Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 25 part 8/16

But if anyone should hold the same thing as they, and should know it to be a heresy separated from Catholic unity where this is taught and learned, yet for the sake of some worldly gain should will to be baptized in Catholic unity, or, having been baptized in it, should on this account be unwilling to go out from it, he is to be held not only as separated, but even so much the more wickedly, the more he adds to the error of heresy and the division of unity the deceit of dissimulation. Wherefore the more dangerous and tortuous the depravity of any man is, so much the more urgently and laboriously is it to be corrected.

Yet not on that account, if he has anything sound—especially what is not his own but God's—is it, on account of his depravity, to be thought either of no value, or to be blamed in the same way, or to be attributed to his depravity rather than to the bounty of Him who even to a soul playing the harlot away from Him and going after her lovers gave His bread and His wine and His oil and other things, whether nourishments or ornaments, which are hers neither from herself nor from her lovers, but from Him who, taking pity on her, willed everywhere to admonish her to whom she should return. 'Can the force of baptism,' he says, 'be greater or more powerful than confession, than passion—that one should confess Christ before men and be baptized in his own blood?'

'And yet,' he says, 'not even this baptism profits the heretic, if, though he has confessed Christ, he has been slain outside the Church.' This is most true. For one slain outside the Church is convicted of not having had that charity of which the Apostle says: 'And if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' But if, because charity is lacking, passion profits nothing, neither does it profit those whom Paul says, and Cyprian expounds, to live within in envy and malevolence without charity—and yet they can both receive and hand on true baptism. Outside the Church there is no salvation. Who denies it? And therefore whatever things of the Church herself are held outside the Church avail not unto salvation.

But it is one thing not to have, another to have unprofitably. He who has not, must be baptized that he may have; but he who has unprofitably must be corrected that he may have profitably. Nor is the water an adulteress in the baptism of heretics, because neither is the creature itself which God created evil, nor are the evangelical words to be blamed in whatever erring men; but rather their error, in which the soul is an adulteress, even though from a lawful husband she has the ornament of the sacrament.

Baptism, then, can be common to us and to heretics, with whom the Gospel too can be common, although their error stands apart from our faith, whether they think something concerning the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit other than the truth holds, or, being cut off from unity, gather not with Christ but scatter—because there can be common to us, if we are the Lord's wheat, even within, along with the covetous, the plunderers, the drunkards, and the other pests of this kind, of whom it is said, 'They shall not possess the kingdom of God,' both the sacrament of baptism—and yet the vices by which they are separated from the kingdom of God are not common. For it is not concerning heresies alone that the Apostle says: 'that they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God.'

But let it not be irksome to attend a little to what he enumerates together. 'Manifest,' he says, 'are the works of the flesh, which are fornications, uncleannesses, luxuries, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkennesses, revellings, and the like: of which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God.' Let us then set up someone chaste, continent, not covetous, not serving idols, hospitable, ministering to the needy, no man's enemy, not contentious, patient, quiet, envying none, grudging none, sober, frugal—yet a heretic:

No one certainly doubts that, on account of this alone—that he is a heretic—he will not possess the kingdom of God. Let us set up another: a fornicator, unclean, luxurious, covetous, or even more openly given over to idols, a sorcerer, quarrelsome, contentious, jealous, animose, seditious, envious, a drunkard, a reveller—yet a Catholic: will he, on account of this alone—that he is a Catholic—possess the kingdom of God, doing such things concerning which the Apostle thus concludes: 'of which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God'? If we say this, we deceive ourselves; for the word of God does not deceive us, which neither is silent, nor spares, nor deceives us with any flattery. For therefore in another place too He says:

'For this ye know, recognizing that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man, which is the service of idols, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words.' There is therefore no ground for us to complain of the word of God. It says—altogether and openly and freely it says—that those who live evilly do not pertain to the kingdom of God. Let us therefore not flatter a Catholic hedged about with all these vices, nor dare to promise him, because he is a Catholic Christian, the impunity which the divine Scripture does not promise. Nor, if he has any single one of the things that have been mentioned, ought we to pledge to him the fellowship of that heavenly homeland.

For to the Corinthians he enumerates them one by one, in each single one of which it is understood that they shall not possess the kingdom of God. 'Be not deceived,' he says. 'Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God.' He does not say, 'They who have all these vices together shall not possess the kingdom of God,' but 'neither these nor those,' so that in each single one you may understand this: that none of them shall possess the kingdom of God. As therefore heretics shall not possess the kingdom of God, so the covetous shall not possess the kingdom of God.

Nor indeed is it to be doubted that the very punishments by which those who shall not possess the kingdom of God will be tormented are diverse according to the diversity of their crimes, and some are harsher than others, so that even in that eternal fire the torments of the punishments are unequal in proportion to the unequal weights of sins. For not in vain does the Lord himself say: 'It shall be more tolerable for Sodom than for you in the day of judgment.' Yet nevertheless, for the purpose of not possessing the kingdom of God, what you have chosen as milder among those vices avails just as much as what you perceive to be graver, whether it be many vices or a single one. And since those shall possess the kingdom of God whom that Judge shall set at his right hand, for those who do not deserve to be set at the right hand nothing else will remain than to be at the left.

No word remains for them, that they as goats may hear from the mouth of the Shepherd, except: 'Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels'—although out of that fire, as I have said, diverse punishments can be apportioned according to the diversity of crimes. But whether we ought to prefer a Catholic of the worst morals to some heretic, in whose life, apart from the fact that he is a heretic, men find nothing to reprehend, I do not dare to rush to a judgment. But if anyone should say: 'Because he is a heretic, this alone cannot be the case, but other things must also follow;

for he is carnal and animal, and by this it is necessary that he be also envious and contentious and jealous and an enemy of the very truth, dissenting from it,'—let him understand that of those evils, that one which he has chosen as milder cannot exist alone in anyone, for the reason, namely, that such a man is carnal and animal. Just as drunkenness, which peoples have now become accustomed not only to name without horror but even to proclaim with merriment—can it possibly exist alone in the one in whom it is found? For what drunkard is not also contentious and jealous and envious and dissenting from the soundness of precepts and a grievous enemy to those who reprove him? And indeed, that he should also not be a fornicator and adulterer, this is difficult.

Nevertheless he can be no heretic, just as a heretic can be no drunkard nor adulterer nor fornicator nor voluptuary nor lover of money nor sorcerer, and can at the same time be none of all these. For it is not the case that from any one vice all the rest necessarily follow.

Therefore, when two men are set before us—one a Catholic with all these vices, the other a heretic without those which can be absent in a heretic—although neither disputes against the faith, yet both live against the faith, and both are deceived by a vain hope, and both dissent from spiritual charity, and on this account both are alien from the body of that one dove: why do we acknowledge the sacrament of Christ in one of them and refuse to acknowledge it in the other, as though it belonged to this man or to that, when in both it is the same and belongs to none but God, and is good even in the worst of men?

And if of the men who have this sacrament one is worse than the other, that which they have is not on that account worse in the one than in the other; because neither in two evil Catholics, if one be worse than the other, does the worse man bear a worse baptism, nor, if one of them be good and the other evil, is the baptism evil in the evil man and good in the good man, but in both it is good—just as the light of the sun, or even of a lamp, is surely not worse in worse eyes than in better ones, but is the same in both, although it affects them differently according to their diversity, either gladdening or tormenting them.

As for that objection which was raised to Cyprian concerning catechumens—that those apprehended in martyrdom and slain for the name of Christ are crowned even without baptism—I do not sufficiently understand what it has to do with the matter, unless perhaps because they were saying that heretics with the baptism of Christ can much more be admitted to his kingdom, into which catechumens are admitted, since he himself said: 'Unless one be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' On which point I too do not doubt that a Catholic catechumen, burning with divine charity, is to be set before a baptized heretic.

But even within the Catholic Church itself we prefer a good catechumen to an evil baptized person, and yet we do not thereby do injury to the sacrament of baptism, with which the latter is already imbued and the former not yet; nor do we think that the sacrament of the catechumen is to be preferred to the sacrament of baptism, when we recognize some catechumen to be more faithful and better than some baptized person. For the centurion Cornelius, not yet baptized, was better than Simon who was baptized. For the former was filled with the Holy Spirit even before baptism, while the latter was puffed up with an unclean spirit even after baptism. Nevertheless, if Cornelius, even after receiving the Holy Spirit, had been unwilling to be baptized, he would have become guilty of despising so great a sacrament.

But when he was baptized, he did not receive a better sacrament than Simon; rather the diverse merits of the men were distinguished under the equal sanctity of the same sacrament. Thus the merit of a man, whether good or evil, neither increases nor diminishes the sanctity of baptism. But just as a good catechumen lacks baptism for the attaining of the kingdom of heaven, so an evil baptized person lacks true conversion. For he who said, 'Unless one be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,' himself also said, 'Unless your righteousness abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' For lest the righteousness of the catechumen be secure, it was said:

'Unless one be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Again, lest iniquity be secure once baptism has been received, it was said: 'Unless your righteousness abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' The one without the other is too little; both together make one an heir of that possession. Therefore, just as we ought not to disapprove of a man's righteousness which began to exist before he was joined to the Church—as the righteousness of Cornelius had begun to exist before he himself was among the Christian people (which righteousness, had it been disapproved, the angel would not have said to him:

'Your alms are accepted and your prayers are heard,' nor, if it sufficed for attaining the kingdom of heaven, would he have been admonished to send to Peter)—so the evangelical sacrament of baptism is not to be disapproved, even if it has been received outside the Church. Yet because it does not profit unto salvation unless he who has the integrity of baptism, having also corrected his own depravity, be incorporated into the Church, let us so correct the error of heretics that we acknowledge what in them is not their own but Christ's. Indeed, that the Passion sometimes fills the place of baptism, the same blessed Cyprian takes as no light proof from that thief, to whom, though unbaptized, it was said: 'Today you shall be with me in paradise.'

Considering this again and again, I find that not only the Passion for the name of Christ can supply what was lacking from baptism, but also faith and conversion of heart, if perchance in the straits of time recourse cannot be had to the celebration of the mystery of baptism. For that thief was not crucified for the name of Christ, but for the deserts of his own crimes; nor did he suffer because he believed, but while he was suffering he believed. How much then avails, even without the visible sacrament of baptism, what the Apostle says—'With the heart one believes unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation'—was declared in that thief. But then it is fulfilled invisibly, when it is not contempt of religion but the exigency of necessity that excludes the ministry of baptism.

For much more in Cornelius and in his friends than in that thief might it seem superfluous that they should also be washed with water, in whom already the gift of the Holy Spirit—which holy Scripture testifies that no others but the baptized received—had shone forth by a sure sign that was suited to those times, when they spoke with tongues. Yet they were baptized, and for this deed there stands the apostolic authority. So far ought no one, in whatever advancement of the inner man—if perchance before baptism he has advanced with a devout heart even to spiritual understanding—to despise the sacrament which is applied bodily by the work of the ministers; but through it God spiritually works the consecration of the man.

Nor for any other reason do I think the office of baptizing was assigned to John—so that it should be called the baptism of John—except that the Lord himself, who had given it, by not disdaining to receive the baptism of a servant, might consecrate the way of humility, and by such a deed most openly declare how highly his own baptism, with which he himself was about to baptize, was to be esteemed.

For as a most powerful physician of eternal salvation he saw that the pride of certain persons would not be lacking, who, having so advanced in the understanding of the truth and in commendable morals that they would by no means hesitate to prefer themselves in life and doctrine to many who were baptized, would believe it superfluous for themselves to be baptized, when they perceived that they had arrived at that habit of mind to which many baptized persons were still striving to ascend. But what force the sanctification of the sacrament applied bodily has and effects in a man—the sanctification without which, nevertheless, that thief was not, since it was not the will to receive it that was lacking, but the necessity of not receiving it that was present—is difficult to say. Yet unless it availed very much, the Lord would not have received the baptism of a servant.

But because it is to be considered in itself, apart from the salvation of the man for whose perfecting it is applied, it is sufficiently indicated that even in evil men, and in those who renounce the world in words, not in deeds, it is itself intact, although such men cannot have salvation unless they be corrected. But just as in the thief, because through necessity it was bodily lacking, salvation was made perfect because through piety it was spiritually present, so also when it itself is at hand, if through necessity that be lacking which in the thief was present, salvation is made perfect.

This is what the universal Church holds as handed down, when little infants are baptized, who certainly cannot yet believe with the heart unto righteousness and confess with the mouth unto salvation, as the thief could; nay rather, by weeping and wailing they clamor against the very mystic words when the mystery is celebrated in them; and yet no Christian would say that they are baptized in vain. And if anyone should seek divine authority in this matter—although that which the whole Church holds, and which was not instituted by councils but has always been retained, is believed most rightly to have been handed down by no other than apostolic authority.

It is most rightly believed; yet we can also truly conjecture what avail the sacrament of baptism has in little ones, from the circumcision of the flesh which the earlier people received—a people that Abraham was justified before he received, just as Cornelius too was enriched with the gift of the Holy Spirit before he was baptized. Yet the Apostle says of Abraham himself: 'He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith'—he who had already believed with the heart, and it was reckoned to him unto righteousness. Why then was it commanded him that he should thenceforth circumcise every male infant on the eighth day, who could not yet believe with the heart that it might be reckoned to him unto righteousness, except because the sacrament in itself also availed much?

This was made manifest through an angel in the son of Moses, who, while still uncircumcised, was being carried by his mother, and by a present and evident peril it was exacted that he be circumcised; and when it was done, the destruction was averted. Therefore, just as in Abraham the righteousness of faith preceded and circumcision, the seal of the righteousness of faith, was added, so in Cornelius spiritual sanctification in the gift of the Holy Spirit preceded, and the sacrament of regeneration in the washing of baptism was added.

And just as in Isaac, who was circumcised on the eighth day of his birth, the seal of the righteousness of faith preceded, and, because he imitated his father's faith, that righteousness itself followed as he grew—the righteousness whose seal had preceded in him as an infant—so in baptized infants the sacrament of regeneration precedes, and, if they hold to Christian piety, there will also follow in the heart that conversion whose mystery preceded in the body.

And just as in that thief the bounty of the Almighty completed what was lacking from the sacrament of baptism, because it was lacking not through pride or contempt but through necessity, so in the infants who die baptized we must believe that the same grace of the Almighty fulfills what they can neither believe with the heart unto righteousness nor confess with the mouth unto salvation—not from an impious will, but from the incapacity of their age. Therefore, when others answer for them, so that the celebration of the sacrament may be completed toward them, it certainly avails for their consecration, because they themselves cannot answer. But if another should answer for one who is able to answer, it does not avail in like manner. From which rule that saying in the Gospel is drawn, which naturally moves all when it is read:

'He is of age, let him speak for himself.' By all these things it is shown that the sacrament of baptism is one thing, the conversion of the heart another, but that the salvation of the man is completed from both. Nor, if one of these be lacking, ought we therefore to think it follows that the other also is lacking; for the former can exist without the latter in an infant, and the latter could exist without the former in the thief—God completing, whether in the one or in the other, what had not been lacking through the will; whereas when either of these is lacking through the will, the man is entangled in guilt. And baptism indeed can be present where conversion of heart has been lacking; but conversion of heart can indeed be present where baptism has not been received, but not where baptism has been despised.

For in no way is it to be called a conversion of the heart to God, when the sacrament of God is despised. Justly therefore do we reprehend, anathematize, detest, and abominate the perversity of the heart of heretics; yet they do not for that reason lack the evangelical sacrament, because they lack that through which it is useful. Wherefore, when they come to the faith and the truth and, doing penance, demand that their sins be remitted them, we do not deceive them nor lead them astray, when—having corrected and reformed them by us in that wherein they were depraved and perverse—we instruct them for the kingdom of heaven by heavenly disciplines, in such a way that what in them is intact we in no way violate, nor, on account of the vice of the man, say that what of God is in the man is either nothing or vicious.

Now few things remain from the letter to Jubaianus. But because in them there is mention both of the past custom of the Church and of the baptism of John—which is wont to raise no small question for men who attend too little to a plain matter, because those who had received the baptism of John were commanded by the Apostle to be baptized in Christ—these are not to be treated carelessly, and are to be deferred to another volume, lest the measure of this one be immoderate. BOOK FIVE. That the former custom of the Catholic Church is now held—when those coming from heretics or schismatics, if they have received a baptism consecrated with evangelical words, are not baptized anew—we make use of blessed Cyprian as witness.

For he himself proposed to himself a question, taken indeed from the mouth of the brethren, whether they were seeking the truth or contending for the truth. For among his disputations, by which he wished to show that heretics were to be baptized anew—concerning which we have discoursed sufficiently for the time in the preceding books—he says: 'But someone says: What then shall become of those who in time past, coming from heresy to the Church, were admitted without baptism?' Here the whole cause of the Donatists, with whom we have our conflict on this question, is utterly shipwrecked.

For if those truly did not have baptism, who coming from heretics were thus received, and their sins were upon them, when communion was had with such persons, whether by those who were before Cyprian or by Cyprian himself, it is necessary that one of two things be said: either that the Church, defiled by communion with such persons, had already then perished, or that another's sins, even known ones, do not harm anyone remaining in unity.

But since they cannot say the former—that the Church perished then by the contagion of communion with those who, as Cyprian says, were admitted to it without baptism (otherwise they will not even be able to assert their own origin, if the Church perished then, since there are more than forty years between the passion of Cyprian and the burning of the divine books, whence these men, casting up the smoke of their calumnies, found occasion for making a schism, as the order of the consuls declares)—it remains that they confess that the unity of Christ is contaminated by no such communion even of known evil men. And when they have confessed this, they will find no reason why they should contend that they ought to have separated themselves from the churches of the whole world, which we read were likewise instituted through the apostles.

For neither could those churches perish through the admixture of any evil men whatsoever, and these men, who would not have perished if they had remained in unity with them, by separating themselves from them and breaking the bond of peace, most certainly perished in schism. For the most manifest sacrilege of schism stands out, if there was no cause of separation. And it appears that there was no cause of separation, if evil men, even known ones, do not defile the good in unity. But that the good are not defiled in unity even by known evil men we teach with Cyprian as witness, who says that in time past those coming from heresy to the Church were admitted without baptism; whose nefarious sacrileges, nevertheless, which were upon them, because they had not been remitted by baptism.

If they were not remitted, if they could not pollute and destroy the sanctity of the Church, then the Church can perish through no contagion of evil men. Wherefore, if they agree that Cyprian spoke the truth, by that very witness they are convicted in the crime of schism; if they contend that Cyprian spoke falsely, let them not use him as a witness in the question of baptism. But now let us carry through what we have undertaken—to converse with the blessed Cyprian, a peaceable man. When he had set before himself what he knew was said by the brethren:

'What then shall become of those who in time past, coming from heresy to the Church, were admitted without baptism?'—'The Lord,' he says, 'is able in his mercy 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 in the Church.' Well indeed did he presume that the charity of unity could cover a multitude of sins. But if they had baptism, and it was not rightly judged by those who deemed that they ought to be baptized anew, the charity of unity covered that error, so long as there was present this departure that was not diabolical but a human temptation, until the Lord should reveal to them, as the Apostle says, if they were minded otherwise in anything.

And therefore woe to those who, torn away from unity by a sacrilegious severance, if baptism is both among us and among them, rebaptize; but if it is among the Catholic Church alone, then they do not baptize at all. Whether therefore they rebaptize or do not baptize, they are not in the bond of peace, whence they might apply medicine to the wound of any of these. But we, if we admit to the Church without baptism, are in that number to whom Cyprian presumed pardon could be granted for the sake of guarding unity.

But if—as by now, I think, is manifest from what we have said in the preceding books—the integrity of Christian baptism can exist even in the perversity of heretics, then those who in those times rebaptized and yet did not withdraw from the framework of unity, could by the same love of peace attain to pardon, by which Cyprian testifies that even those admitted without baptism could not be separated from the gifts of the Church. Furthermore, if it is true that among heretics and schismatics there is not the baptism of Christ, how much less would another's sins harm those established in unity, if to those coming to unity and admitted even without baptism, their own sins too were loosed!

For if, as Cyprian witnesses, the bond of unity avails so much, how could they be harmed by another's sins who would not withdraw from unity, if even the unbaptized would not perish by their own sins, who wished to come to it from heresy? But that which Cyprian adds and says: 'Yet not because error was once committed is it therefore always to be erred; since it better befits men who are wise and fear God to obey gladly and without hesitation the truth once laid open and clearly perceived, than obstinately and stubbornly to struggle on behalf of heretics against brethren and fellow-priests'—he speaks most truly, nor does he oppose another rather than himself who resists the most manifest truth.