Scotus Academicus, Tomus nonus: De Sacramentis in genere

NOTES 1. Agrippinus, Bishop of Carthage, was the very first to judge and define that those who had received Baptism from heretics were to be rebaptized, as we already noted in the preface to this Article. For although, as we said there, Tertullian professed the same dogma in On Baptism, chapter 17, where he writes:

Heretics have no fellowship with our discipline; the very deprivation of communion plainly attests that they are outsiders. I ought not to recognize in them what has been prescribed to me, because the God is not the same for us and for them, nor is Christ one and the same; and therefore neither is Baptism one, because it is not the same: since they do not have it rightly, unquestionably they do not have it, etc.:

Nevertheless, it is not altogether probable that Tertullian was earlier than Agrippinus, because it is entirely uncertain when Agrippinus lived and how long he held office. Hence it is not established whether Agrippinus drew this error concerning the rebaptizing of heretics from Tertullian; for Tertullian himself had said shortly before, Concerning heretics, what must indeed be observed, let someone worthily reconsider. For it has been published to us. By these words he signifies that it had already been defined by some Prelate of the Church that Baptism conferred by heretics was entirely invalid. But certainly it could not have been defined by anyone other than Agrippinus: for if some other, earlier person had handed down that dogma, he would undoubtedly have been praised by St. Cyprian. Moreover, if Agrippinus had drawn it from Tertullian, Augustine and the other defenders of Baptism conferred by heretics would not have been silent. For it would have greatly supported this defense to show that the opinion of Cyprian and Agrippinus had been drawn from Tertullian, who was afflicted by many errors. But whatever the case, it is certain that Agrippinus was the first of all to give an opinion concerning repeating the Baptism conferred by heretics. For under a certain pretext of piety, thinking that whatever belonged to heretics ought to be abominated by the Catholic Church, he attempted to overthrow Baptism conferred by heretics. But lest he alone seem to hold this view, he gathered the Bishops of Africa and Numidia in the year 217 and, after celebrating a Council, without seeking the opinion of all, issued a canon concerning repeating the Baptism of heretics; St. Cyprian recalls this constitution in his Letter to Quintus in these words:

Since Agrippinus, a man of blessed memory, together with his fellow Bishops who at that time governed the Church of God in the Province of Africa and Numidia, both decided and, after weighing the matter in a common examination of counsel, confirmed it: we too have followed their opinion, both religious and legitimate, salutary for the faith, and consonant with the Catholic Church.

Moreover, whether Agrippinus did this rightly, Augustine, treating the matter in On Baptism, chapter 7, discloses in these words: I believe this custom of receiving those baptized from heretics to have come down from the Apostles, like many things which are not begun in their writings, nor in the Councils of later times, and yet, because they are observed throughout the whole Church, are believed to have been believed and commended only by the Apostles. Thus he said that St. Cyprian held that this most salutary custom had, through his predecessor Agrippinus, as it were begun to be corrected. But as the truth, more diligently investigated, has taught, which after great waves of doubt was brought to the confirmation of a plenary Council, it is more truly believed to have begun to be corrupted through Agrippinus, not corrected.

Likewise Vincent of Lérins, a contemporary of the teacher Augustine, treating the same controversy in the Commonitorium, chapter 6, has this:

Agrippinus, Bishop of Carthage, of venerable memory, was the first to judge that this movement was contrary to the divine Canon, contrary to the rule of the universal Church, contrary to the mind of all fellow priests, and contrary to the custom and institutions of the forefathers, and that they were to be rebaptized; this presumption aroused so great an evil that it supplied not only all heretics with a pattern of sacrilege, but also certain Catholics with a plausible form of error.

NOTES 2. When Donatus, Bishop of Carthage, died in the year 250, and in the twelfth year of Pope Fabian, St. Cyprian was placed in charge of the Church of Carthage; for, writing to Pope Cornelius in Letter 50,

Resolved after review per both witnesses: "Quod" opener, "anno 250.", "Fabiani Papa 12.". in the second year, from which, after Fabian had been removed by martyrdom, he had become Roman Pontiff, he testifies that the fourth year of his see had then elapsed: but when Pontiff Cornelius had been crowned with martyrdom after two years of his tenure under the Emperors Gallus and Volusianus, Lucius was appointed in his place; and when he likewise had sat for two years, as he was being led to martyrdom he gave all the power of the Church to his Archdeacon Stephen, who succeeded him in the Pontifical see. While he was sitting in the second year of his pontificate, peace having been restored to the Church through the extinction of the errors mentioned above, a great controversy arose among the Catholic Prelates on the occasion of the Novatians and Kataphrygians.

For when the Novatians, and before them the Kataphrygians, whom they had torn away from the Catholic Church, were accustomed to baptize again those whom they regarded as impure, this provoked certain Bishops, chiefly established in Africa, to emulation; and their Primate, St. Cyprian, so that those whom they received from the Novatians into the Church might baptize again as stained rather than cleansed by heretical Baptism; lest, by doing otherwise, they should seem to prove that among heretics there truly are Sacraments, and consequently a true Church, and lest they should offer heretics a free occasion to insult Catholics if Catholics approved the Sacraments of heretics: the heretics scorned as impurities what had been conferred by Catholics. Added to this and increased the stimulus was the fact that nearly all the passages of divine Scripture, drawn both from the Old and the New Testament, seemed to conspire in this very opinion, since God regards and rejects as more abominable whatever has been touched by the impious the more sacred it is.

But such a controversy did not first begin to be debated in Africa; rather, the first waves of this storm were stirred in the East, namely on the occasion that Bishops assembling at Iconium from Cappadocia, Cilicia, Galatia, and other neighboring regions had decided that none of the things done by heretics was to be received by the Catholic Church—not ordinations, not Baptism, nor any other sacred thing. Firmilian recalls this Synod in his Letter to St. Cyprian, in the words previously quoted and appended: Since some were doubting about their Baptism, who, although they receive new Prophets, nevertheless do not seem to know our Father and Son, we, many assembling together at Iconium, carefully discussed and confirmed that every Baptism whatsoever which has been constituted outside the Church must be rejected. By these words he indicates that this assembled Synod was against the Kataphrygians, who affirmed the Father and the Son, as Catholics did, but affirmed the Holy Spirit to be no one other than their author Montanus.

But I think it must be said that they rejected not only Baptism conferred by the Kataphrygians, but also that conferred by all heretics without exception: for it is clearly gathered from the Council of Nicaea, Canon 19, that the Baptism of the Kataphrygians was null and invalid. But if they had rejected Baptism conferred by heretics as invalid only because of a defect of form, and had firmly persisted in the opinion that it was to be rejected, what reason would there have been for Stephen to excommunicate them, as indeed there was?

For Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, in his Letter which is read in Eusebius, book 7, chapter 5, affirms in these words that Pontiff Stephen excommunicated all these Bishops who persisted in the opinion: *Stephen had earlier written a Letter to Helenus and to Firmilian concerning all the Bishops who were from Cilicia, Cappadocia, and Galatia, and from all the nations which were neighboring, that he could not communicate even with them. For they, he says, rebaptize heretics.

Stephen himself also proved this by deed. For when those Eastern Fathers, who by establishing these things had been deprived of communion with the Apostolic See, had sent Episcopal Legates to Stephen himself at Rome to give an account of what had been done in the Synod, Stephen neither received those Legates nor permitted them to be received by anyone, as Firmilian complains; and Firmilian, having been cut off from Apostolic communion, hurls against Pope Stephen many things unworthy of a Bishop and a Christian man in his celebrated Letter, where he says the following ironically:

For what could be more humble or gentle than to disagree with so many Bishops throughout the world: breaking with each one in a different kind of discord, now with the Easterners, as we confidently know was not hidden from us, now with us who are in the South, from whom he received Episcopal Legates quite patiently and gently, so as not even to admit them to at least a conversation of common intercourse; and, moreover, still most beloved and mindful of charity, to order the whole brotherhood that no one should receive them into his house, so that, when they came, not only peace and communion but also roof and lodging would be denied them.

That this Synod had previously been held at Iconium, before anything concerning this controversy was defined in Africa, is clearly attested by the aforementioned Dionysius in Eusebius, book 7, chapter 6, at the end.

This, nevertheless, I have learned, he says: that it was not only the Bishops in Africa who sanctioned this custom concerning rebaptizing heretics; rather, long before, in the memory of the Bishops who preceded us, in Churches celebrated with the greatest concourse of people, and in synods of the brethren, both at Iconium and in many other places where they were assembled, this decree was made; and we do not dare condemn their judgments and opinions.

Hence it is established that the sentence of excommunication meanwhile issued was not against the Africans but against the Easterners; and that those whose Legates were spurned were not the ones who came from Africa to Rome after the Synod of Carthage, but those who came from the East after those Synods had been completed.

Moreover, when Cyprian had held a Synod of his fellow Bishops at Carthage in the year 255, and in the second year of Stephen had been asked by certain Bishops of Numidia—as is clear from the Letter which he wrote to Januarius and the other Bishops of Numidia, which is Letter 70—to disclose what he and his colleagues thought about Baptism conferred by heretics, he writes to them as follows:

When we were together in Council, dearest brothers, we read your letter, which you brought back to us, concerning those who seem to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics, whether they ought to be baptized into the Catholic Church, which is one. Although in this matter you yourselves there hold the truth and firmness of the Catholic rule, nevertheless, because you consider that we should be consulted out of our common affection: we do not offer a new opinion, but join to you in equal agreement the opinion established long ago by our predecessors and observed by us, namely judging and holding with certainty that no one can be baptized outside, outside the Church, since there is one Baptism constituted in the holy Church, etc.

But when Cyprian noticed that many Bishops wished to preserve intact the traditions of their forefathers which they had received concerning this matter, thinking that they were being led astray by error, Cyprian, attempting to meet the disease with a greater remedy (which he thought he should address), held at Carthage a new but more celebrated Synod of 71 Bishops; he recalls it himself, writing to Jubaianus, Letter 73, in these words: What we had defined in the Council when many of us were present, what we had likewise written afterward to our colleague Quintus when he complained about the same matter, and what now too, when we had assembled together, we, the province of Africa, with the Numidian Bishops numbering seventy-one, have again confirmed by our opinion. But so that he might make the supreme Pontiff Stephen, still ignorant of this controversy, certain of what had been established in this fuller Council by the vote of all, he sent him by Legates previously dispatched to Rome all the decrees issued earlier, and the letters written on this matter to the Bishops of Numidia and to Quintus; as is clear from the Letter to Stephen himself, which is number 72.

Although Stephen's own letters do not survive, what he answered and wrote back can nevertheless be gathered tacitly from what Cyprian himself has in Letter 71 to Pompeius, Bishop of Sabrata in Africa, where he says:

Because you desired that what our brother Stephen wrote back to me in response to our letters should be brought to your knowledge, I have sent you a copy of his reply; when you have read it, you will mark his error more and more, for he attempts to defend the cause of heretics against Christians and against the Church of God; for among other things, either arrogant, or irrelevant, or contradictory to himself, which he wrote ineptly and imprudently, he also added this: "If therefore anyone comes to us from any heresy, let nothing be innovated except what has been handed down, etc.

St. Cyprian rebukes and assails this reply at length in that Letter, which, when Augustine had read it as written somewhat too ardently and less reverently against Stephen, and could not excuse Cyprian concerning each of the insults brought against Stephen, he preferred to cover it with silence rather than reopen it while the scars had not yet closed. Hence in book 5 of On Baptism, chapter 25, he mentions only St. Cyprian's earlier Letter to Stephen, in which there were no insults.

When Cyprian therefore saw that Stephen was resisting him, he did not hesitate to summon 87 Bishops from Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, and with them convened a third Synod at Carthage; there, with the votes of all counted, the prior opinion concerning rebaptizing those baptized by heretics was established and confirmed. You have the complete acts of this Council in the same St. Cyprian, and in St. Augustine, books 6 and 7 of On Baptism against the Donatists, where he thoroughly recounts the individual opinions.

It is evident that this Council was celebrated after the two aforesaid ones, and after Stephen’s Epistle, first because Cyprian’s Epistle to Jubaianus and to the Bishops of Numidia, and theirs to Cyprian, are read at the beginning of the Council: but these had been issued after the two earlier ones. Then because his spirit, stirred against Stephen, sufficiently appears at the beginning of that Council, where, without naming Stephen, he accuses him of calling himself the Bishop of Bishops. It remains, he says, that each of us should state what we think about this matter, judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he thinks differently. For none of us has constituted himself Bishop of Bishops, nor by tyrannical terror compels his colleagues to the necessity of observing.

By these words he seems to allude to what Stephen, following the custom of his forefathers, had said in his decree: that he was the Bishop of Bishops, and that he had sharply threatened with the penalty of excommunication those who thought otherwise than he had defined.

NOTED 3. Fifteen years after the consummation of the martyrdom of Saint Cyprian, who suffered in the year 261, the schism of the Donatists arose, namely in the year 306, which afterward declined into open heresy. For two principal errors of the Donatists are noted: first, that they said the Church throughout the whole world had been extinguished by the contagion of communion with the Traditores, and that it alone remained intact in Africa among the followers of Donatus; second, that against the definition of the universal Church they restored the dogma of rebaptizing not only those who had been baptized by heretics, but also those baptized by Catholics, whom they treated as betrayers of the sacred books and altars. Although they said that they did not baptize those approaching the party of Donatus, but gave Baptism, which had not previously been given, because they considered there to be none among Catholics, just as there was no other Sacrament; for they anointed again and imposed hands again, not only on lower Clerics, but also on Priests and Bishops, some of whom they reduced to the order of the Laity.

Moreover, since every heresy, when stirred up and tormented by the author of dissension, cannot preserve unity and concord, it is not surprising that, as Saint Augustine observes in Heresy 69, this sect of the Donatists was split into various parties, which also had different names, as we said. For some were called Maximianists, from Maximianus, the Pseudo-Bishop of Carthage; others Primianists, from Primianus, the Pseudo-Bishop of that same city; some Rogatists, from Rogatus, a Bishop in Caesarian Mauritania; the rest Montenses, or Rupitani, who held their assemblies around Rome in caves and clefts of mountains and rocks; they are also called Campitae or Campenses. Affiliated with this heresy was that which was called the Circumcellions, a rustic kind of people who raged with insane savagery not only against others but also against themselves. For through various deaths, especially precipices, waters, and fires, they killed themselves so that they might appear to be Martyrs, and provoked others to such madness. But since those sects boasted that the true Church existed only among themselves, they rebaptized those who approached them, even if they had been baptized elsewhere; and since they regarded the others as heretics, they rejected the Baptism conferred by them as invalid and void. All of them, however, supported and defended that perverse dogma by the authority of the teaching of Saint Cyprian, whom the universal Church venerated as a most holy Martyr.

With these matters presupposed, for greater clarity regarding what is to be said, one thing remains: namely, that we prove that faith is not a condition required in the Minister for him to confer a Sacrament validly, and consequently that Baptism conferred by heretics is not to be rejected.

One Conclusion. — THE MINISTER’S FAITH IS NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY FOR THE CONSECRATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF A SACRAMENT. This has been determined as a matter of faith in various Councils, especially the First Council of Arles, celebrated under Sylvester I in the year 314, Canon 8, where we read:

Regarding Africa, whose people use their own law so as to rebaptize: it has been decided that if some from this heresy come to the Church, the priests of our faith should question them about the Creed; and if they believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, hands should be imposed on them so that they may receive the Spirit. But if, when questioned, they do not > answer this Trinity, let them be baptized.

To avoid the force of this Canon and the condemnation of their error, the Donatists are believed to have substituted of the Arians for the word of Africa. From this substitution it is gathered that, since the Arian heresy was not yet known to the Western Church in the year 314, it is more probable that the First Council of Arles was celebrated in that year than in 326, as some Acts of that same Council report.

The Africans who opposed Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, were schismatics; from the schismatics came the Anabaptists; from the Anabaptists, the Trinitarians, who arose and were called Arians shortly afterward. They are therefore ordered to be rebaptized because the required form and invocation of the Trinity had not been preserved in their Baptism. For this is clear from the aforesaid words:

If some from heresy come to the Church, the priests of our faith should question them about the Creed; and if they believe that they have been baptized in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, only hands should be imposed on them so that they may receive the Spirit. But if, when questioned, they do not answer this Trinity, let them be baptized.

The First Council of Nicaea likewise established the same thing. For, as Saint Jerome reports in the Dialogue against the Luciferians near the end, it prohibited the rebaptizing of heretics, except the Paulianists, because they did not use the required and customary form; thus it decreed in Canon 19.

If anyone should flee to the Catholic Church from the Paulianists, and Kataphrygians, it has been established that they ought to be rebaptized. Those who were Clerics among them, if they have been found blameless and irreproachable, should also be ordained again by the Bishop of the Catholic Church. And Canon 8: If anyone wishes to come to the Catholic Church from the Novatians, it has been decided that hands should be imposed on him; and if they remain in the Clergy,

the Council does not order them to be baptized again, because they baptized with the proper form and matter.

Saint Jerome also reports in the same place that the Bishops who, with Saint Cyprian, had held in the three preceding Councils of Carthage that those baptized by heretics and schismatics ought to be baptized again, returned to the ancient custom of the Church, abandoning their former opinion and issuing a new decree that those heretics should not be rebaptized.

Likewise, in the First Council of Carthage, in the time of Julius I, when the Bishop of Carthage had asked his colleagues whether it was lawful to immerse again someone once dipped in water, all the Bishops said: Far be it: we decree rebaptisms to be unlawful and foreign to sincere faith and Catholic discipline.

Furthermore, in the Second Council of Arles, celebrated in the year 330, Canon 16 decrees that the Photinians, or Paulianists, ought to be baptized according to the institution of the Fathers. But Canon 17 decrees that the Bonosians, coming from the same error, whom it is evident they baptize as Arians in the Trinity, should, when questioned, confess our faith with their whole heart; it is sufficient to receive them into the Church with chrism and the imposition of hands.

The same was defined in the Council of Capua, or Capuan Council, celebrated around the year 377, which is mentioned by Saint Ambrose in the Letters, book 1, Epistles 5 and 9. Likewise, in the Third Council of Carthage, celebrated in the year 397 under Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, Canon 35 decrees: We also bring forward that command which seems to have been established in the plenary Council of Capua: rebaptisms, reordinations, or translations may not be performed.

Finally, this truth was defined in the Councils of Florence and Trent. The Council of Trent, Session 7, Canon 4 On Baptism, defines it thus: If anyone says that the baptism given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, with the intention of doing what the Church does, is not true Baptism, let him be anathema.

Proof of this truth first from Saint Augustine and Optatus, from various figures of the Old Testament by which it is prefigured that Sacraments outside the Church have validity. For first, the Church is figured by the earthly Paradise, and baptismal water by that spring and river which went out from the place of delight to water Paradise, and from there was divided into four heads. For, says Saint Augustine, book 2, Against Cresconius, chapter 13:

Just as, in the case of one of those memorable waters, it cannot be denied that it is the water of Paradise, although it is not only in Paradise, since it also flowed out from there, so, although the water of Baptism belongs to the Church, it has nevertheless also benefited those outside; when it is found among those who went out from us but were not from us.

The second figure is taken from the waters of the Flood. For, says Saint Augustine, book 6, On Baptism, chapter 39:

The water of the Flood was saving for those situated inside the ark, but deadly outside the ark; yet it was the same water. Why, then, he says, do schismatics or heretics not receive something heavenly, just as thorns or weeds receive rain? Just as those who were outside the ark did indeed receive the water coming from the cataracts of heaven, for destruction, not for salvation.

The third can be taken from the sons of Jacob, some of whom were born of legitimate wives, others of handmaids, yet all were called to the same inheritance. Hence Saint Augustine, in the question On the proceedings with Emeritus: We know, he says, that the sons of Jacob were called into one inheritance; all twelve Patriarchs were counted together, and no diversity of womb separated one from another, because charity united them all. What difference, then, does it make where you receive Baptism? Do not be proud; come to the inheritance. The fourth is taken from that passage of Numbers 16, where we read that, when the earth swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiron, together with the other schismatics rebelling against Moses and Aaron, the censers with which they offered incense to the Lord were not swallowed up; rather, at the Lord’s command, plates were made from them and placed in the corners of the Ark of the Testament. This is certainly a sign that, although schismatics are rejected, the Sacraments conferred by them are nevertheless not disapproved. Hence Optatus, book 6:

When, he says, the earth swallowed up those same sinners, the censers shaken from their hands remained, and plates were made from them and placed in the corners of the Ark of the Testament, because the name of God had been invoked there: thus, although schismatics are to be rejected, the Sacraments conferred by them are nevertheless not to be rejected, because the name of the most holy Trinity was invoked there.

Finally, the fifth can be taken from the Samaritans, who were among the Jews as heretics and schismatics are among Christians, and among both peoples Circumcision was in force, just as Baptism is in force among us. But the Circumcision of the Samaritans was not repeated when one of them approached the Jews. For, says Saint Augustine, in Epistle 203, which is addressed to Maximus, Bishop of the Donatists, if a Samaritan whom the Samaritans had circumcised could become a Jew, we would certainly be pleased by the boldness of repetition, and we would be compelled not to repeat, but to approve, what had been done among heresy yet had been commanded by God. Hence he concludes:

And if in the flesh of a circumcised man they would not find a place in which they would come, where they might repeat circumcision, because the same member is one and the same; much less will a place be found in one heart where the Baptism of Christ may be repeated: therefore, you who wish to duplicate Baptism, must necessarily seek double hearts.

Proof is given secondly, by the authority of the supreme Pontiffs, who taught that truth: first, indeed, from Stephen I in the Epistle which he sent in reply to St. Cyprian and the African Bishops, who had defined that those baptized by heretics were to be rebaptized: for although that Epistle does not survive complete, nevertheless we read a part of it in Cyprian in the Epistle to Pompeius, where he reports that Stephen wrote: If anyone comes from any heresy to them, let nothing be innovated, but let him be held as it was handed down: so that hands may be imposed on him for penance; for the heretics themselves, properly speaking, do not baptize those coming to them from one another, but only admit them to communion: Which sanction Vincent of Lérins commends most excellently in chapter 9, where he writes:

When all everywhere were protesting against the novelty of the matter (namely, that those baptized by heretics were to be rebaptized), and all the Priests in every direction, each according to his own zeal, were striving to do so, then Pope Stephen, of blessed memory, Bishop of the Apostolic See, resisted together with his other colleagues, but above all the others; judging it worthy, as I think, that if he surpassed all the rest only in devotion to the faith, he should surpass them by as much in authority of place. Finally, in the Epistle that was then sent to Africa, he sanctioned the same thing in these words: Nothing is to be innovated, except what has been handed down: for the holy and prudent man understood that the reason of piety admitted nothing else than that all things which had been received by faith from the Fathers should be entrusted by the same faith to their children, and that we ought to follow religion, not as we might wish to lead it, but as it led itself; and that this is proper to Christian modesty and gravity: not to hand down our own things to posterity, but to preserve what was received from our ancestors. What, then, was the outcome of the whole affair at that time? What indeed, if not a useful and solid one? The antiquity of the Sacrament was retained, and novelty was rejected.

— The other supreme Pontiffs decided the same, especially Siricius I in the Epistle to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona, chapter 1.

You have indicated, he says, that very many baptized by the Arians are hastening to the Catholic faith, and that some of our brothers wish to baptize them; this is not permitted, since both the Apostle forbade this to be done, the Canons contradict it, and the general decrees sent to the provinces after the Council of Nicaea by my predecessor Liberius prohibit it; and we, as it has been established in the Synod, join them to the Catholic assembly with the Novatians and other heretics by the sole invocation of the sevenfold Spirit and the imposition of the episcopal hand, which the whole East and West likewise observes: you too must in no way henceforth depart from this path, if you do not wish to be separated by synodal sentence from our Collegium.

— Innocent I likewise decided the same, Epistle 22 to the Bishops of Macedonia, chapter 4; Leo the Great, Epistle 79 to Nicetas, chapter 7; Anastasius II, Epistle to the Emperor Anastasius, chapter 7; and Gregory the Great, book 1 of the Epistles, letter 61, to Quirinus and the other Bishops of Ireland:

“From the ancient institution of the Fathers,” he says, “we have learned that those who are baptized among heretics in the name of the Trinity, when they return to the Church, are restored either by anointing with Chrism, or by the imposition of hands, or by a profession of faith. Hence the West restores the Arians by the imposition of hands, while the East restores them by anointing with holy Chrism for entry into the Church; the Monophysites and others are received solely on the basis of a true confession, because the holy Baptism that they received among heretics then receives in them the power of cleansing. But heretics who are not baptized in the name of the Trinity, such as the Bonosians and the Cataphrygians—because the former do not believe in Christ the Lord, and the latter, in their perverse view, believe the Holy Spirit to be some wicked man Montanus— and others like them, when they come to the Church, are baptized, because there was no Baptism in what they received without the name of the Trinity. But the Nestorians, who are baptized in the name of the holy Trinity, yet, being like the Jews in their perfidy and not believing in the Incarnation, blinded by the error of heresy, are to be instructed, when they come to the Church, in the truth and confession of the faith, etc.”

You will object 1. Various Canons of Councils, by which it is prescribed that heretics coming to the Church are to be baptized and ordained, and their Baptism and Ordination are rejected. Thus the Apostles decreed in Canon 26, in these words:

We command that a Bishop or Presbyter who receives the Baptism of heretics be condemned. And if a Bishop or Presbyter, if he has held Baptism according to the truth, baptizes him again, or does not baptize one polluted by the impious, let him be deposed, as one mocking the cross and death of the Lord, and not discerning true Priests from false. And Canon 68: If any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon receives a second ordination, let both he himself and the one who ordained him be deposed, unless it is established that he received ordination from heretics; for those who were baptized or ordained by such men can be neither faithful nor Clerics.

— Likewise at Nicaea, Canon 8 decrees concerning those who call themselves Cathari, that is, pure: if any come to the Catholic Church, it pleased the holy and great Council that, after receiving the imposition of hands, they should remain in the Clergy; or, as the second edition of the same Council has it: If any come to the Church from the Novatians, it was decreed that they should be ordained, and, if they remain in the Clergy. Therefore, although the Church admits their Baptism, nevertheless it rejects their ordinations as illicit and invalid. Likewise, Canon 95 of the Sixth Synod in Trullo says: Coming to the Church from heresy, we baptize them. Finally, it is established that the Carthaginian Council under St. Cyprian, and likewise the Iconian Council under Firmilian, decreed that Baptism conferred by heretics is nothing.

I deny the consequence, and I answer the Apostolic Canons: I concede that Baptism conferred by heretics who did not use the form, as the ancient heretics did, as St. Irenaeus reports in book 1 of Against Heresies, chapter 18, is rejected as invalid and null; I deny that this applies to Baptism conferred by heretics in the proper form and matter. For although that Baptism, when received by an adult through the ministry of heretics, is for the most part illicit and fruitless because of the evil disposition of the recipient, nevertheless it is valid. To the Nicene Canon I answer that by that imposition of hands an ordaining imposition is not understood, but a confirming one, which was prescribed for the Clerics of the Novatians, because the Novatians did not admit sacred Chrism and consequently neither the Sacrament of Confirmation, as Theodoret reports in book 3 of Heretical Fables. Or I say that that imposition of hands was not consecratory, but only reconciliatory, namely, a blessing by which Clerics previously unfit for ecclesiastical duties were received to perform them. This explanation certainly appears more likely: first, because St. Jerome explains the Canon in this way in the Dialogue Against the Luciferians, who denied that Arians should be received with their honors; for he writes: The Nicene Synod receives all heretics, except only the disciples of Samosata; which is a greater right: if a Bishop of the Novatians has been converted, he preserves the rank of the Presbyterate; secondly, because at the Second Council of Nicaea, Act 1, when it was doubted whether the Iconoclast Bishops ought to be received, and the aforementioned Nicene Canon had been read, Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, being asked what he understood by that imposition of hands, replied that it was perhaps only a blessing, not an ordination—where the word perhaps seems to have crept in through the carelessness of the Translator; finally, because in the same Synod and session it is concluded from the opinions of the holy Fathers that Clerics returning to the Church from heresy are to be received with the imposition of hands and restored to their ranks and honors; hence the Iconoclast Bishops, who had condemned images in the Ephesian conciliabulum, sat with the other Fathers after their booklets of confession and faith had first been given and read.

— To the Trullan Canon I answer that it rejects only Baptism conferred by heretics in an improper form, not that which has been received from heretics; for thus it prescribes in that Canon:

We receive heretics coming to the Church according to the custom and order of the ancients. We receive Arians, Macedonians, Novatians who call themselves pure, Tetradites, and Apollinarists, if they bring booklets and curse every heresy. Concerning the Paulianists, a constitution was made by the Catholic Church that they be rebaptized altogether. The Eunomians, who baptize with one immersion, the Montanists, Sabellians, and the remaining plagues who proceeded from the region of Galatia, coming to the Church, we do not receive as gentiles; first we make them Christians, secondly Catechumens, thirdly we exorcize them, after we have thrice breathed upon their face and ears; thus we initiate them, make them be counted in the Church, and hear the Scriptures, and then we baptize them. But the Manichaeans, Valentinians, Marcionists, and the like must make booklets and curse the heresy; and Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Severus, and the other leaders of heresies must do likewise, and so become participants in the holy communion.

— To the other Councils, namely the Iconian and Carthaginian, St. Augustine answers in book 2 of On Baptism, chapter 3, that they were Provincial Councils which were later proscribed by the general Council of the whole world.

The Councils themselves, he says, which are held in individual regions or provinces, should yield without any evasion to the authority of plenary Councils, which are held from the whole Christian world; and the plenary Councils themselves are often corrected by later ones, when some experience of events reveals what had been closed and what had lain hidden is recognized. Without any sacrilegious arrogance of pride, without any stiff neck of arrogance, without any contention of spiteful envy, but with holy humility, with Catholic peace, with Christian charity.

Moreover, St. Cyprian himself, after undoubtedly changing his opinion, would have condemned those Councils if he had learned that their Decrees had been proscribed by a universal Council. Furthermore, many Ecumenical Councils after him approved Baptism conferred by heretics; and consequently no force should be placed on St. Cyprian's authority in this matter, nor on the Councils celebrated by him. Hence St. Augustine, book 2 of On Baptism, chapters 8 and 9:

Cyprian, he says, at the end of his letter to Quintus, shows in what matter, as though on a little bed of authority, weary as it were, he rested: “This indeed,” he says, “Agrippinus, together with the other co-bishops, both established and confirmed after weighing the examination of the common Council; and we too have followed their religious and lawful judgment.” This testimony sufficiently shows that he would much more certainly have mentioned it if some transmarine or universal Council concerning this matter had taken place. For it had not yet been touched upon, because the whole world was held by the strength of custom, and this alone was opposed to those wishing to introduce novelty. Afterwards, however, while the matter was discussed among many on both sides and investigated, it was not only discovered, but also brought to the authority and strength of a plenary Council, after Cyprian’s passion, but before we were born.

You will object 2. Pope Anastasius was struck by divine vengeance because he admitted those baptized by heretics; for in Gratian, distinction 9, we read: Because he secretly wished to recall Acacius, and could not, he was struck by divine will. Add also that he approved the Sacraments conferred by him, as is clear in the preceding chapter, where the same Anastasius is reported, in Epistle 1, chapters 7 and 8, writing thus to Anastasius Augustus:

According to the custom of the Catholic Church, let your most sacred servant's breast acknowledge that no share of harm on account of Acacius touches any of those whom Acacius baptized, or whom he ordained Priests or Deacons according to the Canons, lest perhaps the grace of the Sacrament, handed on through iniquity, should thereby seem less firm.

— I answer that Gratian was deceived by the account of Anastasius's life taken from the Roman Pontifical, from which he drew this authority, and in which we read:

Anastasius II, a Roman by nation, lived in the time of King Theodoric; at that time many Clerics and Presbyters withdrew themselves from his communion, because he had communicated without the counsel of the Bishops, Presbyters, or Clergy of the Catholic Church with a Thessalonian Deacon named Photinus, who had communicated with Acacius, and because he secretly wished to recall Acacius and could not, he was struck by divine will:

This account, however, is wholly fabulous, and a true fiction added by the Laurentian schismatics to Anastasius's life; this is sufficiently shown even by the fact, as the Gloss notes on the aforesaid chapter, that Anastasius is said to have wished to recall Acacius, who had died long before. For from Evagrius, book 3, chapter 23, and Nicephorus, book 16, chapter 12, Acacius died in the time of Felix III, who had excommunicated him; Felix was succeeded by Gelasius, and Gelasius by Anastasius. How, then, could Anastasius think of recalling one whom he already knew to be dead? For in the aforesaid Epistle to Anastasius he himself writes that Acacius, dead, stands with Felix before Christ the Judge. Nor does he appear blameworthy as though he had agreed with the Emperor Anastasius and the other defenders of Acacius, as the Emperor Justin writes in his Epistle to Hormisdas, the supreme Pontiff; for Symmachus, the successor of Anastasius, indicates in his Apologetic letters that this is fictitious; there he says that he acts in conformity with his predecessors by excommunicating the holders of Acacius—which he certainly would not do if his predecessor Anastasius had favored them. Nor finally does he appear condemnable because he approved the Sacraments conferred by Acacius: for he did this because Acacius had administered those Sacraments in legitimate form and matter; and consequently they were not to be rejected. He proves this by six arguments: first, because in the Sacraments the power of Christ operates, which repels every stain. Second, from the rays of the sun, which, although they pass through dirty places, are nevertheless not defiled. Third, from Judas, who, although he was evil, nevertheless did many things that were held valid. Fourth, from the authority of the Lord, who commanded the words of the Scribes and Pharisees to be observed and fulfilled. Fifth, because every good thing, whoever does it, is done by God. Sixth and finally, because in the Sacraments one must not consider what sort of person or who confers them, but what he confers, because God alone supplies the increase. All these things contain Catholic doctrine; and therefore it is absurd to think that Pope Anastasius was struck by God on account of them. You will object 3. The same distinction, chapter 1, reports the authority of St. Leo the Great, taken from Epistle 37, where he writes: It is manifest that through the most cruel and insane savagery of Dioscorus and the other Heretics in the Alexandrian massacre, all the light of the heavenly Sacraments was extinguished: the offering of the sacrifice was intercepted, the sanctification of Chrism failed, and all the mysteries withdrew themselves from the murderous hands of the impious: therefore he judges that among heretics there does not remain the right to administer and confect the Sacraments;—likewise Pope Pelagius, as in the same place, chapter Schism, question 1, he says: It is not the body of Christ that a schismatic confects, if we are raised up under the guidance of charity. But he had prefaced: Those who do not have the spirit of the body of Christ cannot have the sacrifice.—Likewise from Innocent I, who in Epistle 1 to Alexander decrees that although the Baptism of the Arians is valid, nevertheless their ordinations are invalid and null. It does not seem, he says, that the Clerics of the Arians should be received with the dignity of any priestly ministry, since to those to whom alone we permit Baptism to be held valid, they have lost the presidency of the Spirit which they had received, nor can they give its fullness, in which it operates especially in Orders. Weighing this constitution, Peter Damian writes in Opusculum 6, chapter 22: In these decretal words it is plainly given to understand that in the promotions of Clerics the faith of the one ordaining is not without reason considered, since on it depends faithfully whether the ordination itself is judged valid or invalid. Finally, in distinction 1, question 1, chapter Daibertum:

From Urban II we find that Daibert, although ordained by Nezelon, a simoniac, was ordained a Deacon without simony, by his own confession; and by the judgment of blessed Pope Innocent it is established that Nezelon, ordained by heretics, had nothing and could give nothing to the one on whom he imposed hands. Strengthened by the authority of so great a Pontiff and reinforced by the testimony of Pope Damasus, who says that what was badly done ought to be repeated, we constituted Daibert, having departed from the heretics in body and spirit, a Deacon anew, as the need of the Church required; which we do not judge to be a repetition, but a complete giving of the Diaconate, because, as we have said, he who had nothing could give nothing.

Therefore, according to the judgment of the supreme Pontiffs, the conferral of the Sacraments by heretics is invalid.

I deny the consequence, and to the first I say that St. Leo speaks only of the licit, not the valid, administration of Mysteries and Sacraments: since, on account of that massacre, all the Prelates who favored Nestorius had incurred a sentence of excommunication, it was no longer lawful for them to take part in divine ministries and mysteries. — To Pelagius I say: it is not the body of Christ that a schismatic confects, with respect to the mystical signification by which the Sacrament of the Eucharist represents the unity of the members of the Church, both among themselves and with their head, from which is made one mystical body, which is the Church, according to the Apostle's saying, One bread, one body, we many are, who partake of one bread, I concede: for when this unity is severed and torn apart by schism, it cannot be represented by the Eucharist confected by him: it is not the body of Christ, with respect to the truth of the Sacrament, as though a schismatic Priest no longer had the authority and power to confect the Eucharist, I deny. — To the authority of Innocent I distinguish: I concede that he holds only the Baptism of the Arians to be valid, not their ordination as regards honor and dignity: for those baptized by them, after completing penance, were received into the assembly of the faithful and were fit to receive the other Sacraments, even Holy Orders; but the case is otherwise with those who had been ordained by them, for whom honor was not preserved, but who were reduced to the order of the Laity, nor were they permitted after their reconciliation to perform their offices and ministries: I deny that a character was imprinted in Baptism conferred by heretics but not in ordinations performed by them in the proper manner. Nor did Innocent certainly intend anything else, as is clear from Epistle 22, which is to the Bishops of Macedonia, chapter 1, where he writes: It is the law of our Church that to those coming from heretics, provided they have been baptized, we grant only lay communion through the imposition of hands, and appoint none of them to the honor or dignity of the Clergy. — The same solution satisfies the authority of St. Peter Damian. There he distinguishes heretics of two kinds: some sinned against the faith but did not depart from the faith, such as the Novatians; others departed from the faith, such as the Arians. Of the heretics of the first class he says that their ordination is valid, and that they are received in the Church with their honors and ranks. Of the Arians, however, he says that their ordination is invalid, and that they are not admitted into the Church with their honors; he proves this by the aforesaid authority of Innocent. — Regarding the touch of Daibert, ordained by Nezelon, the simoniacal Archbishop of Mainz, Urban II himself, who ordained him again, says that the prior ordination is to be evaluated according to the judgment of Pope Innocent and the testimony of Pope Damasus. Furthermore, according to the judgment of both Popes, an ordination of heretics legitimately performed is not to be repeated. Hence Daibert was reordained by Urban, because Nezelon either had not ordained him in the form of the Church or had not possessed the power of ordaining; and thus that ordination was altogether invalid, not through a defect of faith, but of order and of episcopal character, just as Damasus establishes in Epistle 1, where he decrees that those ordained by heretics are to be ordained again if they were ordained outside the form and rite of the Church, or by those who did not possess the power of ordaining. For he is inquiring concerning those who had been ordained by certain Chorepiscopi who were not Bishops; hence toward the end he gives the reason why these could not ordain: because, he says, he who did not have pontifical honor could not bestow pontifical rights.

You will object. 1. Certain of the holy Fathers seem to have disapproved of Baptism conferred by heretics: first, Dionysius, Bishop of the city of Alexandria, who, as St. Jerome testifies in his On Ecclesiastical Writers, agreeing with the doctrine of Cyprian and the Africans concerning the rebaptizing of heretics, sent many letters to various persons in which he defended that doctrine. Likewise, St. Athanasius, in Sermon 3 Against the Arians, seems to reject Baptism conferred by the Arians: “The Arians,” he says, “are in danger of losing the integrity of the mystery; I am speaking of Baptism. For an initiation that will be beneficial is given in the name of the Father and of the Son; yet they do not proclaim the Father of all things, since they deny that anything exists from him and that it is like his substance. They also deny the Son of all things, and, inventing another Son created from nonbeing, utter him in Baptism. How, then, could the Baptism they confer not be wholly vain and useless, since it is merely an appearance and an empty likeness, and by this very act they provide no solid assistance toward piety?” Then St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in the Preface to his Catecheses, says: “It is not permitted to use this Sacrament twice or three times: for there is one Lord, one faith, and one Baptism; for only heretics are rebaptized.” And Optatus of Milevis, book 1, near the beginning: “We know the churches of individual heretics to be prostituted, without any lawful Sacraments and without the right of an honorable marriage.” And below: “You said that it could not happen that one cleansed by a false Baptism should be defiled: etc.” Finally, St. Bernard, speaking in Sermon 66 on the Song of Songs about certain heretics, denies that they have the power to confect the body of the Lord Christ. Therefore the holy Fathers judge that there are no Sacraments conferred by heretics.

I deny the consequence, and to the first I say that St. Dionysius remained for some time in the position that he did not dare condemn the authority of the Councils of Iconium, Synadus, and the like; but he did not remain long in that position, since he came as mediator and suppliant and wrote to Stephen, the supreme Pontiff, to reconcile the Eastern bishops to him. This is certainly a sign that in this matter he was not obstinately hostile to Stephen. Add that he himself consulted Sixtus, Stephen's successor, whether he ought to rebaptize an old man baptized by heretics, who, having execrated their Baptism, requested to be baptized by Catholics, as is clear from his letter in Eusebius, book 7 of the History, chapter 8. Dionysius would not have acted thus unless he had embraced Stephen's position and abandoned the opinion of the African bishops; otherwise he would have baptized this man without hesitation, especially since he learned from him that he had been baptized by heretics outside the form of the Church. — To the second, I distinguish the major premise: Baptism conferred by Arians in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is vain and useless as regards the primary effect, namely grace, I concede; as regards the secondary effect, namely the character, I deny. That St. Athanasius must be explained in this way is clear from these words: they run the risk of losing the integrity of the mystery: for if their Baptism were truly invalid as regards all its effects, they would not be said to run the risk of losing the integrity of the mystery, but would be said without any doubt to lose such integrity. Or I say that he is speaking of Arians who, although they expressed the name of the Father and of the Son, perhaps added to them the names of Creator and creature, Maker and thing made; hence he adds: The Arians do not confer Baptism in the Father and the Son, but in the Creator and creature, in the Maker and thing made: therefore, just as the creature is something different from the Son, so what they suppose to be given by them is something different from true Baptism. — To St. Cyril and Optatus I reply that although they say without distinction that heretics are strangers to Catholic Sacraments and may be rebaptized, because their previous Baptism was nothing, nevertheless they must be understood with a distinction, namely, of heretics who were thought to err in the form. For Optatus, in book 5, plainly teaches that after the Trinity it is not permitted to baptize in the Trinity: What, he says, has made us laugh, that Baptism should be doubled not after us but after the Trinity, concerning whose Sacrament no slight dispute has arisen, and it is questioned whether after the Trinity it is permitted to do it again in the same Trinity? You say, it is permitted; we say, it is not permitted; between your “it is permitted” and our “it is not permitted,” the souls of the peoples waver. — As to the second, I say that he is speaking there of certain heretics who called themselves Apostolics; since they were not ordained priests, as is gathered from his calling them rustic, ignorant, and utterly contemptible, and from his saying that they disparaged the orders of the Church and considered all Archbishops, Bishops, and Priests to be sinners; although, I say, they were not ordained, nevertheless, while stirring up the heresy of the Manichaeans and scorning common foods as unclean and unworthy to pass into a Christian stomach, they asserted that they had the power each day at their table to consecrate the body of Christ, so as to nourish and foster themselves into the body and members of Christ.

You will object. 2. The opinion that Baptism conferred by heretics is to be received rests on no legitimate foundation; therefore it is not to be preferred to the other.

Proof of the antecedent: ecclesiastical dogmas must be founded either on Sacred Scripture or on Evangelical and Apostolic Tradition; but this is not so with this opinion, since it is expressly declared in no Scriptural texts. Nor does it rest on legitimate Tradition: for every legitimate Tradition descends from divine or Apostolic authority; but this is not so with the Tradition that Pope Stephen was showing. Nowhere in the Gospel, or in the Epistles or Acts of the Apostles, is it found that baptized heretics are to be received with only the imposition of hands; therefore that Tradition was merely human, and St. Cyprian, together with the African bishops, rightly resisted it.

I deny the antecedent, and the minor of its proof: for that Tradition is truly Apostolic. For, as St. Augustine teaches excellently, book 1 of On Baptism, chapter 21:

Whatever the whole Church holds, which was not instituted by Councils but always retained, is most certainly believed to have been drawn from Apostolic authority; but the most ancient custom always and everywhere held, before Stephen, that those coming to the Church from any heresy who had been rightly baptized were to be received without a new Baptism, and this was sanctioned by no Council, but by the unanimous consent of the whole Church; before Agrippinus, and he first corrected it, or rather corrupted it: nor was the novelty introduced by Agrippinus accepted everywhere, nor did it prevail among the Africans from Agrippinus down to Cyprian, as we said above. And above, chapter 5: We do not find anyone who, having been baptized among heretics, was admitted in that Baptism and communicated in the times of the Apostles; but neither do we find anyone coming from heretics who had been baptized among them and was baptized again by the Apostles. And in the same place: What we received from the Apostles, what the custom of the Church has always held, what the plenary Council confirmed, this we follow. — And book 2 of On Baptism, chapter 6: Do not set Cyprian's authority for the repetition of Baptism against us, but hold with us Cyprian's example for the preservation of unity. The question of Baptism had not yet been carefully examined,

Although the question of Baptism had been discussed, the Church nevertheless maintained a most firmly established custom: even in the case of schismatics and heretics, to correct what is wrong, not to repeat what has been given, to heal what has been wounded, not to treat what is sound; which custom I believe comes from Apostolic Tradition.» — Add to this that Cyprian himself, as well as his colleagues in the Council, openly acknowledged that custom and Ecclesiastical Tradition were opposed to them: for they repeatedly insist that custom must yield to truth; for there Libosus, Bishop of Vaga, giving his opinion, says: In the Gospel the Lord says, “I am the truth”; he did not say, “I am custom”; therefore, once the truth is manifest, let custom yield to truth. And Castus of Sicca: Whoever, despising truth, presumes to follow custom, is either envious and malicious toward his brothers, to whom the truth is revealed, or is much more ungrateful toward God, by whose inspiration His Church is instructed. Many other bishops in the same Council make the same statements, as can be seen in St. Augustine, book 3, On Baptism, chapter 7 and following.

You will press. That Tradition cannot be considered Apostolic whose contrary prevailed in very many Churches; but so it is. For Firmilian, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, objects the contrary custom to the custom of receiving those coming from heresy without a new Baptism in his letter to St. Cyprian. Having said: As regards rejecting the custom which they seem to oppose to the truth, who would be so insane as to prefer custom to truth? Or who, having seen the light, would not abandon darkness, unless perhaps, when Christ comes—that is, when truth comes—an exceedingly ancient custom should in some way aid the blind, because it remained in antiquity after the path of the new truth had been abandoned? Indeed, against Stephen you Africans can say that, having recognized the truth, you abandoned the error of custom, he immediately adds: For the rest, we join custom to truth, and to the custom of the Romans we oppose the custom of truth, holding from the beginning what was handed down from the Apostles, nor do we remember that this began among us; for it was always observed there that we should recognize only one Church of God, and count as Holy Baptism only that of the holy Church. Moreover St. Cyprian, in his Epistle to Jubaianus: It is not new, he says, or a sudden matter among us that we judge those who come from heretics to the Church ought to be baptized, since many years and a long age have already passed since, under Agrippinus, a man dear to memory, many bishops gathered together and established this: therefore the custom on which St. Stephen, the Roman Pontiff, relied was not Apostolic or universal.

I distinguish the minor: I concede that he was objecting to a custom truly handed down by the Apostles concerning the rebaptizing of those who had not been baptized by heretics with the proper form and matter; I deny it concerning those who had received Baptism from heretics with the legitimate form and matter. To Firmilian I reply that, moved by party zeal and resentment because he had been struck with excommunication by Stephen, the supreme Pontiff, together with his colleagues, he invents many things in that very Epistle to Cyprian which were not only wholly alien to the truth, but also displayed a manifest ignorance of ecclesiastical matters. For in the same place he asserts that Hermogenes, Cerinthus, and Basilides lived long after the time of the Apostles, although it is most clearly evident from St. Ignatius's Epistle 2 to the Trallians and Epistle 10 to the Smyrnaeans that those heretics were contemporaries of the Apostles. In the same place he also condemns the Roman Church because it celebrated Easter on a different day from that handed down by the Apostles, plainly favoring the Jews and the Quartodecimans, who had already been proscribed by the Church. Finally, he falsely supposes that Stephen and the Roman Church approved the Baptism of all heretics, namely the Cataphrygians and others who did not baptize even with the legitimate form of the Church. He likewise supposes that among the Easterners there prevailed a custom of rebaptizing all heretics coming to the Church, even those who had been baptized with the proper form and matter, which was wholly contrary to the truth. — St. Augustine replies to St. Cyprian, book 3 of On Baptism, chapter 12, that his opinion conflicted with his own action; for, he says: If the custom of baptizing those coming from heretics remained from Agrippinus down to Cyprian, why were Councils held by Cyprian concerning this matter? And why does he say to the same Jubaianus that he is not doing something new or sudden, but something instituted by Agrippinus? Why would Jubaianus be disturbed by novelty, so that he needed to be healed by the authority of Agrippinus, if the Church held this from Agrippinus down to Cyprian? Finally, why did so many of his colleagues in the Council say that reason and truth should be preferred to custom, rather than say that those who wanted to do otherwise acted both against truth and against custom?

You will object. 6. From St. Cyprian: he cannot validly baptize who cannot give remission of sins; but heretics cannot give remission of sins. — St. Augustine replies, book 5, chapter 2 of On Baptism, by distinguishing the minor: heretics cannot give their followers remission of sins because of a defect of power to confer Baptism, through which sins would be remitted, I deny; because of a defect of faith and charity in those receiving it, I concede. Therefore, he says, we agree with Cyprian that heretics cannot give remission, but can give Baptism; and this is of ruin to them, both to those giving and to those receiving it, as to those who misuse so great a gift of God: just as the malicious and envious, whom he himself testifies to be inside, cannot give remission of sins, although everyone admits that they can give Baptism.

St. Cyprian was pressing: Those who do not have the Holy Spirit cannot give remission of sins, since the Lord Christ said in John 20: As the Father sent me, I also send you; when he had said this, he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive, etc. But heretics do not have the Spirit; therefore, etc. — St. Augustine replies, book 2 of Against the Epistle of Parmenianus, that this oracle signifies that Baptism belongs not only through a man but also to the man, if after he had said: Behold, I send you, he had immediately added: If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; and if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained. But since it is inserted, when he had said this, he breathed and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit, and then it is stated that through them remission or retention of sins takes place, it is sufficiently shown that they themselves do not do this, but that the Holy Spirit does it through them, just as it is said elsewhere: For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit who is in you. The Holy Spirit is present in the ruler or Minister of the Church in such a way that, if he is not a hypocrite, the Holy Spirit works through him, both for his reward unto eternal salvation and for the regeneration or edification of those who through him are either consecrated or evangelized. But if he is a hypocrite, since it is most truly written, For the Holy Spirit will flee the hypocrite, he is deprived of his salvation, so that the Spirit withdraws from thoughts that lack understanding; nevertheless, it does not abandon his ministry, through which it works the salvation of others.

St. Cyprian was pressing: He cannot confer remission of sins even upon a well-disposed man who is stained by sins; for God does not hear a sinner, and no one gives what he does not have. — St. Augustine replies, in the same place, chapter 20: If what is said in the Gospel—that God does not hear a sinner—has this force, that Sacraments are not celebrated through a sinner, how does he hear a murderer praying over the water of Baptism, or over the oil, or over the Eucharist, or over the heads of those upon whom hands are imposed? Yet all these things both take place and have effect even through murderers, that is, through those who hate their brothers, even inside the Church itself. Since no one can give what he does not have, how does a murderer give the Holy Spirit? And yet he himself also baptizes inside; therefore God gives the Holy Spirit even while he baptizes.

St. Cyprian insists: He cannot perform and confer spiritual things who has lost the Holy Spirit; but a heretic has lost the Holy Spirit; therefore, etc. — Augustine replies, in the same place, chapter 21: If no one who cannot give the Holy Spirit can baptize, why does a murderer baptize inside? Or how does a murderer have the Holy Spirit, since everyone who has the Holy Spirit is enlightened, whereas he who hates his brother is in darkness until now?

He objects. 7. St. Cyprian, in his Epistle to Jubaianus: He who is baptized outside certainly receives what he believed; but one believing falsely cannot receive what is true; adulterous and profane, he receives according to what he believed. — St. Augustine replies, book 3 of On Baptism, chapter 11: When treating the integrity and holiness of the Sacrament, it does not matter what the one who receives the Sacrament believed or with what faith he was imbued. It matters very much for the path of salvation, but it does not matter at all for the question of the Sacrament. For it can happen that a man has the Sacrament intact and a perverse faith, just as it can happen that he holds the words of the Creed intact and nevertheless does not truly believe either about the Trinity itself, or about the Resurrection, or something else. Nor is it a small matter to hold the whole faith intact inside the Catholic Church, so that one believes nothing at all about any creature except what the truth contains about God himself. What, then, if someone baptized inside the Catholic Church later, by reading, hearing, and discussing peacefully, with the Lord himself revealing it, learns that he previously believed otherwise than he ought? Is he to be baptized again? Therefore, as St. Augustine rightly observes, book 6, chapter 1, St. Cyprian with his followers judged that the Baptism of Christ could not exist among heretics or schismatics for no other reason than that he did not distinguish the Sacrament from the effect or use of the Sacrament; and because its effect and use, in liberation from sins and rectitude of heart, was not found there, he also thought that the Sacrament itself was not there.

He objects. 8. In the Epistle to Pompeius: The Church and the Holy Spirit and

Baptism cannot be separated from one another; and therefore those who are separated from the Church and from the Holy Spirit must also be separated from Baptism. — St. Augustine replies, book 5 of On Baptism, chapter 23: if this is so, whenever someone has received Baptism in the Catholic Church, he remains in it as long as he himself remains in the Church; but if he departs from it, he has departed from Baptism. Yet this is not so: for that is why it is not given back to one returning, because when he departed he did not lose it. And just as evil sons do not have the Holy Spirit as beloved sons have it, although they nevertheless have Baptism, so heretics do not have the Church as Catholics have it, and yet they have Baptism. Therefore, just as Baptism can exist from which the Holy Spirit withdraws, so Baptism can exist where the Church is not.

He objects. 9. St. Cyprian: The power of Baptism cannot be greater or more effective than confession, than martyrdom; but the confession and martyrdom, or Baptism of blood, of heretics is of no benefit, although one confessing Christ was killed outside the Church; therefore Baptism cannot benefit either. — St. Augustine replies, book 1 of On Baptism, chapter 17, that the major is true as regards the effect of sanctification, but not the truth of the Sacrament: This is entirely true, he says; for one killed outside the Church is shown not to have had charity, of which the Apostle says: And if I deliver my body so that I may burn, but do not have charity, it profits me nothing. But if, because charity is lacking, martyrdom benefits nothing, it benefits neither those whom Paul said live inside in envy and ill will without charity; and yet they can both receive and confer true Baptism.

St. Cyprian presses: There is no salvation outside the Church. — St. Augustine replies, in the same place: Those who deny this therefore say that whatever belongs to the Church itself is of no avail for salvation outside the Church. But it is one thing not to have, another not to have profitably. He who does not have it must be baptized so that he may have it; but he who does not have it profitably must be corrected so that he may have it profitably.

He objects. 10. If the Baptism of heretics is approved, heretics will consequently think that they have the true Church, and therefore refuse to enter the Catholic Church; but he says:

Nor should anyone think that heretics, because Baptism is recognized in them, are delayed from coming to the Church as though scandalized by the name of a second Baptism; rather, by this very fact they are driven more strongly to the necessity of coming, by the testimony of the truth shown and approved to them. For if they see that by our judgment and decision it is decreed and established that the Baptism with which they are baptized there is counted just and legitimate, they will think that they also justly and legitimately possess the Church and the other gifts of the Church; and there will be no reason for coming to us, when, having Baptism, they seem to have the other things as well. But when they learn that there is no Baptism outside, and that remission of sins cannot be given outside the Church, they hasten to us more eagerly and promptly, and implore the gifts and endowments of the Church their mother, certain that they cannot reach the true promise of divine grace unless they first come to the unity of the Church.

— The Donatists pressed a similar argument, as St. Augustine reports, book 1 of On Baptism, chapter 11.

They also ask whether sins are forgiven through Baptism in the party of Donatus. If we say that they are forgiven, they answer: Therefore the Holy Spirit is there, because when he had been given to the disciples as the Lord breathed, this followed: Baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven him; if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained. And if this is so, they say, our communion is the Church of Christ. For the Holy Spirit does not work remission of sins outside the Church. And if our communion is the Church of Christ, your communion is not the Church of Christ. For there is one Church, whatever it may be, of which it was said: My dove is one, one is her mother's. Nor can there be as many Churches as there are schisms. But if we say that sins are not forgiven there, they answer: Therefore there is no true Baptism there; and for that reason you ought to baptize those whom you receive from us, and because you do not do so, you admit that you are not in the Church of Christ. — St. Augustine replies, first, book 5 of On Baptism, chapter 2. There he admits that those baptized by heretics can truly be saved; for when St. Cyprian had opposed to him: What, then, will become of those who in the past, coming from heresy to the Church, were admitted without Baptism? he replies: The Lord is powerful in his mercy to grant pardon, and not to separate from the gifts of his Church those who, simply admitted into the Church, fell asleep in the Church. St. Augustine weighs these words as follows: He rightly presumed that the charity of unity can cover a multitude of sins; but if they had Baptism and did not think rightly about other things, the charity of unity covered that error, as long as this disagreement was not diabolical but a human temptation. — He turns the argument back against them in this way: We resist them according to the Scriptures, questioning them so that they may answer for themselves what they ask from us. For I ask them to say whether sins are forgiven where there is no charity; for sins are the darkness of souls. We hear John saying: He who hates his brother is in darkness until now. But no one would create schisms if they were not blinded by hatred of their brother. Therefore, if we say that sins are not forgiven there, how is he who is baptized among them reborn? For what is to be reborn through Baptism except to be reborn from the old state, in which past sins are not forgiven? But if he has not been reborn, neither has he put on Christ; from this it follows that he seems to need to be baptized again, because the Apostle says: As many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ. If he has not put him on, he is not to be held baptized in Christ. But because we say that he was baptized in Christ, we confess that he put on Christ. And if we confess this, we confess that he was regenerated. If this is so, sins have been forgiven.

The Donatists were pressing, as St. Augustine reports, in the same place, chapter 10: Baptism of Christ conferred by heretics either generates children among those heretics or it does not generate them. If it generates them, then they have a mother Church, which was able to generate children from the Baptism of Christ; but since there ought to be one Church, it follows that they have the true Church. If we say that it does not generate them, St. Augustine says, they immediately mock: Why, then, are those who pass from us to you not reborn among you through Baptism, when they were baptized among us, if they have not yet been born? — St. Augustine replies, in the same place:

As though it generated from that by which it is separated, and not from that by which it is joined. For it is separated from the bond of charity and peace, but it is joined in the one Baptism. Therefore there is one Church, which alone is called Catholic, and whatever of its own it has in the communions separated from its unity, by the fact that it has its own in them, it itself certainly generates, not they; for their separation does not generate, but what they retained from it. But if they also abandon this, they do not generate at all. Thus she generates in all whose Sacraments are retained, from which such a thing can be generated anywhere, although not all whom she generates belong to her unity, by which she saves those who persevere to the end. For not only do those not belong to her who are manifest through the open sacrilege of separation, but also those who, bodily mixed within her unity, are separated by a most wicked life; for she herself had brought forth Simon Magus through Baptism, although it was said to him that he had no part in the inheritance of Christ. Did he lack Baptism, the Gospel, or the Sacraments? But because he lacked charity, he was born in vain, and perhaps it was expedient for him not to be born.

The Donatists pressed: If you accept our Baptism, what less do we have, so that you think we must be consulted about your communion? — St. Augustine replies, in the same place, chapter 11: We do not accept your Baptism because it is that Baptism of heretics or schismatics, but God's, wherever it is found and wherever it is transferred. What is yours, however, is only what you think perversely, act sacrilegiously, and separate yourselves impiously.

Objection 11. St. Cyprian: The Apostles, as we read in Acts 19, baptized again those who had been baptized by St. John the Baptist; but heretics are not better or greater than John the Baptist; therefore neither is their Baptism more efficacious, and consequently those who have been baptized by them must much more be baptized again. — St. Augustine replies, book 6, chapter 9, that those baptized by John were baptized again for no other reason than that John’s Baptism was not Christ’s Baptism, but one granted to John by Christ. Therefore those baptized by John had to be initiated anew by Christ’s Baptism because, as he adds in chapter 10, “Although I believe that John baptized in the water of repentance for the remission of sins in such a way that sins would be remitted in hope to those baptized by him, yet in reality this would take place in the Lord’s Baptism.” Hence, in the form of the argument, I distinguish the minor: heretics who baptize are not better than John the Baptist with respect to integrity of faith and holiness of life, I concede; with respect to the dignity and efficacy of Baptism, I deny. For heretics who baptize duly confer Christ’s Baptism, which is far better and more excellent than John’s Baptism itself.

The Donatists objected finally to the authority of St. Cyprian:

Cyprian, they say (in St. Augustine, book 1, On Baptism, chapter 1), whose great merit and great learning we know, together with many of his fellow bishops who exchanged their own opinions, decreed in a Council that heretics or schismatics—that is, all who are outside the communion of the one Church—do not possess Baptism; and therefore whoever comes to the Church baptized by them must be baptized in the Church.

— St. Augustine replies in the same place: *“I am not frightened by Cyprian’s authority, because Cyprian’s humility restores me. We indeed know the great merit of Cyprian, bishop and martyr. Concerning him, that same Cyprian speaks in his Letter to Quintus as follows: For neither did Peter, he says, whom the Lord chose first and upon whom he built his Church, when Paul disputed with him concerning circumcision,

whom the Lord first chose and upon whom he built his Church, when Paul was disputing with him about Circumcision. Afterwards he did not insolently vindicate something for himself, or arrogantly assume something, so as to say that he held primacy and that the newer and later ones ought rather to obey him. Nor did he despise Paul because he had previously been a persecutor of the Church; rather, he admitted the Council of truth and readily agreed to the legitimate reasoning Paul defended, thereby giving us an example of both concord and patience, so that we should not stubbornly love what is ours, but, if things are true and legitimate, should rather regard as our own those things that are sometimes usefully and beneficially suggested by our brothers and colleagues.» From these things St. Augustine infers:

If, then, Peter could compel the Gentiles to Judaize against the rule of truth that the Church afterward kept, why could Cyprian not compel heretics or schismatics to be baptized again against the rule of truth that the whole Church afterward kept? I think that Cyprian, the bishop, is compared with the Apostle Peter without insult, insofar as concerns the crown of martyrdom. Yet I must fear more that I may insult Peter: for who does not know that the primacy of the Apostolate must be preferred to any episcopate? But although the grace of the chairs differs, the glory of the martyrs is one, etc.”

It is asked. 1. Whether the peace and communion between Saints Stephen and Cyprian in that celebrated controversy concerning Baptism was dissolved and extinguished.

I respond, it is more probable that the controversy was debated while peace was preserved and mutual charity and fellowship remained in force, and that the bond of mutual communion and charity between the two was not dissolved: first, because St. Cyprian himself, most vigilant in mutual charity and concord, always preached that peace must be pursued in all things, as is clear from all his Letters written concerning this controversy; secondly, because on this occasion he himself wrote the book On Unity, namely to exhort all bishops to preserve peace and concord; thirdly, because at the Third Council of Carthage, which he convened on account of this controversy, he addressed the bishops at the beginning of the Council in these words: “It remains,” he says, “that each of us disclose what we think about this matter, judging no one or removing anyone from the right of communion if he thinks differently”; finally, because nowhere is it read that Stephen, the Supreme Pontiff, separated St. Cyprian or his bishops from ecclesiastical communion. Moreover, St. Augustine presses this truth with many arguments against the Donatists, schismatics and heretics; thus he writes in book 1 of On Baptism, chapter 6: “The obscurity of this question in the earlier times of the Church, before Donatus’s schism, compelled great men and bishops, fathers endowed with great charity, to debate and waver among themselves, at least somewhat, so that for a long time they altered the different decrees of Councils in their respective regions, until what was most salutarily sanctioned was established, doubts having also been removed, by a plenary Council of the whole world.” Hence in book 5 of On Baptism, chapter 20, he excuses the Letter written to Pompeius, saying:

Stephen had thought that those who tried to overturn the ancient custom concerning the reception of heretics should be avoided; but this man (he means Cyprian), moved by the difficulty of the question and endowed most generously with the entrails of charity, judged that one must remain in unity with those who thought differently. Thus, although moved, he was indignant in a brotherly way; nevertheless Christ’s peace prevailed in their hearts, so that no schism arose between them in such a debate.” Likewise, in book 1, chapter 2, he often rebukes the Donatists because they adopted Cyprian’s authority for their schism and rejected his example for the peace of the Church. And in the same book, chapter 5, he raises against himself the question of how they can hold the truth when they think differently in more obscure matters, or how they can accept the truth when they know that what they thought has been declared contrary to it. He replies: We hold the manifestation of these two things: one in Blessed Cyprian—namely, how he maintained unity with those from whom he thought differently; for at the beginning of his third Council he says: judging no one, or removing anyone from the right of communion if he thinks differently. But how could he have accepted the truth when it was discovered contrary to what he thought? And if the letters are silent, merits cry out; if the Letter is not found, the crown bears witness; if the Council does not indicate it, the fellowship of the angels does. For it is no small proof that, with a most peaceful soul, he merited martyrdom in that unity from which he did not wish to separate himself while thinking differently.

Moreover, in On the One Baptism, chapter 11, against Petilian, the leader of the Donatists, who counted St. Stephen among the Roman Pontiffs and admitted that he had conducted himself blamelessly, St. Augustine attacks him as follows: “Since Stephen not only did not rebaptize heretics, but also judged that those who did this or decreed that it should be done ought to be excommunicated, as the Letters of other bishops and of Cyprian himself show, yet Cyprian remained with him in the peace of unity: what will these men say here?” From this it is clear that both in Augustine’s view and among the Donatists it was entirely undoubted that Cyprian had not been separated from the unity of the Church by excommunication. The assertor of this truth, moreover, is not only St. Augustine, but also Vincent of Lérins against the Heresies, chapter 9, and St. Jerome in the Dialogue Against the Luciferians, where, speaking of the third Council convened by Cyprian, he says: “Let them know that he issued this matter without an anathema against those who refused to follow him; for he remained in communion with those who were opposed to his opinion.”

Moreover, he asserts in the same place that all the bishops, having returned to the ancient custom, issued a contrary and new decree. The clearest indication of this is that Firmilian himself, excommunicated along with the Easterners, sat in the famous Synod of Antioch against Paul of Samosata; and the Greeks venerate him as having died piously and holily in the peace of the Church, as is clear from their Menologion on October 28. Indeed, St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, testifies to them in Eusebius, book 7, chapter 3 and following, that St. Cyprian had not departed from St. Stephen in unity but in opinion, and says that he himself had been the mediator of that peace which was then established between the Easterners and the Africans with Pope Stephen in the following year, that is, in 259, when all those men had rescinded their former opinion so that they might agree with Stephen.

Nor is it valid to object to Firmilian’s words in the cited Letter, in which he repeatedly insists that Stephen was breaking peace with individuals by various kinds of disagreement, now with the Easterners ... now with you who are in the south, from whom he received legates, etc. Indeed, I have noted above that, overcome by indignation, he piles up many things against the truth there; and when Stephen had excommunicated him on account of the same opinion, he supposed from Cyprian’s complaints against Stephen that the same had been done by Stephen to the Africans. But the case was different: the Easterners, authors of this controversy, deserved a more severe rebuke, especially because, without regard for the decrees of their forefathers, they had confirmed by a formal vote a decree against the ancient custom; whereas Cyprian, although he formulated his decrees, always declared that he would preserve peace and unity.

Moreover, those legates who were rejected were not the ones Cyprian had sent, since he nowhere complains of this; indeed, he received Stephen’s letters by a messenger. I do indeed admit that Stephen threatened excommunication, but that he did not actually pronounce it is clear from what has been said.

You will ask 2. Whether St. Cyprian changed and revoked his opinion before his passion.

I respond. This appears more probable, because although that retraction does not appear in his writings, nevertheless no slight arguments persuade us of the very thing. First, because it is certain that not only the Easterners with Firmilian and Dionysius of Alexandria, but also the bishops who took part with St. Cyprian in three Councils of Carthage, revoked their opinion and adhered to the common Tradition of the Church, which Pope St. Stephen defended; but it is not probable that St. Cyprian alone would have wished obstinately to adhere to his opinion against the opinion defended and asserted by all the faithful throughout the world; therefore, etc. No one who knows St. Cyprian’s humility and piety will deny the minor: for how could a most holy man, without evident fault, oppose his private judgment to the common judgment of the Church? The major is established, first, concerning the Easterners and Dionysius of Alexandria, from Dionysius’s own Letter to Stephen, which is read in Eusebius, book 7, Letter 1, where, having changed his opinion, he calls the new depravity of Novatus the error of those who contended that persons baptized by heretics should be baptized again. The same is also clear from another Letter of his to Sixtus, Stephen’s successor, in which, as we said above, he consults him whether he could baptize a man baptized by heretics. It is also established from St. Cyprian’s colleagues; for St. Jerome writes in the Dialogue Against the Luciferians:

He attempted, he says, to flee from broken cisterns and not drink from another’s water; and therefore, rejecting the baptism of heretics, he directed an African synod on this matter to Stephen, then bishop of the city of Rome, who was twenty-sixth from Blessed Peter; but his attempt was in vain.

Finally, those very bishops who had decreed with him that heretics should be baptized again returned to the ancient custom and issued a new decree. Vincent of Lérins likewise bears witness to this in the first Commonitory, no. 51: “Finally, what force does that African Council or decree have? By God’s gift, none; but all of it, like dreams, like fables, like something superfluous, has been made obsolete, abolished, and trampled underfoot.”

It is proved secondly. From St. Augustine, who asserts the same thing in several places, especially Letter 48, which is addressed to Vincent, where after the middle he says:

Cyprian thought differently about Baptism from what the form and custom of the Church held; this is found not in the canonical writings but in his own writings and those of the Council. But Baptism cannot be separated from each other; and therefore those who have been separated from the Church and from the Holy Spirit must also be understood to be separated from Baptism.

St. Augustine replies, book 5 of On Baptism, chapter 23: If this is so, whenever someone has received Baptism in the Catholic Church, he remains in it as long as he himself remains in the Church; but if he departs from it, he has departed from Baptism—which is not so. For that is why it is not given again to one who returns: because when he departed, he did not lose it. And just as those who are evil sons do not have the Holy Spirit as beloved sons have him, although they nevertheless have Baptism, so heretics do not have the Church as Catholics have it, although they nevertheless have Baptism. Therefore, just as there can be Baptism from which the Holy Spirit withdraws, so there can be Baptism where the Church is not.

St. Cyprian objects 9. The power of Baptism cannot be greater or more efficacious than confession, which is martyrdom; but the confession and martyrdom—that is, the Baptism of blood—of heretics is not beneficial, even though one who confessed Christ was killed outside the Church; therefore Baptism cannot be beneficial either. — St. Augustine replies, book 1 of On Baptism, chapter 17, that its power is greater with respect to the effect of sanctification, but not the reality of the Sacrament:

This is entirely true, he says: for one killed outside the Church is shown not to have had charity, of which the Apostle says, “And if I deliver my body so that I may burn, but do not have charity, it profits me nothing.” But if, because charity is lacking, martyrdom profits nothing, it does not profit those either whom Paul says live within in envy and ill will without charity; Cyprian explains this, and yet they can both receive and administer true Baptism.

St. Cyprian presses the point. There is no salvation outside the Church. — St. Augustine replies in the same place:

Who denies it? And therefore whatever belongs to the Church itself is not effective for salvation outside the Church. But it is one thing not to possess something, and another not to possess it profitably. One who does not possess it must be baptized in order to possess it; but one who does not possess it profitably must be corrected in order to possess it profitably.

Objection 10. If the Baptism of heretics is approved, heretics will consequently suppose that they possess the true Church, and therefore refuse to enter the Catholic Church; but he says:

Nor should anyone suppose that heretics are delayed from coming to the Church because Baptism is administered to them, as though they were scandalized by the name of a second Baptism; rather, by this very fact they are driven all the more urgently to come, by the testimony of the truth shown and proved to them. For if they see that by our judgment and decision it is decreed and established that the true and legitimate Baptism is reckoned to be that in which they are baptized there, they will think that they also justly and legitimately possess the Church and the other gifts of the Church; and there will be no reason for coming to us, when, having Baptism, they seem to have the rest as well. But when they recognize that there is no Baptism outside, and that remission of sins cannot be given outside the Church, they hasten to us more eagerly and promptly, and implore the Church their mother for her gifts and endowments; certain that they cannot reach the true promise of divine grace at all unless they have first come to the unity of the Church.

The Donatists pressed a similar argument, as St. Augustine reports, On Baptism, book 1, chapter 11.

They also ask whether sins are forgiven through Baptism in the party of Donatus. For if we say that they are forgiven, they reply: > then the Holy Spirit is there, because when he had been given to the disciples by the Lord’s breathing upon them, this followed, and he said: “Baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”; “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven him; if you retain anyone’s, they are retained.” And if this is so, they say, our communion is the Church of Christ. For the Holy Spirit does not work the remission of sins outside the Church. And if our communion is the Church of Christ, your communion is not the Church of Christ. For there is one Church, whatever it may be, of which it is said: “My dove is one, one is her mother.” Nor can there be as many Churches as there are schisms. But if we say that sins are not forgiven there, then, they say, there is no true Baptism there; and therefore those whom you receive from us you ought to baptize, and since you do not do this, you confess that you are not in the Church of Christ.

St. Augustine answers first, in On Baptism, book 5, chapter 2, that St. Cyprian there admits that those baptized by heretics can in fact be saved. For when St. Cyprian had objected to himself: “What, then, will become of those who in the past were admitted to the Church from heresy without Baptism?” he answers: “The Lord is able, in his mercy, to grant pardon, and not to separate from the gifts of his Church those who were simply admitted to the Church and fell asleep in the Church.” St. Augustine weighs these words as follows:

He rightly presumed that the charity of unity could cover a multitude of sins; and if they had Baptism but did not think rightly about other matters, the charity of unity covered that error in those who judged that they had to be baptized again, so long as this was not a diabolical dissension but a human temptation.

He turns the argument back in this way:

“In these circumstances,” he says, “we resist them according to the Scriptures, questioning them so that they may answer for themselves what they ask from us. For I ask them to say whether sins are forgiven where charity is absent; for sins are the darkness of souls. Indeed, we hear John saying: ‘Whoever hates his brother is in darkness until now.’ No one would make schisms if they were not blinded by hatred of a brother. If, then, we say that sins are not forgiven there, how is the one baptized among them reborn? For what is being reborn through Baptism except being reborn from the old condition, from which past sins are not forgiven? But if he has not been reborn, neither has he put on Christ; hence it follows that he appears to need to be baptized again, because the Apostle says: ‘As many as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.’ If he has not put him on, he is not to be held baptized in Christ. But because we say that he was baptized in Christ, we confess that he put on Christ. And if we confess this, we confess that he was regenerated. And if this is so, his sins have been forgiven.”

The Donatists insisted, as St. Augustine reports in the same place, chapter 10: The Baptism of Christ conferred by heretics either generates children among those heretics or it does not. If it generates them, then they have a mother Church, which was able to generate children from Christ’s Baptism; but since there must be one Church, it follows that they have the true Church. If we say that it does not generate them, St. Augustine says, they immediately scoff: “Why, then, are those who pass from us to you not reborn through Baptism, when they have been baptized among us, if they have not yet been born?”

St. Augustine answers in the same place:

As though it generated from that from which it is separated, and not from that to which it is joined: for it is separated from the bond of charity and peace, but is joined to it in one Baptism. Thus there is one Church, which alone is called Catholic; and whatever of its own it has in the communions separated from its unity, by the fact that it has something of its own in them, it itself certainly generates, not they, for their separation does not generate. Rather, it is what they have retained from this Church; and if they also abandon this, they generate not at all. Therefore this Church generates in all those whose Sacraments are retained, from which such a thing can be generated anywhere, although not all whom it generates belong to its unity. It saves those who persevere in that unity to the end. For not only do those who are manifest through the open sacrilege of separation fail to belong to it, but also those who, bodily mixed within its unity, are separated by a most evil life. Indeed, it had itself brought forth Simon Magus through Baptism, although it was said to him that he had no share in the inheritance of Christ. Did he lack Baptism, the Gospel, or the Sacraments? But because he lacked charity, he was born in vain, and perhaps it would have been better for him not to be born.

The Donatists urged: If you accept our Baptism, what less do we have, that you think it necessary to seek counsel for us from your communion?

St. Augustine answers, in the same place, chapter 11: We do not accept your Baptism because it is the Baptism of heretics or schismatics, but God’s, wherever it is found and wherever it is transferred; what is yours, however, is only what you think perversely, act sacrilegiously, and impiously separate yourselves.

The eleventh objection. St. Cyprian objected: The Apostles, as we read in Acts 19, baptized again those who had been washed by St. John the Baptist; but heretics are not better or greater than John the Baptist; therefore their Baptism is not more effective, and consequently those baptized by them must be baptized again all the more.

St. Augustine answers, On Baptism, book 4, chapter 9, that those baptized by John were baptized again for no other reason than that John’s Baptism was not Christ’s Baptism, but one granted to John by Christ. Those baptized by John therefore had to be initiated again in Christ’s Baptism because, as he adds in chapter 10: “Although I believe that John baptized in the water of repentance for the remission of sins, so that sins might be remitted in hope to those baptized by him, in reality this would take place in the Lord’s Baptism.” Hence I distinguish the minor premise as stated: heretical baptizers are not better than John the Baptist with respect to integrity of faith and holiness of life—I concede; with respect to the dignity and efficacy of Baptism—I deny. For heretics who baptize duly confer Christ’s Baptism, which is far better and more excellent than John’s Baptism itself.

Finally the Donatists objected to St. Cyprian’s authority:

“Cyprian,” they say (according to St. Augustine, On Baptism, book 1, chapter 1), “whose great merit and learning we know, decreed in a council, together with many of his fellow bishops who compared their own opinions, that heretics or schismatics—that is, all who are outside the communion of the one Church—do not have Baptism; and therefore anyone baptized by them who comes to the Church must be baptized in the Church.”

St. Augustine answers in the same place:

Cyprian’s authority does not frighten me, because Cyprian’s humility refreshes me. We certainly know the great merit of Cyprian, bishop and martyr. Concerning him, Cyprian himself speaks in this way in his Letter to Quintus: “For neither did Peter,” he says, “whom the Lord first chose and > upon whom he built his Church, when Paul disputed with him about circumcision, afterward vindicate anything for himself insolently or arrogate anything proudly, saying that he held primacy and that new and later men ought rather to obey him. Nor did he despise Paul because he had previously been a persecutor of the Church; but he admitted the council of truth and readily consented to the legitimate reasoning that Paul asserted, thereby giving us a lesson in both concord and patience, so that we should not stubbornly love our own opinions, but should rather regard as our own those things that our brothers and colleagues sometimes usefully and salutarily suggest, if they are true and legitimate.”

From these words St. Augustine infers:

If, then, Peter could compel the Gentiles to Judaize against the rule of truth that the Church afterward maintained, why could Cyprian not compel heretics or schismatics to be baptized again against the rule of truth that the whole Church afterward maintained? I think that, without insulting Cyprian the bishop, he may be compared with the Apostle Peter as far as concerns the crown of martyrdom. Yet I must be more afraid of insulting Peter: for who does not know that the primacy of the apostolate is to be preferred to any episcopate? But although the grace of the chairs differs, the glory of the martyrs is one, etc.

You will ask first. Whether peace and communion between St. Stephen and Cyprian remained intact and undisturbed during that celebrated controversy over Baptism?

I answer that it is more probable that the controversy was debated with peace preserved and mutual charity and fellowship still active, and that the bond of mutual communion and charity between the two was not broken. First, because St. Cyprian himself, an exceptionally vigilant guardian of mutual charity and concord, always preached that peace must be pursued in all things, as is clear from all his letters written concerning such a controversy. Secondly, because on this occasion he wrote the book On Unity, in order to exhort all his fellow bishops to preserve peace and concord. Thirdly, because in the third Council of Carthage, which he held on account of this controversy, he addressed his fellow bishops at the beginning of the council in these words: “It remains,” he says, “that each of us disclose what we think about this matter, judging no one and removing no one from the right of communion if he thinks differently.” Finally, because nowhere is it read that Stephen, the supreme pontiff, separated St. Cyprian or his fellow bishops from ecclesiastical communion.

Moreover, St. Augustine presses this truth with many arguments against the schismatic and heretical Donatists. Thus he writes in On Baptism, book 1, chapter 6: “The obscurity of this question in the earlier times of the Church, before Donatus’s schism, compelled great men and bishop-fathers endowed with great charity to dispute and waver among themselves while preserving peace, so that for a long time the differing decrees of councils in their respective regions were changed, until what was most salutarily decreed by a plenary council of the whole world was established even after doubts had been removed.” Hence, in On Baptism, book 5, chapter 20, he excuses the letter written to Pompeius, saying:

Stephen had judged that those who tried to overturn the ancient custom concerning the reception of heretics should be avoided; but this man (he means Cyprian), moved by the difficulty of the question and endowed most abundantly with the entrails of charity, judged that one should remain in unity with those who thought > differently. Thus, although he was moved and indignantly displeased in a brotherly way, the peace of Christ nevertheless prevailed in their hearts, so that no schism arose between them in such a dispute.

Likewise, in book 2, he often reproaches the Donatists for adopting Cyprian’s authority for their schism while rejecting his example for the peace of the Church. In the same book, chapter 5, he objects to himself how they can hold the truth when they think differently about more obscure matters, or how they can accept the truth when they recognize that what they thought has been declared contrary to it. He answers:

Of the two [things] we have manifested: one in Blessed Cyprian, namely, how he maintained unity with those from whom he differed in opinion; for he says (at the beginning of his third Council): “judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently.” But the other [question is] how he could have accepted a truth discovered against what he held? And if the letters are silent, his merits cry out: if the Epistle is not found, the crown gives testimony; if the council does not point it out, the fellowship of angels does. For it is no small proof that, with a most peaceful soul, he deserved martyrdom in that unity from which he did not wish to separate himself while thinking differently.

Moreover, in On the Singular Baptism, chapter 11, against Petilian, the leader of the Donatists, who counted Saint Stephen among the Roman Pontiffs and acknowledged that he had acted blamelessly, Saint Augustine attacks him as follows:

Since Stephen not only does not rebaptize heretics, but even judges that those who do this, or decree that it should be done, ought to be excommunicated, as the Epistle of the other Bishops and of Cyprian himself shows, did Cyprian nevertheless remain in the peace of unity with him? What will these men say here?

From this it is clear that it was beyond doubt both for Augustine and for the Donatists that Cyprian had in no way been separated from the unity of the Church by excommunication. Saint Augustine is not the only defender of this truth: so too is Vincent of Lérins, Against Heresies, chapter 9, and Saint Jerome in the Dialogue Against the Luciferians, where, speaking of the third Council held by Cyprian, he says: let them know that he issued these things without anathematizing those who refused to follow him; for he remained in communion with those who were opposed to his opinion.

Moreover, in the same place he asserts that all the Bishops had returned to the ancient custom and issued a contrary and new decree. The clearest indication of this is that Firmilian himself, though excommunicated with the Easterners, sat in the celebrated Antiochene Synod against Paul of Samosata; and the Greeks piously and solemnly honor him as one who died in the peace of the Church, as is clear from their Menologion on October 28.

Indeed, Saint Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, expressly testifies before Eusebius, book 7, chapter 3 and following, that Saint Cyprian did not depart from unity with Saint Stephen, but only from his opinion; and he says that he was the initiator of the peace which was made the following year, that is, in 259, between the Easterners and the Africans and Pope Stephen, when all of them withdrew their former opinion so that they might agree with Stephen.

Nor can one object to Firmilian’s words in the aforementioned Epistle, in which he repeatedly insists that Stephen was breaking peace with individuals by various kinds of disagreement, now with the Easterners … now with you who are in the south, from whom he received legates, etc. Indeed, I noted above that he [indiCyprianum] would have consented to the authority of the whole world if such a plenary Council had been held in his time.

I answer secondly by denying the minor: for the Council of Arles was not convened from the regions of the whole world, but from the West alone—indeed, only from certain parts of the West, namely Italy, Africa, Spain, Britain, and Gaul—and therefore only 26 Bishops appear to have subscribed to that Council; for although Ado lists six hundred, everyone rejects that number. To Saint Augustine I say that by that Transmarine Council he does not mean a Council actually held, but one which the Donatists could have requested; yet they did not do so—or, if that Council really was granted to them, which Saint Augustine nevertheless does not admit, they were condemned in it, since the whole world does not communicate with them. Hence, after the words quoted in the objection, he says:

If this was not done, the fault belongs to those by whom it ought to have been done, not to the whole world, which would not have been ignorant of something not brought before it. But if it was done, what fault did the ecclesiastical judges commit, who ought in no way to condemn crimes, even if true and reported to them, when they themselves had not found them proved? Could evil men pollute those to whom they could not be made manifest? But if they were made manifest to them, and through either negligence or restraint they did not wish to remove such men from communion, and even pronounced judgments in their favor by a perverse decision, what fault did the whole world commit, which did not know that that case had had many judges and did not believe them to have judged badly, since it could not judge those judges?

From this it is evident that by the transmarine judgment Saint Augustine did not understand the Synod of Arles; for he speaks hesitantly and waveringly about that transmarine judgment, on the hypothesis that it had taken place. But it was utterly clear to Saint Augustine that the Council of Arles had actually been convened, in which he repeatedly testifies that Caecilian had been acquitted and the Donatists who accused him condemned.

You will insist. The second Council of Arles, held in the year 330, as Peter Saxius holds, expressly signifies in Canon 18 that prelates gathered from all parts of the world sat in the first Synod of Arles; for he says: At the discretion of the Bishop of Arles, a Synod was to be convened, and we read that a Council and assembly was held in that city, to which people from all parts of the world, especially from Gaul, were gathered in the time of Saint Martin (Marinus), etc. Therefore the first Council of Arles ought truly to be considered a plenary Council of the whole world.

I deny the consequence: for that Council was convened only from the Latin world, indeed from only a certain part of the Latin world. This appears not only from what has been said, but especially from the Epistle of the Bishops of that first Council of Arles to Pope Sylvester; they do not say that they were gathered from all parts of the world, but from various parts: As the Provinces from which we have assembled are diverse, they say, so too are the concerns that affect us, which we think ought to be observed. Nor is it an objection that in Constantine’s Epistle to Crescens, Bishop of Syracuse, according to Valesius’s version, we read from diverse and almost infinite places; for in another version, found in the recent edition of the Councils, we read from many diverse places. Nor can anything else certainly be inferred from the Bishops’ own Epistle: there are only 26 Bishops who subscribed that Synodal Epistle.

You will insist. Saint Augustine, speaking of the controversy that arose between Primian and Maximian, the Carthaginian pseudo-Bishops—of whom the Donatist Bishops had condemned the former by one hundred votes, while three hundred had acquitted him—compares Caecilian, the legitimate Bishop of Carthage, with them and writes: But if perhaps the number moves you, so that you think the Bagai Council ought to prevail against the one hundred by whom Primian was condemned because there were three hundred and ten in it, why are you unwilling to agree with the greater number of Bishops of the whole world? By this he signifies that Caecilian’s case was weighed by Bishops gathered from the whole world; but Caecilian’s case was nowhere discussed or defined by a numerous gathering of Bishops except in the Synod of Arles. Therefore he truly considers the Synod of Arles a Council of the whole world.

I deny the sequel of the major: for Saint Augustine does not refer this greater number of Bishops to those who judged, but to those who believed the judges and, believing them, held that Caecilian was truly innocent and free from all the charges brought against him by the Donatists. Hence he does not say, “why are you unwilling to agree with the greater number of Bishops?” but rather, “why are you unwilling to agree with the greater number of Bishops”—namely, those who believe Caecilian to have been legitimately acquitted? In this sense he said in Against Cresconius, book 2, chapter 61:

All the Catholic Christians who then existed, whether spread near at hand or throughout distant lands, far and wide, to whom the report about Caecilian and his colleagues could reach, ought to have believed not the defeated accusers but the ecclesiastical judges; because, when we cannot all be judges, we more rightly believe those who were able to be judges, than, by believing the defeated litigants, whose judges we could not be, dare to judge those judges themselves.

You will press the point. If anything prevented the Council of Arles from being called not only universal but also ecumenical for the whole world, it would especially be the fact that Bishops from the whole world were summoned to it but did not assemble. Yet this is no obstacle: the first Council of Constantinople was constituted only by Eastern Bishops, and nevertheless it is called ecumenical and general. By the same reasoning the Council of Trent could not be called universal and ecumenical, because no one from the East attended and a large part of the West was absent. Why, then, should Arles not likewise be considered at least universal, although it was celebrated with Bishops summoned from the West, if not ecumenical?

I deny the minor, and for its proof I say that the first Council of Constantinople is called general and ecumenical because it was joined with the Roman Council held at the same time under Pope Damasus, consisting of Western Bishops who could not attend Constantinople, while the Easterners could not attend Rome; nevertheless the two Councils had approved the same things concerning matters of faith, and the decrees enacted at Constantinople were sent to Rome for approval. Regarding the Council of Trent, I say that it should not seem surprising that the prelates of the Eastern Church themselves were not present, since it was held at a time when the East was schismatic; nor were those Bishops such as could be summoned, or who would have wished to assemble when summoned, because they had withdrawn from the authority of the Pope who summoned them. For that reason it did not cease to be plenary, even though the Easterners were absent. Nevertheless, ten of them are noted as having attended by name, among them Macarius Chiensis, the Greek Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was admitted with the Latins after making a profession of faith and due submission.

Secondly, this plenary Council was neither the Alexandrian Council held in 362, nor the Constantinopolitan Council held in 381, nor the Capuan Council held in 377—or, as Baronius holds, in 380—for, as we said in the second observation, the Council in which the error of the rebaptizers was proscribed was held before Saint Augustine’s birth. Saint Augustine was born in 354, or at the latest in 357, and consequently before the aforementioned Councils were convened.

Thirdly, still less did Saint Augustine understand by the name “plenary Council” the Bagai Council held in 310 by Donatist Bishops to settle the schism that had arisen among them. For although Saint Augustine calls this Council in several places now plenary, now universal—especially in book 2 of Against the Letter of Parmenian, chapter 3, where he writes: What, then, do they put forward that cannot be twisted in that very matter, unless perhaps from the mouth of the asp, of which the Dictator of that judgment of the plenary Council, in which they had assembled with all the Provinces of Africa, remembered long before?—and a little below describes them thus: These Maximianists, shut in by the mouth of the plenary Council of thirty and ten, by the same judgment of their plenary Council, said such things. He has the same in book 2, chapter 1, and often elsewhere. Yet, I say, although he assigns the designation “plenary” to this Council, he does not call it plenary simply and absolutely, but the plenary Council of the Donatists; thus in book 3 of On Baptism, chapter 2, he says: the Maximianists condemned by their plenary Council, etc.; and in Against the Letter of Parmenian, book 2, chapter 2: they pronounced the judgment of their plenary Council, etc.; and in Against the Letters of Petilian, book 2, chapter 15: the judgment of your plenary Council is witness.

I can add that, when the Donatists asserted with perverse presumption that the Church had perished throughout the world and alone remained whole in the hands of their rulers in Africa, they wanted the passage in Song of Songs 1 to be understood of their Church alone, where the Church mystically addresses Christ, her divine Bridegroom, saying: “Tell me where you lie, where you pasture at midday,” because Africa is the southern part of the world. When, I say, the Donatists were so foolish, Saint Augustine does not seriously or in his own sense call that Council universal and plenary, but does so from the Donatists’ false imagination, because all the Donatists had assembled in it, and they called their own Church universal and plenary. Thus he writes in book 4 of Against Cresconius, chapter 8.

Since, then, I said that if you had any true documents, you ought to have had the Catholic Church approve them, so that you might be within; while those whom you convicted would be driven out, what is the meaning of your reply that the separation occurred because we were driven out, while your people remained in the Plenary and Catholic Church?

And immediately afterward, mocking this same assumed notion of their plenary Church:

If the Maximianists themselves say this to you in exactly these words, what will you answer, except that they are not worthy of refutation but only of ridicule—those who dare to assert that the Plenary Church consists of fewer than one hundred Bishops, against such a great number and multitude over which more than three hundred preside? Throughout all the regions of Africa where the Maximianists are found, the communion of Primian did not cease; but throughout the other, much more numerous and much broader parts of Africa, no one finds a single Maximianist, except perhaps a traveler. Why, then, do you dare, against the Church promised and restored by the voice of truth from the rising of the sun to its setting, to call the part of Donatus the Plenary Church, when it is nothing but Africa, whereas that Church includes so many nations and Africa as well?

From this it is clear how the Donatists recognized the Plenary Church and the Catholic Church as nothing other than their own, although it was confined within African boundaries alone. What wonder, then, if they understood “Plenary Council” in their own sense as referring to the universal Church which they imagined and shamelessly claimed to be contained only in their part? In precisely this sense Augustine used “Plenary” and “Catholic” ironically in all the places mentioned above, according to their way of thinking—not because he thought that “plenary” could be taken for a provincial, regional, or non-ecumenical Council; for otherwise, in the many places previously cited, he would not have explained this very word so clearly in his own sense of the whole world or the universal Church, so that in Against the Letters of Petilian, book 1, chapter 22, he calls the unity of the Church spread through so many nations “Plenary and Catholic.”

Fourthly, by “plenary Council” Saint Augustine did not understand the Council of Sardica: first, because no Sardican Canon is read that prohibits the repetition of Baptism; and second, because Saint Augustine does not seem to have acknowledged any Council of Sardica other than the Sardican assembly held by the Arians at the same time as the legitimate Council was being held at Sardica. This is gathered from book 3 of Against Cresconius, chapter 31. For when the Donatists boasted that the name of Donatus, Bishop of Carthage, was inscribed at the beginning of the Synodal Epistle of the Council of Sardica, and that the Eastern Bishops therefore communicated with them, Saint Augustine replies: “Learn, then, what you do not know: the Council of Sardica was Arian,” etc. Hence he adds the reason why certain Eastern Bishops communicated with the Donatists, namely, he says: “The Eastern heresy attempted to join the African heresy to itself.”

Finally, by the name “plenary Council,” St. Augustine understood none other than Nicaea. This was so clear and manifest to those who edited St. Augustine’s works that, whenever the text says “plenary,” they noted in the margin none other than Nicaea. It was so evident to Maldonado, when he discusses the Sacrament of Baptism, that from the many testimonies of St. Augustine cited by him he asserted that it must necessarily be understood of Nicaea wherever the holy Doctor speaks of the plenary Council; and it was ultimately so evident to Bellarmine that he affirmed there was no reason for doubt, since he explicitly says that the Council was celebrated before his birth and that no Council other than Nicaea could have been, or could be imagined to have been, designated by both those remarkable expressions.

It is proved further, first, because all the marks by which St. Augustine designates this Council—especially that it was a Council of the whole Christian world—fit Nicaea exceedingly well. For St. Athanasius, in the Apology 2, calls the Council of Nicaea the great Synod, and writes of it in the Letter he directs to those very Africans that it filled the whole inhabited earth, or the entire world; not only the Indians knew of it, but all the Christians known among every other people and among the barbarians. Moreover, in the Synodal Letter concerning the Synods of Rimini and Seleucia addressed to the Emperor Constantius, which he himself possesses, we read of the Council of Nicaea that its doctrine penetrated the ears or minds of everyone, or, as it was publicly proclaimed, penetrated wherever there are lands. It is therefore no slight indication that this controversy, which had divided the Africans by so dreadful and pernicious a schism, was treated in this universal Council not long after the controversy over rebaptizing heretics had arisen and after the Synod of Arles had been celebrated; especially since Caecilianus was present, whom the Donatists pretended was above all the occasion of so grave a contention.

Second, the same St. Athanasius writes in his Letter to Epictetus that all heresies had been overthrown in the Council of Nicaea:

“I thought,” he says, “that all the empty vanity of all the heretics who have existed or now exist had been restrained and laid to rest by the Council of Nicaea. For the faith handed down there by the Fathers according to the Scriptures is sufficient to overthrow every impiety and to establish the piety of the faith that is in Christ.”

Shortly below he adds: No Synod in the Catholic Church is to be esteemed except the one Nicaean Synod, which must be regarded as the trophy of all the heresies overthrown, and especially of the Arian heresy. But how is it said to be sufficient for overthrowing every heresy, not merely the Arian heresy, if it proscribed the heresy of the Donatists, or of the rebaptizers, about which so many disputes and disturbances had recently arisen, not at all? How did it crush all the empty talk of every kind of heretic, overthrow all impiety and irreligion, establish every pious faith in Christ the Lord, and finally become the general trophy of all heresies, if it decreed absolutely nothing against some of them, and especially against the rebaptizers?

Third, St. Jerome, in the Dialogue against the Luciferians, chapter 9, answering the Luciferian’s question expressed in chapter 8—“Why are those baptized by heretics received?”—after a lengthy response in which he also recalls the controversy between SS. Stephen and Cyprian, finally concludes: The Nicaean Synod also received all heretics, except the disciples of Paul of Samosata, etc. But how were absolutely all heretics, except the disciples of Paul of Samosata, received in that Council because they had not received Baptism in the name of the Trinity, if nothing at all was dealt with there concerning the Baptism of the Africans and the controversy of the Donatists?

Finally, this Council, which St. Augustine calls plenary, was general and Ecumenical, as we have already said, and was celebrated before St. Augustine’s birth. But before Augustine was born, no other general Council besides Nicaea had been celebrated that was known to St. Augustine; nor, as has been said, was he entirely ignorant of the legitimate Council of Sardica.

You will say. St. Augustine understood that Council whose Canons he knew. But the Canons of the Council of Nicaea were not known to him before the Sixth Council of Carthage; for when a dispute arose there concerning an appeal to the supreme Pontiff, which was reported to be permitted and approved in the Council of Nicaea, he ordered the Canons of the Council of Nicaea to be sought from the principal Sees—that is, Alexandria and Constantinople—in order that what had been decreed in it might become clear. Therefore St. Augustine did not know what had been decreed in the Nicaean Synod.

I answer the minor premise that, if Augustine had not known what had been decreed in the Nicaean Synod before its Canons had been sought from the principal Sees, it would follow that, after the Canons were found, he was no better informed about what had been decreed in that Synod concerning the rebaptism of heretics, because no more Canons were found in those Sees than the ones that are in circulation. Nevertheless, it is clear from the considerations we have just brought forward that something had been determined concerning this controversy. St. Augustine could therefore have known well what had been done in the Council of Nicaea concerning the controversy of the Donatists, either from its fame spread throughout the whole world, according to the testimony of St. Athanasius, and especially throughout Africa, since Caecilianus had been present at that Council and knew what had been decreed there regarding the matter that especially concerned the Africans, so that after some time it could reach Augustine’s knowledge through the tradition of others while he himself was living in Africa. Add that it appears false that he did not know the Nicaean Canons, since in the book On Heresies, heresy 41, he writes:

The Paulinists, from Paul of Samosata, say that Christ did not always exist, but asserted that his beginning was from the time he was born of Mary, and they think that he was nothing more than a man. The Council of Nicaea in the Catholic Church certainly established that these Paulinists were to be baptized. Hence it must be believed that they do not hold the rule of Baptism, which once many heretics took away when they departed from the Catholic Church, and which they preserve.

As though by contrast, at least virtually and implicitly, he were saying that those who had always observed the Catholic rule of Baptism retained in heresy were not to be rebaptized by the Council.

You will object 2. The holy Fathers Epiphanius and Basil, who indicate plainly enough that nothing had been prescribed or defined in the Council of Nicaea concerning not rebaptizing those baptized by heretics. First, St. Epiphanius, in the Anacephaleosis, after enumerating the heresies, no. 8, touching briefly on certain other errors, says:

Others, who seemed more audacious, formed into a private faction for themselves from the Catholic side, contrary to the custom of the Church and without a decree of a general Council, did not hesitate to baptize again those who passed from the Arians to their party, since, as I said, the matter had not yet been defined by universal judgment,

etc. But he would have assumed this for no reason if this question had been defined in the Council of Nicaea. For St. Epiphanius wrote this book in the eleventh year of Valentinian and Valens, as he himself indicates in the preface to the work—that is, in the year 375. The Council of Nicaea, however, was celebrated in the year 325 or 326. Nor can one object that perhaps the Canons of the Council of Nicaea were unknown to St. Epiphanius; for he himself proves the contrary, since in heresy 69, which is that of the Arians, page 11, he writes: The Emperor, consulting for the Church, gathered an Ecumenical Synod of 318 Bishops. In that same Synod certain ecclesiastical Canons were enacted, as well as concerning the celebration of Easter, etc.

Next, St. Basil admits the free choice of rebaptizing, or not rebaptizing, those baptized by the Cathari, Encratites, and Hydroparastatae, etc. For he says:

It seemed good to the ancients, with Cyprian and our Firmilianus saying so, to subject them all to one judgment: the Cathari, Encratites, etc. Therefore they ordered those who had been baptized by those very heretics to be cleansed, when they came to the Church, by our Church’s Baptism. But since it seemed entirely good to some Asians, on account of the economy and dispensation of their merits, to receive their Baptism, let it be received.

And below: It is therefore clear that, since nothing has been expressly said about these people, namely the Encratites, their Baptism must be abolished. But if this should prove an impediment to the universal economy, we must again use custom and must follow

The Fathers and those who concern us would have provided. But if that controversy had been defined in the Council of Nicaea, St. Basil would neither have announced that this dispute pertained only to economy and also to faith, nor have made it free for each person to preserve the custom of his own region in baptizing or rebaptizing heretics. Therefore, etc.

I answer St. Epiphanius that there he does not treat the question of Baptism expressly, but only mentions in passing, on another occasion, the Arians whom some were rebaptizing, although no Synod had decreed it. For he says:

They dare to arrogate something to themselves beyond the Canons, stirred up by the orthodox, and gathering a conventicle for themselves; indeed, without a decree of an Ecumenical Synod, to rebaptize those who come from the Arians; since this matter has not yet been decided by any statute or decree of a Synod; for this reason the peoples still live mixed together, associate with one another, and many are also orthodox and join themselves falsely to the sacred Ministers, until the manifest separation from this blasphemous heresy takes place, and then those things will be defined which fight against it.

By these words Epiphanius does not assert that nothing had been decreed concerning not rebaptizing those baptized by heretics. St. Augustine plainly teaches the contrary when he asserts that those who maintained the contrary had been condemned as heretics, even long before his birth—which certainly preceded Epiphanius’s episcopate by many years. He merely indicates that the Church had not yet made any distinct ruling concerning those coming from the Africans who were to be rebaptized. Regarding St. Basil, I say that he did not doubt in an undetermined way about admitting the Baptism of heretics, but only about the Baptism of those who had been born in heresy, or who did not hold inwardly the form of Baptism that they professed with their mouths. This is gathered from the first Letter to Amphilochius, where he indicates that, because the Council of Nicaea had received heretics and their Baptism given according to the ecclesiastical rule, it had not declared whether it also meant heretics who, thinking absurdly and impiously about the divine Trinity, erred concerning the legitimate form of Baptism, although they pronounced that entire and legitimate form. In short, he seems to call into doubt whether Baptism conferred by them was legitimate or not.

You will object 3. The Council of Nicaea explicitly defines nothing concerning the non-rebaptizing of heretics in general, because it deals only with the rebaptizing of the Paulinists. Therefore, by the plenary Council in which he says that the Donatist dogma was discussed and condemned, St. Augustine does not understand Nicaea, but Arles, in which this was explicitly defined.

I answer first, that although no Nicene Canon is now found which expressly defines that matter, it does not follow from this that none existed previously; since it is clear from various testimonies that some did exist. For St. Jerome says in the Preface to the Book of Judith: this book of Judith, the Nicene Synod is read to have counted among the number of the sacred Scriptures: but where is that Nicene Canon found which is said to have counted this book? St. Ambrose writes in his Letter to the Church of Vercelli of the ordination of bigamists forbidden by the Nicene Synod. St. Augustine testifies in Letter 110 that it had been defined at the Council of Nicaea that two bishops should not sit together in the same city: He says that, while Bishop Valerius, a father of blessed memory, was still alive, I, an old man, was ordained bishop, and I sat with him, which he did not know had been forbidden by the Council of Nicaea. But where are the canons of that same Council which now forbid this? St. Augustine could therefore have learned that the Donatists had been condemned at the Council of Nicaea, as the report spread throughout the whole world and gained strength among Catholics that this canon had been issued concerning that condemnation; although it may have perished, along with certain others, through the injury of time. Hence it follows that St. Augustine never expressly mentioned the name of Nicaea whenever he began speaking of a plenary Council, either because no express canon on that matter existed or because he perhaps had not seen it. That he did not have the Council of Arles in mind is also evident, besides what was said above, from the fact that he nowhere expressly cites the Canon of the Council of Arles as known to him from another source, although, concerning this controversy, he reports by name many other matters on either side from the councils of heretics themselves—how much more would he have done so from a Catholic Council, if he had seen the canon of that plenary Council? For the case of Nicaea is not the same, since it was not known to him in the same way as Arles, which was very well known to him, as he sufficiently proves by pressing it so often to defend the aforesaid case. Add that perhaps at that time those eighty Canons had not yet been translated into Latin and consequently were not known to the Latins and Africans; they had been published by Alphonsus Pisanus and Franciscus Turianus, theologians of the Society of Jesus, after they had obtained them on loan from the Patriarch of Alexandria from an Arabic exemplar and translated them into Latin. Abraham Ecchellensis, a Syrian by nation and a Maronite by religion, indeed sought to demonstrate that all these Canons were genuine. Among these Canons there is one which forbids the rebaptism of heretics; St. Augustine could have learned of that Canon as fame spread the report, but since its wording was not known to him, he therefore did not wish to cite it expressly.

You will insist. By the name “plenary Council,” St. Augustine understands that Council in which the case of the Donatists was sifted. For he says, book 2 of On Baptism, chapter 9: While it was discussed and investigated among many on both sides, the truth was not only found but also brought to the authority and strength of a plenary Council. But that matter was not weighed in the Council of Nicaea, since only Caecilianus among the African Bishops is reported to have been present there. Therefore, etc. — I answer: St. Augustine judges that the case of the Donatists was dealt with nowhere other than in a universal and plenary Council, where it is said to have been defined and brought to authority and strength. For in book 2, On Baptism against the Donatists, chapter 1, he says: That case was treated for a long time throughout the regions of the world by the disputations and conferences of many Bishops on both sides. Thus St. Augustine also does not indicate that this occurred in one and the same Council, but in the individual Councils that the Fathers or Bishops, endowed with great charity, held separately in their several Provinces and regions. For he writes, in book 1, chapter 1: The obscurity of this question in the earlier times of the Church, before the schism of Donatus, compelled great men and the Bishops who were Fathers endowed with great charity to dispute and waver among themselves while preserving peace, so that for a long time the differing statutes of Councils in their several regions were changed, until what was most salutary was confirmed, doubts having also been removed, by a plenary Council of the whole world. Add that, even if the Donatists had ever been present at the Council of Nicaea, their dogma could nevertheless have been discussed and weighed on both sides in their absence by Catholics, who proposed and resolved the objections of the absent, so that the definition might become clearer; just as, although Lutherans or Calvinists were not disputants at the Council of Trent, their dogma was nevertheless debated on both sides by

Catholic theologians, so that Catholic truth might shine forth with greater certainty.