year we elders and presidents come together into one, to arrange those things which have been committed to our care—so that, if any matters are graver, they may be directed by common counsel; and that for brethren who have lapsed and have been wounded by the devil after the saving laver, a remedy may be sought through repentance—not as though they obtained remission of sins from us, but that through us they may be turned to an understanding of their offenses and constrained to make fuller satisfaction to the Lord. And since this legate sent by you was hastening to return to you, and the wintry season was pressing, we have written back to your writings as much as we were able.
And indeed, as far as concerns what Stephen said—as though the apostles had forbidden those who come from heresy to be baptized, and had handed this down to be kept by posterity—you have most fully replied that no one is so foolish as to believe that the apostles handed this down, when it is established that the very heresies, execrable and detestable, arose afterward: since even Marcion, the disciple of Cerdo, is found to have introduced his sacrilegious tradition against God late, after the apostles and after long times from them; while Apelles too, consenting to his blasphemy, added many other things, novel and graver, hostile to faith and truth.
But the time of Valentinus and Basilides also is manifest, that they too, after the apostles and after a long age, rebelled against the Church of God with their wicked falsehoods. The rest of the heretics likewise, it is established, afterward introduced their depraved sects and perverse inventions, as each was led by his own error; all of whom it is manifest to have condemned themselves and, before the day of judgment, to have pronounced an inexcusable sentence against their own selves. He who confirms their baptism, what else does he do than adjudge himself together with them, and, by making himself a partaker with such men, condemn his own self?
But that those who are at Rome do not in all things observe the things which were handed down from the beginning, and vainly pretend the authority of the apostles, anyone can know even from this: that one may see, regarding the days for celebrating Easter and regarding many other sacraments of the divine matter, that there are among them certain diversities, nor are all things observed there equally which are observed at Jerusalem—just as, in very many other provinces too, many things are varied according to the diversity of places and men; and yet on this account there has never at any time been a departure from the peace and unity of the catholic Church.
Which thing Stephen has now dared to do, breaking the peace against you which his predecessors always kept with you in mutual love and honor—nay, even defaming the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, as though they themselves had handed this down, who in their epistles execrated heretics and warned us to avoid them. Whence it appears that this tradition is human, which asserts heretics and defends that they have the baptism which belongs only to the Church alone. But to that part too you have well replied, where Stephen in his letter said that the heretics themselves also agree in baptism, and that those who come over to one another from one another do not baptize, but only admit to communion—as though we too ought to do this.
On which point, although you have already proved it sufficiently ridiculous that anyone should follow those who err, yet we add this out of abundance: that it is no wonder heretics act thus, who, even if they disagree in certain lesser things, yet in that which is greatest hold one and the same consensus—namely, to blaspheme the Creator, fashioning for themselves certain dreams and a phantasm of an unknown God; whereby it is altogether consequent that they should so agree in the vanity of their baptism, as they agree in repudiating the truth of the Godhead.
Concerning whom, since it would be long to reply to each of their wicked or superfluous notions, it is enough to say this briefly in summary: that those who do not hold the true Lord and Father can hold neither the truth of the Son nor of the Holy Spirit. According to which, those too who are called Cataphrygians and attempt to usurp new prophecies can have neither the Father nor the Son, because neither the Holy Spirit; of whom, if we ask whom they preach as Christ, they will reply that they preach Him who sent the Spirit that spoke through Montanus and Prisca. In whom, since we observe that it was not the Spirit of truth but of error, we recognize that those who vindicate their false prophecy against the faith of Christ cannot have Christ.
But the other heretics also, every one of them, if they have cut themselves off from the Church of God, can have nothing of power or grace, since all power and grace are established in the Church, where the elders preside who possess the power both of baptizing and of laying on hands and of ordaining. For just as it is not lawful for a heretic to ordain or to lay on hands, so neither to baptize nor to perform anything holily and spiritually, since he is a stranger to spiritual and deifying holiness. All which we long ago, gathered together at Iconium, which is a place in Phrygia, with those assembling from Galatia and Cilicia and the other nearest regions, confirmed to be firmly held against heretics and to be vindicated, when by some it was doubted concerning this matter.
And since Stephen and those who agree with him contend that remission of sins and the second birth can proceed in the baptism of heretics, among whom they themselves also confess that the Holy Spirit is not present, let them consider and understand that spiritual birth cannot be without the Spirit—according to which the blessed apostle Paul too baptized anew, with spiritual baptism, those who had been baptized by John before the Holy Spirit had been sent by the Lord, and thus laid hands upon them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit.
But what kind of thing is it that, when we see that Paul, after John's baptism, baptized his disciples over again, we should hesitate to baptize those who come from heresy to the Church after their unlawful and profane immersion? Unless, perhaps, Paul was inferior to these bishops who now are—so that these indeed can give the Holy Spirit to heretics who come, by the laying on of hands alone, but Paul was not fit to give the Holy Spirit, by the laying on of hands, to those baptized by John, unless he had first baptized them also with the baptism of the Church.
That too is absurd: that they think it ought not to be asked who he is that has baptized, on the ground that he who has been baptized could obtain grace by the invocation of the Trinity of names, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Then this will be the wisdom which Paul writes is among those who are perfect—that one who is perfect and wise in the Church should either defend or believe this: that this bare invocation of the names suffices for the remission of sins and the sanctification of baptism, when these things at all events avail then, when both he who baptizes has the Holy Spirit, and the baptism itself is also not constituted without the Spirit. But they say that he who is in any way baptized outside can obtain the grace of baptism by his own mind and faith.
This too is without doubt ridiculous, as though a depraved mind could draw down sanctification from heaven to itself, or a false faith draw down truth to those who believe it. But that not all who invoke the name of Christ are heard, or can obtain any grace by their invocation, the Lord Himself makes plain, saying: 'Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many.' In short, there is no difference between a false prophet and a heretic. For as the former deceives in the name of God or of Christ, so the latter deceives in the sacrament of baptism. Both rely on a lie to ensnare the wills of men. I wish, moreover, to set forth to you also a piece of history that took place among us bearing upon this very point.
For about twenty-two years ago, in the times after the emperor Alexander, many conflicts and afflictions befell us there, either commonly upon all men or privately upon Christians; and very many and frequent earthquakes also occurred, so that throughout Cappadocia and Pontus much was overthrown, and certain cities too were swallowed up into the deep, engulfed by the gaping of the riven ground; so that out of this there arose also a grievous persecution against us, against the Christian name, which, springing up suddenly after the long peace of the preceding age, was rendered the more terrible by an unexpected and unaccustomed evil to trouble our people. Serenianus was then governor in our province, a harsh and dreadful persecutor.
Now while the faithful were placed in this turmoil and were fleeing this way and that for fear of persecution, leaving their own homelands and passing over into other regions (for there was opportunity of crossing over, because that persecution was not throughout the whole world but local), there suddenly emerged there a certain woman who, falling into ecstasy, gave herself out as a prophetess and behaved as though full of the Holy Spirit. And she was so carried along by the impulse of the chief demons that for a long time she troubled and deceived the brotherhood, performing certain marvellous and portentous things and promising that she could make the earth quake:
not that the demon had such power as to be able by its own strength to make the earth quake or to shake an element, but that sometimes a wicked spirit, foreseeing and understanding that an earthquake was about to come, would feign that it would itself bring about what it saw was going to happen. By these lies and boastings it had so subdued the minds of individuals that they obeyed it and followed wherever it commanded and led; and it caused that woman also to walk barefoot in raw winter over the rough snows, and to be neither distressed in any way nor harmed by that wandering; and she even said she was hastening to Judaea and Jerusalem, pretending as though she had come from there. She also deceived one of the presbyters, Rusticus, and likewise another, a deacon, so that they had intercourse with that same woman:
which was discovered a little later. For suddenly there appeared to her one of the exorcists, a man approved and one who had always conducted himself well in religious discipline, who, roused also by the exhortation of very many brethren who themselves were present, being strong and praiseworthy in the faith, raised himself up against that wicked spirit to confound it: which spirit, by subtle deceit, had even a little before foretold that a certain hostile one and an unbelieving tempter would come. Yet that exorcist, inspired by the grace of God, resisted bravely and showed that the spirit which before was thought holy was a most wicked one.
And yet that woman, who before by sleights and deceits had been contriving many demonic works for the deception of the faithful, among the other things by which she had deceived very many, frequently dared even this: that with an invocation not contemptible she pretended to sanctify bread and to make the Eucharist, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord without the sacrament of the customary proclamation, and also baptized many, employing the usual and lawful words of interrogation, so that she might seem to differ in nothing from the ecclesiastical rule. What then shall we say of this baptism, by which a most wicked demon baptized through a woman?
Do Stephen and those who agree with him approve this also, especially as neither the symbol of the Trinity nor the lawful and ecclesiastical interrogation was lacking to it? Can it be believed either that remission of sins was given, or that the regeneration of the saving laver was duly accomplished, where all things, although after the image of truth, were yet performed by a demon? Unless indeed those who assert the baptisms of heretics also contend that a demon gave the grace of baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, among whom without doubt the same error exists, the very deceit of demons, since among them the Holy Spirit is by no means present. And of what sort is this too which Stephen wishes, that to those who are baptized among heretics there is present the presence and holiness of Christ?
For if the apostle does not lie when he says, 'As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ,' assuredly he who has been baptized there into Christ has put on Christ. But if he has put on Christ, he could also have received the Holy Spirit, who was sent by Christ, and it is in vain that hands are laid on him when he comes to receive the Spirit: unless indeed they divide the Spirit from Christ, so that Christ is among heretics, but the Holy Spirit is not there. Let us, however, run briefly through the other points which have been set forth by you copiously and most fully, since our dearest deacon Rogatianus is hastening to you above all. For there follows that which is to be asked by us of those who defend heretics, whether their baptism be carnal or spiritual.
For if it is carnal, they differ in nothing from the baptism of the Jews, which they so use that by it, as by a common and ordinary washing, only filth is washed away. But if it is spiritual, how can baptism be spiritual among those among whom the Holy Spirit is not? And on this account the water by which they are dipped is to them merely a carnal washing, not the sacrament of baptism. But if the baptism of heretics can possess the regeneration of the second birth, then those who are baptized among them are to be reckoned not heretics but sons of God. For the second birth, which is in baptism, begets sons of God. But if there is one bride of Christ, which is the Catholic Church, she it is who alone bears sons to God.
For there are not many brides of Christ, since the apostle says: 'I have espoused you to one husband, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ'; and: 'Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear, and forget thy people, for the king hath desired thy beauty'; and: 'Come, my spouse, from Lebanon, thou shalt come and pass over from the beginning of faith'; and: 'I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse.' We see one person everywhere set forth, because the spouse also is one. But the synagogue of heretics is not one with us, because the bride is neither an adulteress nor a fornicatress. Whence neither can she bear sons to God.
Unless indeed, according to what seems good to Stephen, heresy bears and exposes children, while the Church takes up the exposed, and nourishes as her own those whom she herself did not bear—although she cannot be the mother of children that are another's. And therefore Christ our Lord, making manifest that His bride is one and declaring the sacrament of her unity, says: 'He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.' For if Christ is with us, but heretics are not with us, then for certain heretics are against Christ; and if we gather with Christ, but heretics do not gather with us, without doubt they scatter.
But neither must that be passed over by us which was necessarily said by us, that the Church, according to the Song of Songs, is a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed, a paradise with the fruit of apples. But those who have never entered into this garden, nor have seen the paradise planted by God the Creator, how shall they be able to afford to anyone the living water of the saving laver from the fountain that is shut within and sealed with the divine seal? And since the ark of Noah was nothing else than the sacrament of the Church of Christ, which then, while all outside were perishing, saved those alone who were within the ark, we are manifestly taught to perceive the unity of the Church, even as Peter also set it forth, saying:
'So also baptism shall in like manner save us,' showing that, even as those who were not with Noah in the ark were not only not cleansed and saved by water, but at once perished in that deluge, so also now whoever are not in the Church with Christ shall perish outside, unless they be converted by penance to the one and saving laver of the Church. But of what sort is the error and how great the blindness of him who says that remission of sins can be given among the synagogues of heretics, and abides not in the foundation of the one Church which was once founded by Christ upon the rock, may be understood from this, that Christ said to Peter alone:
'Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven'; and again in the Gospel, when Christ breathed upon the apostles alone, saying: 'Receive ye the Holy Spirit. Whose sins ye remit, they shall be remitted unto him; and whose ye retain, they shall be retained.' The power therefore of remitting sins was given to the apostles, and to the churches which they, being sent by Christ, established, and to the bishops who succeeded them by vicarious ordination.
But the enemies of the one Catholic Church, in which we are, and our adversaries who have succeeded the apostles, claiming for themselves unlawful priesthoods against us and setting up profane altars—what else are they than Korah and Dathan and Abiram, sacrilegious in equal wickedness, and about to pay the same penalties as they did, together with those who consent with them?
according to which also at that time the partakers and abettors of those men perished by an equal death with them. And in this matter I am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of Stephen, that he who so glories in the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession of Peter, upon whom the foundations of the Church were laid, should bring in many other rocks and establish the new buildings of many churches, while he defends by his authority that baptism exists there. For those who are baptized without doubt fill up the number of the Church; but he who approves their baptism affirms that the Church also is there, composed of the baptized.
Nor does he understand that the truth of the Christian rock is obscured by him, and in a certain manner abolished, when he thus betrays and deserts unity. Yet the apostle declares that the Jews, although blinded by ignorance and bound by the most grievous crime, have a zeal for God. Stephen, who proclaims that he holds the chair of Peter by succession, is stirred by no zeal against heretics, granting to them not a little but the greatest power of grace: so that he says and asserts that through the sacrament of baptism they wash away the filth of the old man, pardon the ancient sins of death, make sons of God by heavenly regeneration, and restore to eternal life by the sanctification of the divine laver.
But if he thus concedes and bestows upon heretics these great and heavenly gifts of the Church, what else does he do than enter into communion with those for whom he defends and claims so much grace? And in vain does he now hesitate to consent with them in other things also and to be a partaker, so as both to assemble together with them and to mingle his prayers likewise with theirs, and to set up a common altar and sacrifice. But, he says, the name of Christ avails much unto faith and the sanctification of baptism, so that whoever and wheresoever a man has been baptized in the name of Christ at once obtains the grace of Christ:
whereas to this point it may be briefly met and answered: that if baptism availed outside in the name of Christ for cleansing a man, then in the name of the same Christ the laying on of hands could there also have availed for receiving the Holy Spirit. And the other things too which are done among heretics will begin to seem just and lawful, when they are performed in the name of Christ; according to which you in your letter have laid down that the name of Christ can avail nowhere save in the Church alone, to which alone Christ has granted the power of heavenly grace. But as to refuting the custom which they seem to oppose to the truth, who is so foolish as to prefer custom to truth, or who, having beheld the light, does not forsake the darkness?
unless indeed a most ancient custom helps the Jews in anything at the coming of Christ, that is, of the truth, in that, having left the new way of truth, they have remained in the old. Which indeed you Africans can say against Stephen, that having known the truth you have forsaken the error of custom. But we join custom also to truth, and to the custom of the Romans we oppose custom, but the custom of truth, holding from the beginning that which was handed down by Christ and by the apostles. Nor do we remember that this ever began among us, since here it has always been so observed that we acknowledged no Church of God but one, and reckoned holy baptism to belong to none but the holy Church.
Plainly, since certain persons were in doubt concerning the baptism of those who, although they receive the new prophets, nevertheless seem to know the Father and the Son along with us, very many of us assembling together at Iconium most diligently treated and confirmed that all baptism whatsoever which is constituted outside the Church is to be repudiated.
But as to that which they put forward on behalf of heretics, and say that the apostle declared, 'Whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is announced,'—that we may answer—it is foolish, since it is manifest that the apostle, in the epistle in which he said this, made mention neither of heretics nor of their baptism, but spoke only of brethren, whether speaking perfidiously with him or persevering in sincere faith; nor is it needful to sift this by a long discourse, but it is enough to read the epistle itself and to recognize what the apostle said about the apostle himself. 'What then,' they say, 'shall be done concerning those who, coming from the heretics, have been admitted without the baptism of the Church?'
If they have departed from the world, they are reckoned in the number of those who indeed were catechized among us, but died before they were baptized—no slight profit of the truth and faith to which, having left their error, they had attained, even though, prevented by death, they did not obtain the consummation of grace. But those who still remain in the world—let them be baptized with the baptism of the Church, that they may be able to obtain remission of sins, lest, remaining in their former error through another's presumption, they die without the consummation of grace.
Moreover, of what sort is the offence either of those who are admitted or of those who admit them, that, without their filth being washed away by the laver of the Church and without their sins being put away, they touch the body and blood of the Lord by a rashly usurped communion, when it is written: 'Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.' We have also judged that those whom these men—who first had been bishops in the Catholic Church, and afterwards, assuming to themselves the power of clerical ordination, had baptized—are to be held as not baptized.
And this is observed among us, that whoever, dipped by them, come to us as strangers and having obtained nothing, are baptized among us with the one and true baptism of the Catholic Church, that they may obtain the regeneration of the life-giving laver. And yet there is a great difference between him who, unwilling and compelled by the necessity of persecution, has given way, and him who, daring with sacrilegious will, rebels against the Church, or blasphemes with impious voice against the Father and God of Christ and Creator of the whole world. And Stephen is not ashamed to assert this, that through such men—although they themselves are constituted in all sins—he says remission of sins can be given, as though there could be in the house of death the laver of salvation. Where then shall be that which is written: