Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 10 part 6/17

For we do Cyprian no injury when we distinguish any letters of his from the canonical authority of the divine Scriptures. For it was not without cause that with such wholesome vigilance the ecclesiastical canon was established, to which certain books of the prophets and apostles belong, which we would not at all dare to judge, and according to which we freely judge of other writings, whether of the faithful or of the unfaithful. Accordingly, since the apostle says, whose epistles flourish in canonical authority: 'As many, therefore, as are perfect, let us be thus minded;

and if in anything you are otherwise minded, this too God will reveal to you' — as long as Cyprian was otherwise minded (if it is established that those writings are his which you think are to be brought forward on your behalf), as long, then, as he was otherwise minded on this matter than the truth, more diligently considered, made plain — until God should reveal this also to him — with the ineffable praise of charity he did not forsake catholic unity and peace even with his colleagues, from whom he was otherwise minded. You inserted words of his from his letter to Jubaianus into your writings, by which you might show that it pleased him that those should be baptized in the catholic Church who had been baptized in heresy or schism.

I am not bound by the authority of this letter, because I do not hold Cyprian's letters as canonical, but I consider them by the canonical writings, and what in them agrees with the authority of the divine Scriptures I accept with his praise, but what does not agree I reject with his peace. And by this, if those things which you have mentioned as written by him to Jubaianus you were to recite from some canonical book of the apostles or prophets, I would have nothing at all to gainsay.

But now, since what you recite is not canonical, I make use of that liberty to which the Lord has called us. Of that man whose praise I am not able to attain, whose many writings I do not compare with my own scribblings, whose genius I love, whose eloquence delights me, whose charity I marvel at, whose martyrdom I venerate — this one thing in which he thought otherwise I do not accept. I do not accept, I say, what the blessed Cyprian held concerning the rebaptizing of heretics and schismatics, because the Church does not accept it — the Church for which the blessed Cyprian shed his blood. But you say that in support of this opinion he confirmed legal documents — although he could not confirm legal documents. Rather, whatever he rightly thought, he himself confirmed by those very writings.

Set aside, then, the writings of Cyprian, and cite those very legal documents which you claim he used. If I do not demonstrate that these documents in no way aid your cause, you have won. Wherefore this teaching of Cyprian I do not accept — though I am incomparably his inferior — just as that deed of the apostle Peter, when he compelled the Gentiles to Judaize, I neither accept nor imitate, though I am incomparably Peter's inferior. But you who set Cyprian's writings before us as though they were the buttresses of canonical authority — whatever we are able to bring forth from Cyprian against you, you must of necessity yield, and it is just that, being defeated, you fall silent, and that at last you turn yourselves from the error of a most destructive dissension to Catholic unity.

Whence, that I may not be lengthy, from this very letter to Jubaianus mark what I bring forward that overthrows and destroys your error. For when either the holy Cyprian, or whoever it was that wrote that letter, was attempting to persuade that heretics coming to the Church ought to be baptized — namely, that no baptism should be reckoned which they had received outside among heretics — he set against himself a question and said: But someone will say, What then shall become of those who in time past, coming to the Church from heresy, were admitted without baptism? The Lord in his mercy is able to grant indulgence, and not to separate from the gifts of his Church those who, having been simply admitted to the Church, have fallen asleep within the Church.

This simplicity suffices for us, to which Cyprian himself bears witness, understanding the unity of the body of Christ to be so great a good that concerning those simply admitted into it — even those whom he judged to be without baptism — he presumed with pious thought that by the divine mercy they merit indulgence and are not separated from the gifts of the Church. This was the custom of the Church before Cyprian's council; this could not be overcome or removed even by Cyprian's council: that those coming from heresy — not indeed without baptism, as he says, since the same baptism was present in them even outside (though it did not profit them), yet, as he likewise says, being simply admitted — should merit indulgence from God's mercy and not be separated from the gifts of the Church.

This simplicity, rather than duplicity, pleased the universal Church spread throughout the whole world. And what witness Cyprian himself bears to this Church, hear from the letter which he wrote on unity: Pluck away, he says, a ray from the body of the sun — the unity of the light admits no division; break a branch from the tree — once broken, it will not be able to bud; cut off a stream from its source — once cut off, it dries up.

In these words of Cyprian we neither find nor understand that the light admits no division except in the saints predestined to the kingdom of God, who can in no way be divided from the Church; and by the branch not budding once broken we understand the seed of eternal salvation; but the dryness of the stream cut off from the source we recognize in this — that they who are separated from unity are emptied of the Holy Spirit — not in the sacrament of baptism, which both the good can have and the wicked, they being separated from the holiness of the Church, as openly outside so secretly within. But — a thing no one doubts — mark what Cyprian thought about the fecundity of this very Church spread throughout the whole world, in what he adds:

So too, he says, the Church of the Lord, flooded with light, stretches forth her rays throughout the whole world; yet it is one light that is diffused everywhere, nor is the unity of the body divided. She spreads her branches over the whole earth with abundant plenty; she pours forth her flowing streams more widely; yet the head is one, and the origin one, and one the mother rich in the increases of her fecundity. This Church, promised in the holy Scriptures and rendered present in the whole world, Cyprian loved, held fast, and commended — the Church which the lost, whether schismatics or heretics, abandoned in impious seditions, as though desiring to distinguish and separate themselves from the wicked. And lest they should try to wash away their impious departures with empty excuses, holy Scripture foretold:

An evil son calls himself righteous, but does not wash away his departure — because the good who are truly within are not to be forsaken on account of the wicked who seem to be within. What the blessed Cyprian thought on this, receive from the letter which he wrote to the presbyter Maximus and the others, whom he congratulates on their return to the Church from schismatic and heretical error: For although, he says, there seem to be tares in the Church, yet neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that, because we perceive there are tares in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church. We must only labor that we may be wheat, so that when the wheat begins to be stored in the Lord's granaries, we may receive fruit for our work and labor.

The apostle says in his letter: 'But in a great house there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; and some indeed for honor, some for dishonor.' Let us give our effort and labor as much as we can, that we may be a vessel of gold and silver. But to shatter the clay vessels is granted to the Lord alone, to whom the rod of iron has been given. The servant cannot be greater than his lord, nor can anyone claim for himself what the Father has bestowed on the Son alone — so as to think that he can already carry the fan or winnowing-fork to fan and cleanse the threshing floor, or by human judgment separate all the tares from the wheat. Proud is that obstinacy and sacrilegious the presumption which perverse madness takes upon itself.

And while some always claim for themselves more than gentle justice demands, they perish out of the Church; and while they insolently exalt themselves, blinded by their own swelling, they lose the light of truth. You see, brother, that according to the divine Scriptures Cyprian taught this: that even on account of the wicked — who, though spiritually separated from the good in life and morals, yet seem bodily mingled with them in the Church until the day of judgment, on which they shall also be bodily separated unto their deserved punishments — the Church is not to be forsaken, as wheat is not to be abandoned on account of chaff or tares, nor a great house on account of vessels of dishonor.

You see, you hear, you perceive, you grasp, you understand with what wickedness you separate yourselves — on account of those who displease you, whether rightly or through your own deception — from the Church which is spread throughout the whole world, to which, according to the divine Scriptures, Cyprian bears so great, so firm, so clear and luminous a witness. Wherefore attend diligently to my brief reasoning on this whole question. If those coming from the heretics are rightly received into the Church, so that their own error is corrected while the divine sacrament is not rescinded, we congratulate those who live well there as the Lord's wheat.

But if, as you suppose and boast that Cyprian favors you in this opinion, they do not have baptism, then surely, having been simply admitted to the Church, according to that same Cyprian, on account of the merit of unity itself they merit God's indulgence and are not separated from the gifts of the Church. And whoever admit them simply, according to the earlier custom about which Cyprian was not silent, and live rightly and peaceably, are reckoned among that same wheat destined for the granary; but those who either knowingly contend against the truth in receiving them, or who live by depraved and perverse morals, are borne with among the tares and chaff owed to the flames.

Yet on account of these, that the Church — which is enlarged throughout the whole earth with abundant increases (that is, the Lord's wheat, which grows together until the harvest and is threshed together until the winnowing) — is not to be forsaken, God commands, and Cyprian is witness. And by this, if in the communion of the sacraments the wicked stain the good, then when in Cyprian's times, or before Cyprian, heretics were received without baptism (as you suppose), say that the Church perished — and show whence you yourselves were born.

But if — as the truth teaches even through Cyprian — when for the sake of the Church's peace even known tares are tolerated, the wheat is not stained: the evil son calls himself righteous, but does not wash away his departure, because he ought not to have gone out of the Church on account of the wicked. Again I say, behold, I do not permit dissembling of this most invincible reasoning: if those who do not partake in the sins of the wicked lose the good merely through communion in the sacraments with the wicked, then when in time past those coming to the Church from heresy were admitted without baptism, they surely ruined the good by their contagion. Already then, therefore, there was no Church which Cyprian might hold and proclaim, nor whence Donatus might afterward go out.

But if that contagion did not ruin the good, then neither could the contagion of those you accuse ruin the Christian world. Cease to slander, you who are separated, and return corrected to the Church. Caecilianus and his associates, against whom Secundus of Tigisis then convened and established a council, you must needs accuse; I need not defend. Accuse them with all your might. If they were innocent, your windy blustering will do no harm to them as wheat; if they were guilty, the wheat that took no harm from them ought not to be abandoned on account of those tares. Accuse as much as you can. I win if you do not prove it, I win if you do prove it; I win, I say, if you do not prove it, with yourself as judge; I win if you do prove it, with Cyprian as witness. What do you wish them to have been?

If innocent, why do you slander the Lord's wheat, since you are tares? If guilty, why do you separate yourselves from the Lord's wheat on account of tares? The Church stands, bright and conspicuous to all, being indeed a city set upon a mountain that cannot be hidden, through which Christ reigns from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth, like the seed of Abraham, multiplied as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea, in which all nations are blessed. This Church too the blessed Cyprian so commends that he says she, flooded with the light of the Lord, stretches forth her rays throughout the earth, and spreads her branches over the whole earth with abundant plenty.

This Church would either not be accused in her wheat, or not be forsaken on account of her tares. One of these answer for yourselves; the other learn from Cyprian's admonitions. For these are the words of him testifying and saying: For although there seem to be tares in the Church, yet neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that, because we perceive there are tares in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church.

You say that by the contagion of the wicked Africans the Church has perished from the whole world, and that its remnants have survived in the party of Donatus, as though in the wheat separated from the tares and chaff — thinking most openly against Cyprian, who says that neither do the good perish in the Church through the admixture of the wicked, nor can those same wicked be separated from the admixture of the good before the time of the divine judgment.

And so, according to your error, or rather your madness, you are compelled to accuse not only Caecilianus and his ordainers, but also those churches which we alike read of in the apostolic and canonical Scriptures: not only that of the Romans (to whom out of Africa a few of you are wont to ordain a bishop), but also of the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Thessalonians, Colossians, Philippians, to whom the apostle Paul writes most plainly; the church of Jerusalem, which the apostle James first governed by his episcopate; that of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians; those of Smyrna, Thyatira, Sardis, Pergamum, Philadelphia, Laodicea, to which is addressed the Apocalypse of the apostle John; so many other churches of Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, to which the apostle Peter writes; and whatever else Paul testifies that he filled with the gospel from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum — to say nothing of the other so broad and immense parts of the earth into which, out of these apostolic labors and plantings, the Church stretched forth and grew and grows.

These churches, at least, which I have named from the divine and canonical writings, so far removed from Africa — you are compelled to accuse, as though they had perished through the sins of the Africans, rather than correct the error which drives you to so great a crime by a wicked dissension. But we, that we may more easily convict this error of yours, are not compelled to defend even the Africans themselves — whose false crimes you dare to pour out upon other nations as well — no, not even them, I say. For they have with those churches across the sea a fellowship in the kingdom, if they were innocent; but if guilty, then, like tares among wheat, they could not even in Africa harm those who, on account of them (even known to be such), refused to separate themselves from the unity of the Church.

For — to pass over how many believed them innocent, to whom their crime, even if there was any, could nevertheless not be demonstrated (and surely you cannot say that these could be stained by others' unknown sins) — but to pass over these, I say: those very men who either knew or supposed them guilty, although established in the African churches, when they saw that these could not be convicted before the churches across the sea, nor their crimes demonstrated to the members of the Church spread far and wide —

if they had wished to separate themselves, on account of those whom they knew to be wicked, from the communion of so many nations to whom they were unable to point them out — as though from fear of a pestilent contagion — Cyprian himself would have held them back: not I, not you, not Donatus, not Caecilianus, but the very one whom you have dared to name — Cyprian — and he would speak those words which he wrote to Maximus: If there seem to be tares in the Church, yet neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so that, because we perceive there are tares in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church. We must only labor that we may be wheat, so that when the wheat begins to be stored in the Lord's granaries, we may receive fruit for our work and labor. The apostle says in his letter:

'But in a great house there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; and some indeed for honor, some for dishonor.' Let us give our effort and labor as much as we can, that we may be a vessel of gold and silver. But to shatter the clay vessels is granted to the Lord alone, to whom also the rod of iron has been given. The servant cannot be greater than his lord, nor can anyone claim for himself what the Father has bestowed on the Son alone — so as to think that he can already carry the fan or winnowing-fork to fan and cleanse the threshing floor, or by human judgment separate all the tares from the wheat. Proud is that obstinacy and sacrilegious the presumption which perverse madness takes upon itself.

And while some always claim for themselves more than gentle justice demands, they perish out of the Church; and while they insolently exalt themselves, blinded by their own swelling, they lose the light of truth. By these words of Cyprian, those fearing God would be held within the Church who wished to separate themselves from her on account of known wicked men — by which words you are condemned, you who, being separated, accuse even the good. By these words Cyprian holds us too in the house of God, whose beauty he loved, even if — a thing you were never able to do — we could come to know traitors and any other wicked men accused and demonstrated by you, that we should not forsake that house on account of vessels made for dishonor.

By these words may the Peacemaker also bring you, corrected, into Catholic peace — lest, offended by any others' sins, whether true or false, you hurl such great evils against the Church of Christ, which throughout the whole world bears fruit and grows according to the Scriptures; lest on account of the tares you accuse the wheat; lest on account of the chaff you forsake the grain; lest on account of vessels of dishonor you remain outside the great house.

Behold how greatly the blessed Cyprian, whom you called to mind, has helped us — Cyprian, who, if he thought otherwise about repeating baptism, the Lord doubtless revealed as something to be corrected, in view of his so great merits of most ardent charity; for he remained in that vine like a branch so rich with the great fruit of peace and love, that even if anything were found in him to be purged, if by nothing else, then certainly it was purged by the pruning-hook of martyrdom.

Although, therefore, these things could suffice more than enough for convicting — and, if you are willing, for correcting — your error, yet, lest anyone suppose that you have put something in your letter which I was unable to refute, or in which I could not show that you gave no fitting answer to our writings against Petilianus, let us examine the rest in the following volume. BOOK THREE. If I did not have to care for the wits of the slow-minded, who are unable to understand that in the two preceding volumes I have replied in many ways to the whole case contained in your letter, brother Cresconius — so that even those things which there remain are already dissolved and made void — an end ought already to have been set by me to this work.

But because there are many whom it befits us to serve, who do not think that all objections have been driven off unless the individual points too are treated each in its own place, I shall briefly run through the remainder of your discourse in order, refuting it. Whatever you thought fit to insert from the writings of the venerable martyr Cyprian and of certain Eastern bishops — namely that it pleased them to disallow the sacrament of baptism given among heretics and schismatics — in no way hinders our cause, if we retain that Church which Cyprian did not forsake, even when many of his colleagues were unwilling to consent to this opinion. For even in the council itself he said: Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he thinks differently. And he thus concluded the same letter to Jubaianus:

These things, dearest one, according to our modest ability, we have replied to you, prescribing to no one nor prejudging, so that each of the bishops may do what he thinks, having free power of his own judgment — and so forth. Among these, then, reckon us meanwhile — those whom Cyprian was unable to persuade of that opinion, yet from whom, even though they held a different view in this matter, he by no means separated his communion. But your forefathers, to whom you bore such witness — namely that they were cut off from the communion of the Easterners because the latter rescinded their own judgment, whereby it had pleased them that in this baptismal question one ought to consent with Cyprian and that African council — acted against Cyprian.

For they ought to have kept the unity of communion with their colleagues, even those holding a different view in this question — which we read that Cyprian did in his own writings. They answer that he wished to speak thus lest perhaps some, deterred by fear of excommunication, should not dare to say freely what they thought — not because he would remain in communion with them if they held a different view; whereby they openly say that Cyprian lied. For if he said:

Judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he thinks differently — which the recorded acts of the council indicate that he said — and yet, if any of those to whom he said it should show that he thought differently, he would not have communicated the sacraments of Christ with him: then without doubt he was lying, who was making such promises deceitfully, not truthfully; and — what is worse in that lie — he was deceiving the simplicity of the brethren with a double heart, especially since what was said was also being recorded. For how could anyone who thought differently from that council be condemned or excommunicated by them by word of mouth, when he could recite in his own favor the opening of that same council? Which, then, thinks more tolerably of Cyprian — whether we,

who say that in an obscure question about baptism he, being a man, could have been mistaken; or you, who say that in promising Christian communion he, a bishop, wished to deceive — not some one of the brethren, but the whole episcopal society? But if it is impious for you too to believe this of him, then your forefathers acted against his opinion, who divided themselves from the communion of the Easterners because these held a different view on this matter.

Accordingly, if it is now to be believed at all that fifty Eastern bishops held that view which seventy Africans, or even somewhat more, held against so many thousands of bishops to whom this error was displeasing throughout the whole world — why should we not rather say that even those few Easterners corrected their own judgment, not, as you put it, rescinded it? For just as it is praiseworthy not to be moved from a true opinion, so it is blameworthy to persist in a false one — which never to hold is the first praise, and to change the second: so that either from the beginning the true remains, or, once changed, the false gives way to the true. Nor does it now pertain to our question of what sort it is that the greatest part of the Christian world thought with the Easterners.

For if this is true, if this is to be held and observed which we hold and observe concerning baptism, we charge you with two evils: one, that you err in the question of baptism; the other, that you separate yourselves from those who think truly on this matter. But if — to speak according to you — this is true in that question which you yourselves hold, then certainly you are stained with that crime, that you have withdrawn from the Church, for whose peace, as Cyprian both did and admonished, you ought to have borne even those thinking differently. Then you exclaim that I said: 'You would distinguish nothing between the faithful and the faithless; the pious and the impious would seem the same to you.'

But this I did not say; rather I plainly said that from which you, as though I said this, wished to exclaim and to say what I did not say. I said: whether one receive the sacrament from a faithful or from a faithless dispenser. In which statement I did distinguish somewhat between the faithful and the faithless, nor did I bid that the pious and the impious should seem the same to anyone, but that the same sacrament can be had by the pious and the impious — which even you do not deny, you who at least concede that after hidden impious ministers one is not to be baptized. Accordingly, you join together without cause and say: it profits nothing to live by good morals, because whatever is lawful for the just, the unjust too can perform — because it is both false and was not said by me.

For good morals distinguish the life of the good from that of the wicked and lead them to different ends; nor can the unjust perform whatever is lawful for the just, since the just man fulfills the law of Christ through love, from which the unjust is a stranger. Yet the unjust can do something which the just too performs — so that he too baptizes, if nothing else, at least while he lies hidden; just as those too can preach the commandments of God like the just, but not live according to them like the just — of whom it was said: Do what they say, but do not what they do. But grant that an unjust man, not hidden and known to some of the good through some sedition or faction, cannot be separated from the Church. Hear Cyprian: tolerate the tares, be wheat.

How well those words seemed to you to sound, which you variously repeated on one and the same matter: What, you say, can be spoken more unjust than this precept — that the spotted should purify another, the filthy should wash, the unclean should cleanse, the unbeliever should give faith, the criminal should make innocent? Briefly I answer: Christ is neither spotted, nor filthy, nor unclean, nor unbelieving, nor criminal — he who loved the Church and gave himself up for her, cleansing her with the washing of water in the word, making us secure concerning his own good things, lest we be corrupted by others' evils.