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the long-slumbering Academics and Carneades and Philus and Furius and Protagoras and the black snows and the fall of the sky and other things likewise insane and absurd—let them be removed out of the way. For truly, without these, what we wish can indeed be said. Behold, it suffices, what a little afterwards was placed thus and was interposed by him from my writings: whence, then, is he to be cleansed who receives baptism, when the giver's conscience is polluted and the one who is about to receive it is ignorant of this? Surely here there is no 'what if' and 'perhaps.' Let an answer, then, be given. Attend, lest perchance in what follows he answer to this: 'But I,' he says, 'constrain you, cavilling, to the faith of believing, lest you wander further.'
'Why do you turn life aside by the arguments of folly with errors? Why do you disturb the reasoning of faith concerning irrational things? By this one word I hold and convict you.' These things Petilianus said, not I. These are from the letter of Petilianus—but the one to which I have now added those two words which he charges me with having taken away, and have none the less shown that the judgement of my inquiry, to which he gives no answer, stands fixed far more briefly and more clearly. Certainly these are those two words, 'holily' and 'knowingly,' so that it should not be 'the conscience of the giver,' but the conscience of the one who gives holily, and it should not be 'he who receives faith from a faithless man,' but he who knowingly receives faith from a faithless man. Which words indeed I had not taken away, but had not found in the copy that had been given to me.
But it can be that the copy was faulty; for neither is even this incredible—that from this too an Academic odium should be stirred up against me, and that what I said, namely that the copy was faulty, should be asserted to be such as if I had said snows are black. For why should I repay him with a rash suspicion, so as to say that he himself afterward added the things he falsely alleged I had suppressed, when the copy—which does not grow angry—can bear this mark of faultiness without any slanderous rashness on my part? And that first one indeed, namely 'of the one who gives holily,' in no way hinders my inquiry, by which he is vehemently pressed—whether I speak thus: 'if the conscience of the giver is regarded,' or rather thus:
'if the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver, whence then is he to be cleansed who receives baptism, if the giver's conscience is polluted and the one who is about to receive it is ignorant of this?' But that other thing which is added, 'knowingly,' so that it should not be said 'for whoever receives faith from a faithless man,' but 'whoever knowingly receives faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt'—I confess that, as though it were lacking, I said some things whose loss I easily endure, since they brought delay rather to my easy-goingness than help to my capacity. For how much more readily, how much more fully and briefly do I thus inquire:
if the conscience of the one who gives holily is regarded, the conscience which cleanses that of the receiver, and he who knowingly receives faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt, whence is he cleansed from whom the stained conscience of one not giving holily lies hidden, and whence does he receive true faith who is unknowingly baptised by a faithless man? Let it be said whence, and there the whole matter of baptism will be laid open, there all that is sought will shine out—but if it be said, not if the time be spent in cursing. Whatever, therefore, he cavils about concerning these two words, whether alleged to be taken away or boasted to be added, you perceive that nothing hinders my question; and he, not finding what to answer to it, yet lest he be silent, rushes again and again upon my person—I would say retreating from the case, if he had ever approached the case.
For as though it were about me and not about the truth of the Church or of baptism, he therefore says that I argued, with those two words removed, so that (as it were) it might not tell against my own conscience that I was ignorant, as he says, of the sacrilegious conscience of my defiler. But if that were so, that word which is placed, 'knowingly,' would rather profit me by being added and harm me by being taken away. For if I had wished to defend myself in such a way that I should be thought to have been ignorant of my baptiser's conscience, I would take Petilianus to have spoken on my behalf, when he says not merely 'whoever receives faith from a faithless man,' but 'whoever knowingly receives faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt'—so that from this I might boast that I had received not guilt but faith, because I would say:
'I did not knowingly receive from a faithless man, but I, a man, was ignorant of the conscience of the man giving.' See, then, and count, if you can, how many superfluous things he says about the one word 'I was ignorant,' which he alleges I said, though I did not say it at all—since neither was it about me, that I should say it, nor did any charge appear in the one who baptised me, so that I should be forced to say, for my own defence, that I was ignorant of his conscience. And yet this man, lest he answer to the things I said, sets before himself what I did not say, and calls men away from attending to what he owes, lest what must be answered be demanded. He often interposes: 'I was ignorant, you say,' and he answers: 'But if you were ignorant'—and as though he convicts me, so that it may not be permitted me to say: 'I was ignorant.'
He mentions Mensurius, Caecilianus, Macarius, Taurinus, Romanus, and affirms that they did against the Church of God things I could not fail to know, on the ground that I am an African and by age now almost an old man—whereas, as I hear, Mensurius died in the unity of communion, before the party of Donatus tore itself away; and as for the cause of Caecilianus, I have read that these very men brought it before Constantine, and that he was acquitted both once and again by the bishops whom that emperor had appointed as judges, and, when they appealed to the emperor himself against them, a third time even by the sovereign himself.
But as for Macarius and Taurinus and Romanus, whatever they did by judicial or executive authority against these men's obstinate fury on behalf of unity, it is established that they did according to the laws—laws which these same men, by carrying the cause of Caecilianus to the emperor's judgement, compelled to be enacted and exercised against themselves.
Among many things wholly irrelevant to the matter, he also says that I was struck by the sentence of the proconsul Messianus, so that I fled from Africa; and on account of this falsehood—which, if he did not himself invent it, he certainly maliciously believed from malicious inventors—he did not fear, with wonderful rashness, not merely to say but even to write many other falsehoods consequently: whereas I came to Milan before Bauto's consulship, and to that consul on the Kalends of January I recited a panegyric in so great an assembly and in the sight of men, in accordance with my rhetorical profession at that time, and from that sojourn abroad I sought Africa again only after the death of the tyrant Maximus; whereas the proconsul Messianus heard the case of the Manichaeans after the consulship of Bauto, as the date of the acts inserted by Petilianus himself shows.
If it were necessary to prove these things to those who doubt or believe the contrary, I could bring forward as most abundant witnesses many men famous in the world, of that whole period of my life. But why do we require these things; why do we both endure superfluous delays and cause them? Are we going to find from this whence the conscience of the receiver who is ignorant of the giver's stained one is to be cleansed, and whence he who is unknowingly baptised by a faithless man is to receive faith? When Petilianus had set this before himself from my letter, as though to answer it, he went on to say whatever else he pleased rather than that which the case demanded. How often did he say:
As if I had said what I never said — that I was ignorant of the conscience of the man who baptized me — you were being ignorant; and by that slanderous mouth he seemed to accomplish nothing else than to make it appear that he could convict me of not having been ignorant of the evils of those among whom I was baptized and to whose communion I was joined, understanding well enough, of course, that ignorance would not make me guilty! Behold then: if I were ignorant, as he has so often repeated, then beyond doubt I should be innocent of all those evils. From what source, then, would I be washed, I who, being ignorant of the conscience of one giving unholily, could not in the least be hindered by his crimes? From what source would I receive faith, I who was being baptized, without knowing it, by a faithless man?
For it was not without purpose that he so often repeated 'if you were ignorant,' but only that he might not allow me to be thought innocent — indicating beyond doubt that no one's innocence is violated if without knowing it he receives faith from a faithless man and is ignorant of the stained conscience of one giving unholily. Let him say, then, from what source such persons are washed, from what source they receive faith and not guilt. But let him not deceive you: let him speak — not saying nothing by saying much, nor rather saying much by saying nothing. Then there is something that comes to mind and must not be passed over.
If I am guilty for this reason — because I was not ignorant, to speak according to him — and if the reason I was not ignorant is that I am both an African and by age already almost an old man, then at least the boys of all the other regions throughout the whole world should not be guilty, who, neither by nation nor by age, could have known these charges of yours, whether true or false; and yet, if they should fall into your hands, they are rebaptized without any consideration. But we are not now inquiring into these matters.
Let him rather answer this — which, that he might not be forced to answer, he most abundantly evades: from what source is the conscience of the recipient washed, when he is ignorant of the stained conscience of the giver, if it is the conscience of one giving holily that is regarded as washing the recipient's; and from what source does he who is baptized unknowingly by a faithless man receive faith, if whoever knowingly takes faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt. Setting aside, then, his revilings, which he has hurled against me without any sound consideration, let us still attend, lest perhaps he say in what follows the very thing we demand. But it pleases me to observe how garrulously he set forth these things, as though he would most easily tear them apart and overthrow them:
'But let us return,' he says, 'to that argument of your phantasm, by which you seemed to depict for yourself in words some baptizer or other. For it befitted you to imagine things merely resembling the truth, you who do not see the truth.' These words of his own Petilian spoke, being about to set forth my words; then he added: 'Behold,' you say, 'a faithless man stands about to baptize, but he who is to be baptized is ignorant of his faithlessness.' He did not state the whole of my proposition and question, and presently he himself began to question me, saying: 'Who is this man, or from where has he sprung up, whom you set forth? Why do you fancy that you see one you merely feign, so as not to see him whom you ought most diligently to see and examine and approve? But because I perceive that you are ignorant of the order of the sacrament, this I tell you briefly:'
'You too ought to have examined the baptizer, and to have been examined by him.' What was it we were awaiting? That he should say from what source the conscience of the recipient is washed, who is ignorant of the stained conscience of one not giving holily; and from what source he who takes baptism unknowingly from a faithless man may receive faith and not guilt. Behold, we have heard that the baptizer ought to be most diligently examined by him who wishes to receive faith and not guilt, so that he may find the conscience of one giving holily, which washes the recipient's. For he who does not examine, and unknowingly receives from a faithless man, by the very fact that he did not examine and was ignorant of the giver's stained conscience, had no source from which to receive faith, but only guilt. What help, then, was there in the word 'knowingly' that he added as though it were a great matter — the word he slanderously charged me with having removed? For when he refused to have it stated thus:
'he who takes faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt' — he seems to have left some hope to one who is unaware. But now, when he is asked from what source he receives faith who is baptized unknowingly by a faithless man, he answers that the man ought to have examined the baptizer; and beyond doubt he does not even allow the wretched man to remain ignorant, since by finding no source from which he could receive faith, unless he placed his hope in the man who baptizes. This is what we shudder at in you; this is what the divine sentence condemns, crying out most truly and most manifestly: 'Cursed is everyone who places his hope in man.' This is what holy humility and apostolic charity most plainly forbid, Paul crying out: 'Let no one glory in man.'
This is the reason the onslaught of empty slanders and most bitter revilings grows against us, so that, as though the man were overthrown, no hope might remain for those to whom we minister the word of God and the sacrament, according to the stewardship entrusted to us. We answer them: How long will you exalt yourselves above man? The venerable catholic society answers them: 'Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation; for he himself is my God, my upholder; I shall not be moved.'
For what other cause did these people have for departing from the house of God, except that they pretended they could not endure the vessels made unto dishonor — without which that house will not be until the day of judgment — although in fact they themselves appear, by the deeds recorded and the matters then set down in writing, to have been such rather, and to have slanderously charged others with it? And concerning these vessels made unto dishonor, lest on their account he should depart disturbed from the great house, which belongs to the one great father of the family, the good and faithful servant of God, or the one about to receive faith in baptism, says what I recalled a little before: Shall not my soul be subject to God? To God indeed, not to man; for from him is my salvation, not from man.
But this man — lest even then he should give the man to God to be washed and cleansed, when the stained conscience of one not giving holily is hidden and one takes faith unknowingly from a faithless man — says: 'This I tell you briefly: you too ought to have examined the baptizer and to have been examined by him.' I beseech you, attend here: I ask from what source the conscience of the recipient is washed, when he is ignorant of the stained conscience of one not giving holily, if it is the conscience of one giving holily that is regarded as washing the recipient's; and from what source he receives faith who is baptized unknowingly by a faithless man, if whoever knowingly takes faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt; and he answers me that both the baptizer and the one to be baptized must be examined.
And to prove this — about which there is no question — he brings forward the example of John: that those examined him who asked of him who he said he was, and that he too examined those to whom he says: 'Generation of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come?' What has this to do with the matter, what has this to do with the case? God had borne witness to John of a most excellent holiness, a most illustrious prophecy going before, both when he was conceived and when he was born. But those men, already believing him to be holy, were asking which of the holy ones he said he was, or whether he himself were the Holy of holies, which is Christ Jesus. For so great a grace was accorded him that whatever he said of himself was immediately believed.
But if by this example it is asserted that any baptizer whatever must now be examined, then whatever anyone says of himself will have to be believed. And who is the deceiver whom the Holy Spirit assuredly flees — as it is written — but one who does not wish the best to be believed of himself and does not so contrive by whatever words he can? Now then, when he has been asked who he is, and has answered that he is a faithful steward of God and has a conscience polluted by no stain of crime, will this be the whole examination, or must his character and life also be more diligently examined? Yes, indeed. But it is not written that those did this who questioned John in the desert of the Jordan as to who he was. Hence this example does not pertain at all to the matter under discussion.
Rather that apostolic sentence sufficiently inspires this care, where it says: 'Let them first be proved, and so let them minister, having no crime.' And since this is done anxiously and by custom on both sides, by almost everyone, from what source have so many been found reprobate after the time of this stewardship was carried out, except that human diligence is for the most part deceived, and some who were at first good are changed for the worse?
Since these things happen so frequently that they allow no one to feign ignorance or to forget, what does it mean that Petilian contemptuously teaches us briefly that the baptizer must be examined by the one to be baptized, since we are asking from what source the conscience of the recipient must be washed, when the stained conscience of one not giving holily is hidden, if it is the conscience of one giving holily that is regarded as washing the recipient's? 'Because I perceive,' he says, 'that you are ignorant of the order of the sacrament, this I tell you briefly: you too ought to have examined the baptizer and to have been examined by him.' O what an answer!
So great a multitude of men who were baptized by those who — though at first they seemed just and chaste, but afterward, their crimes laid bare, were convicted and cast down — surrounds him in so many places; and he thinks he escapes the force of this question, by which we ask from what source the conscience of the recipient is washed, when he is ignorant of the stained conscience of one not giving holily, if it is the conscience of one giving holily that is regarded as washing the recipient's — because he briefly says that the baptizer must be examined. Nothing is more wretched than not to consent to the truth, by which each one is so hemmed in that he can find no way out. We ask from whom he receives faith who is baptized unknowingly by a faithless man. It is answered: 'He ought to have examined his baptizer.'
Therefore, because he does not examine him and even unknowingly takes faith from a faithless man, does he receive not faith but guilt? Why then are those not baptized anew who are established to have been baptized by men now betrayed and convicted while they were still lying hidden? 'And where,' he says, 'is that which I added, 'knowingly,' so that I should not say: 'he who takes faith from a faithless man,' but: 'he who knowingly takes faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt'?' Therefore he received faith, not guilt, who unknowingly took it from a faithless man; and so I ask from what source he received it. Here, being cornered, he answers: 'He ought to have examined.' Be it so — he ought. He did not, or he was not able. What do you judge concerning him: was he washed or not? If he was washed, I ask from what source;
for the stained conscience of one not giving holily, which he did not know, could not wash him. But if he was not washed, command that he be washed. You do not command it: therefore he was washed. Say from what source. Say at least, you, what that man did not say. For I put forward the very words to which he could not answer: Behold a faithless man stands about to baptize, but he who is to be baptized is ignorant of his faithlessness. What do you suppose he will receive, faith or guilt? What has been put forward thus far suffices. Answer, or inquire diligently what that man answered: you will find his revilings refuted. For he blames me, as though mocking, because I put forward things resembling the truth, I who do not see the truth; and repeating my own words and a halved sentence you say, he says:
'Behold a faithless man stands about to baptize, but he who is to be baptized is ignorant of his faithlessness.' Then he adds: 'Who is this man, or from where has he sprung up?' — as though there were only one or two, and not everywhere on both sides everything full of such men. Why does he ask of me who this man is or from where he has sprung up, and rather does not look around and see that rare are the churches, whether in cities or in the countryside, that do not have men detected in crimes and cast down from the clergy? While they lay hidden and wished to seem good, though they were evil, and to be thought chaste, though they were adulterers, they were assuredly counterfeit; assuredly the Holy Spirit, as it is written, fled from them. From that crowd of men still lying hidden, then, sprang up that faithless man whom I set forth.
Why does he ask of me from where he sprang up, shutting his eyes against so great a crowd, from which, if only those be considered who could be convicted and cast down, the noise of them suffices even for the blind? What of the fact that he himself set down in his letter that Quodvultdeus, convicted of two adulteries among you and cast out, was received by us? What then? Without prejudging his case — one who either proved or persuaded his cause to be good — let me say: when such men among you, not yet detected, baptize, what is received from them, faith or guilt? Not faith, assuredly, because they do not have the conscience of one giving holily which washes the recipient's; but neither guilt, because of that added word: for he who knowingly takes faith from a faithless man receives not faith but guilt;
but when men were being baptized by these, they assuredly did not know what sort of men they were. Accordingly, neither receiving faith from them, because they did not have the conscience of one giving holily, nor receiving guilt either, because they were baptized not knowing but not knowing their crimes, they remained without faith and without guilt. They are not therefore in the number of such wicked men, but neither can they be in the number of the faithful, because just as they could not receive guilt from them, so neither faith. And yet we see them counted by you in the number of the faithful, and none of you judges that they should be baptized, but you hold ratified that they were baptized. And so they received faith, and yet did not receive it from those who did not have the conscience of one giving holily which would wash the recipient's.
From what source, then, did they receive it? This is what I busy myself with, this I urgently ask, this I most vehemently demand to be answered. Look now at Petilian, lest he answer this, or lest, being caught, he appear unable to have answered it — being one who idly ranges about through our defamations, accusing yet proving nothing, and where perhaps he tries to resist for his cause as though combatively, being everywhere most easily overcome; yet to this one thing he answers absolutely nothing that we ask: if the conscience of one giving holily is regarded as washing the recipient's, from what source he must be washed who receives baptism, when the conscience of the giver is polluted and he who is to receive it is ignorant of this:
for with these words recalled from my letter he set forth me questioning, and showed himself answering nothing. For when he had said those things which I have already reviewed, and in which I showed that he did not answer what I asked; and when, hemmed in by great straits, he was compelled to say that the baptizer must be examined by the one to be baptized, and the one to be baptized by the baptizer; and when he had tried to build this up by the example of John, in case he should happen to find most careless or most unskilled hearers, he brought forward other testimonies from the Scriptures not pertaining to the matter — that the eunuch said to Philip: 'Behold water; what hinders me from being baptized?'
'— because he knew,' he says, 'that the lost are hindered' — and that Philip therefore did not forbid him to be baptized, because he had approved him reading how he believed Christ, as though he had forbidden Simon Magus; and that the prophets feared to be deceived by a false baptism, and therefore Isaiah said: 'lying water having no faith,' as if showing that among faithless men the water is lying — although not Isaiah but Jeremiah said this of lying men, figuratively calling the people 'water,' which is most manifestly shown in the Apocalypse; and that David said: 'Let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head,' although he said this of the flattery of a fawner deceiving with false praise, whereby the head of the one praised swells into pride.
The meaning of which the words placed just before in the same psalm open up; for thus it says: 'The righteous shall correct me in mercy and shall reprove me; but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head.' What is clearer than this sentence, what more evident? For he prefers to be reproved by the harsh correction of a righteous man mercifully, that he may be healed, rather than to be anointed with the smooth flatteries of a fawner, lest he be puffed up.
Petilian also mentions that the apostle Paul warned that not every spirit should be believed, but that the spirits should be proved whether they are of God — as though this diligence were applied to the end that now, before the time, the wheat should be separated from the chaff, and not rather that the wheat should not be deceived by the chaff; or as if even a lying spirit, if it said something true, should therefore be denied, because a spirit to be detested said it. Whoever thinks this is so mad that he would perhaps contend that Peter ought not to have said: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' because the demons had already said something such. Since, therefore, the baptism of Christ, whether ministered through an unjust or a just man, is nothing other than the baptism of Christ.
By a cautious and good faithful man the iniquity of the man is to be avoided, not the sacraments of God to be condemned. In all these things, at least, Petilian does not answer: if the conscience of one giving holily is regarded as washing the recipient's, from what source he must be washed who receives baptism, when the conscience of the giver is polluted and he who is to receive it is ignorant of this. His colleague from Thubursicubur, a certain Cyprian, was caught in a brothel with a most vile woman, and was brought before Primian of Carthage and condemned. When this man baptized, before he was detected and cast out, he assuredly did not have the conscience of one giving holily which would wash the recipient's. From what source, then, were those washed who today, though he is condemned, are assuredly not washed again?
It was not necessary that I should name the man, except lest Petilian again say: 'Who is this man, or from where has he sprung up?' Why did your people not examine this baptizer, as John, according to Petilian's own view, was examined? Or did they even examine him, as far as men could examine a man, but did not for a long time discover him lying hidden by a cunning pretense? Was this man's water not lying, or is the oil of a fornicator not the oil of a sinner? Or — as the catholic Church says and it is true — were both that water and that oil not his by whom they were ministered, but his whose name was there invoked? Why did those who were baptized by this feigned and hidden man not prove the spirit, because it was not of God? For the Holy Spirit of discipline fled from the feigned man.
Or did it both flee from him, and yet not forsake its own sacraments, although ministered through him? Finally, since you do not deny that those were washed whom, though he is condemned, you do not care to have washed, see whether — with so many fogs manifoldly spread abroad — Petilian anywhere answers from what source these were washed, if the conscience of one giving holily is regarded as washing the recipient's, which a hidden unclean man could not have. Answering nothing, therefore, to that which is so insistently inquired of him, thereafter procuring for himself even a wide latitude of speaking, he says: 'Since both the prophets and the apostle have cautiously feared these things, with what face do you say that to those who believe well the baptism of a sinner is holy?'
As though I, or any catholic, said that the baptism which is handed on or received while a sinner ministers is the baptism of a sinner, and not the baptism of him in whose name the believer is baptized.