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(That those who have once been washed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ought not to be baptized anew.) I observe that a question has been raised among the brethren as to what ought rather to be observed in the case of those who indeed in heresy, but in the name of our God Jesus Christ, have been washed, and afterward, departing thence and fleeing suppliantly to the Church of God, do penance with their whole heart, and, understanding at last the condemnation of their error, implore from her the aid of salvation—whether, according to the most ancient custom and ecclesiastical tradition, after that baptism which, outside indeed but in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, they received, it should suffice merely that the hand be laid upon them by the bishop to receive the Holy Spirit, and this imposition of hands afford them the sign of faith renewed and consummated; or whether indeed even a repeated baptism is necessary for them, as though they would have nothing unless they had obtained this too afresh, just as if they had never been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
And on this account it was being boasted that not a few things had been written or written back concerning this new question, by which each party strove with the utmost zeal to demolish the other's positions. In which kind of question, as it seems to me, no controversy or dispute at all could have arisen, if each one of us, content with the venerable authority of all the churches and with due humility, had not been eager to innovate anything, since he would perceive no ordinary occasion for contradiction.
For everything that is both doubtful and ambiguous and set among the diverse opinions of prudent and faithful men, if it is judged against the ancient and memorable and most solemn observance of all the deserving saints and faithful, ought assuredly to be condemned; since, in a matter once composed and ordered, whatever it be that is brought forth into the midst against the quiet and peace of the churches will bring nothing but discords and enmities and schisms:
where no other fruit is found but this alone: that one man, whoever he be, may be proclaimed among certain simple-minded men, out of empty glory, to be of great prudence and constancy, and, endowed with the stupor of heretics—whose one sole solace of perdition it is if they seem not to sin alone—may be celebrated among those most like himself and his equals as having corrected the errors and vices of all the churches. For this is the zeal and purpose of all heretics: to weave against our most holy mother the Church calumnies of this kind, and as many as they can, and to count it their highest glory if they have found something that could be charged to her as a crime, or even lightly imputed to her.
Which, since it is fitting that no faithful man of sound mind should hold it, and above all that no one at all set in any rank of the clergy, and much more no bishop, should dare it, it is monstrous that bishops themselves should devise such scandals, and, against the precept of the law and of all the Scriptures, should not fear, all too irreverently, to lay bare the shamefulness of mother Church—if they think there is any in this business—together with their own shamefulness and peril; although there is no shamefulness of the Church in this, save in the error of those very men.
And so it is offended against more grievously by men of this kind, if that which in the most ancient observance is done rightly is reprehended by them as if it were not rightly done—and by those who were before us, and also by us, it is plainly and strongly shown to have been rightly observed and to be observed—so that, even if we should contend with equal arguments on either side, nevertheless, because that which was being innovated could not stand without the dissension of the brethren and ecclesiastical damage, assuredly a blemish ought not to be rashly inflicted, contrary to what they call the right and against the sacrilege—that is, against the good and the equitable—upon mother Church; and to those who would attempt this, the ignominy of this audacity and impiety ought deservedly to be ascribed.
But since it is not in our power, according to the precept of the Apostle, that we all say the same thing and that there be no schisms among us, nevertheless, insofar as we are able, we strive to demonstrate the state of this treatise, and to persuade turbulent men that they may even now begin to mind their own business—it being of the greatest profit to us also, if in this too they should at last be willing to acquiesce in sound counsel.
And therefore, whatever chapters of the Holy Scriptures pertain to this matter, we shall of necessity gather into one, and those things which seem to be diverse or various we shall, as far as it can be done, plainly cement together among themselves, and shall examine, according to our mediocrity, the usefulness and profit of each, so that we may instil into all the brethren a form and custom of acting in the Church that is most wholesome and peaceable.
Therefore, to those approaching the treatise of the saving and new—that is, spiritual and evangelical—baptism, there first occurs the preaching most known to all, celebrated and begun by John the Baptist, who, departing somewhat from the law, that is, from Moses' most ancient baptism, and paving the way for the new and true grace, by the baptism which meanwhile he exercised, of water and of penance, gradually anticipated and occupied the ears of the Jews with the announcement of the spiritual baptism to come, exhorting them and saying: 'He who comes after me is stronger than I, whose sandal-strap I am not worthy to loose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.' Wherefore for us also the beginning of this discourse must needs begin from here.
For the Lord also, confirming this same word of John after his resurrection in the Acts of the Apostles, commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await 'that promise of the Father which you have heard from me; for John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not after these many days.' And likewise Peter recounted these same words of the Lord, rendering an account for himself before the apostles, saying: 'But when I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as also upon us in the beginning; and I remembered the word of the Lord, as he was saying: John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'
'If then God gave them an equal gift as he did also to us who believe in the Lord Christ Jesus, who was I that I could withstand God?' And again: 'Men, brethren, you know that from ancient days God chose among us, that through my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe; and God, who knows the hearts, bore them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit just as also to us.' And on this account we ought to consider what is the force and power of this sentence. For the Lord says to those who should afterward be baptized, because they believed, that they were to be baptized not, as by himself in water unto penance, but in the Holy Spirit.
Concerning which preaching, since assuredly no one of us can be in doubt, it is manifest by what reasoning men have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. For indeed they who believed were, properly speaking, baptized in the Holy Spirit alone, since John distinguished and said, declaring that he indeed baptized in water, but that one was to come who would baptize in the Holy Spirit. These things are by the grace and power of God, both bestowing and working even in secret; nonetheless, also in the baptism of Spirit and water; and moreover also in the baptism of the Spirit in each one's own blood, as the Holy Scriptures declare to us—of which, through each single one of the things we shall relate, we shall bring forward clear proofs.
To which perhaps you, who introduce something new, may straightway answer impatiently, as you are wont, that the Lord said in the gospel: 'Unless one be born anew of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven'; from which it manifestly appears that baptism profits only him in whom the Holy Spirit too can be present: for upon the Lord himself, when he was being baptized, the Holy Spirit descended, and his deed and his word alike agree, nor by any other reasoning can this mystery stand.
To this answer none of us is found so mad or so obstinate as to dare to gainsay what is lawful or what is true — that is, when matters are performed whole and in every way thus carried out in the Church, and are to be observed by us perpetually according to the order of discipline. But if in that same New Testament these things which in this affair we find united are sometimes found in a manner divided and separated, and so arranged as though they were single, let us consider whether they can at times even stand singly and alone, as if they were not maimed but rather entire and complete.
For when through the imposition of the bishop's hand the Holy Spirit is given to each believer — as the apostles did in the case of the Samaritans after Philip's baptism, by laying their hand upon them, and in this way conferred the Holy Spirit upon them; and that this might come to pass they themselves prayed for them, for as yet the Spirit had descended upon none of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Our Lord too, after the resurrection, when he had breathed and said to his apostles, 'Receive the Holy Spirit,' thus at last bestowed on them the Holy Spirit. Since it is thus found, what, brother, seems right to you?
If someone not baptized by a bishop — so that even if the hand were straightway laid upon him — should nevertheless have died before he received the Holy Spirit, would you judge that he has obtained salvation or not?
Seeing indeed that the apostles themselves and the disciples, who also baptized others, though baptized by the Lord did not at once receive the Holy Spirit, who was not yet given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified, but only after his resurrection — and not even a slight interval of time in which this was done intervened — just as also when the Samaritans were baptized by Philip, until the apostles, summoned from Jerusalem, came down to them at Samaria to lay their hand upon them and to confer the Holy Spirit upon them through the imposition of the hand; because even in that interval of time some one of them, not having obtained the Holy Spirit, could have been cut off by death, and, defrauded of the grace of the Holy Spirit, have died.
And this, even at the present day, cannot be doubted to be customary and wont to happen, that very many after baptism depart from the world without the imposition of the bishop's hand, and yet are held to be perfect believers. So the Ethiopian eunuch, when he was returning from Jerusalem and reading the prophet Isaiah and hesitating, at the prompting of the Spirit, once the truth had been heard from Philip the deacon, believed and was baptized; and when he had come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more, for he went on his way rejoicing. And yet, as you observe, no hand was laid upon him by a bishop that he might receive the Holy Spirit.
But if you admit this and believe it to be salutary, and do not oppose the opinion of all the faithful, you must confess — and as this reasoning proceeds more broadly — that that other point too can more broadly stand: namely, that by the sole imposition of the bishop's hand, because baptism in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord has gone before, the Holy Spirit can be bestowed also upon another man who repents and believes; since Holy Scripture foretold that those who were to believe in Christ ought to be baptized in the Spirit, so that these too may seem to have nothing less than those who are perfect Christians, nor need it be asked of what kind that baptism was which they obtained in the name of Jesus Christ.
Unless perchance, in that earlier discussion too, concerning those who have been baptized only in the name of Christ Jesus, you should determine that they can be saved even without the Holy Spirit; or that not by this reason alone, but that the Holy Spirit is wont to be granted through the imposition of the bishop's hand, or even that one who is not a bishop is accustomed to bestow the Holy Spirit. And if this is so, and any of these events can happen without robbing the believing man of salvation, then you yourself also grant that the mystery of faith — only halved and not, as you contend, consummated — cannot, if some necessity intervenes, take away salvation from a believing and penitent man.
Or if you say that such a man cannot be saved, then we take salvation away from all the bishops, whom you thus bind by the most certain perils, so that they must, by their own selves, succor all the men who live under their care and who fall sick scattered here and there throughout their regions — because the other men, clerics of lesser rank who are in peril, cannot furnish this same thing — lest the blood of those who shall be seen to have gone out of the world empty must needs be required at the bishops' hand. Moreover, as you are not unaware, the Holy Spirit is found given by the Lord to believing men without the baptism of water, as it is contained in the Acts of the Apostles in this manner:
While Peter yet spoke these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were hearing the word, and those of the circumcision who were believers, as many as had come with Peter, were amazed, because upon the Gentiles also the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out. For they heard them speaking in their tongues and magnifying God. Then Peter answered: Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit even as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. As also the same Peter afterward most fully taught us concerning these same Gentiles, saying: And he made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
And thus it will not be doubtful that men can be baptized in the Holy Spirit without water, as you observe that these were baptized before they were baptized with water, so that satisfaction might be made both to the preachings of John and of the Lord himself; since these too, without the imposition of the apostles' hands and without the washing which they afterward obtained, received the grace of the promise, and thus, their hearts having been cleansed a little before, God through their faith bestowed on them at the same time the remission of sins as well, so that the subsequent baptism furnished them this only — that they should also receive the invocation of the name of Jesus Christ — lest anything should seem lacking to them for the completeness of the ministry and of the faith.
And this too, from the opposite side of this discussion, those very disciples of our Lord attained; upon whom, already baptized long before, on the last day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came — by the will of God indeed, not gliding down from heaven of its own accord, but, poured out for this very office, resting upon each one of them — since, being righteous, they had, as we have said, long before been baptized with the baptism of the Lord, like the apostles themselves, who nevertheless are all found to have forsaken the Lord on the night when he was seized; and that very Peter, who boasted that he would persevere in his faith and most obstinately resisted the Lord's own prediction, at the last nevertheless denied him:
so that in this way it might be shown to us that the sins which in the meantime they had in whatever way contracted, these same sins, their faith being afterward sincere, were undoubtedly remitted in them through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Nor, as I think, for any other cause had the apostles commanded those whom they were addressing in the Holy Spirit to be baptized in the name of Christ Jesus, except that the power of the name of Jesus, invoked in baptism over any man whatsoever, could furnish to the one baptized no small prerogative for attaining salvation, as Peter relates in the Acts of the Apostles, saying: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, in which we must be saved.
As the apostle Paul too discloses, showing that God exalted Jesus our Lord and gave him a name to this end, that it should be above every name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things heavenly and earthly and infernal, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, in the glory of the Father — and that he over whom, when he was baptized, the name of Jesus had been invoked, even though he attained it in some error, is nevertheless at some time not forbidden to be rightly wise, and to correct his error, and to come to the Church and to the bishop, and sincerely to confess our Jesus before men, so that then, when the bishop's hand should be laid upon him, he might receive the Holy Spirit also, and might not lose that former invocation of the name of Jesus — which it is lawful for none of us to condemn — though this bare and single invocation, if it be set in error, could not suffice to furnish salvation, lest by this reasoning we should believe that even heathens and heretics, abusing the name of Jesus, can attain to salvation without the true and entire reality.
Yet it is exceedingly useful to believe that this invocation of the name of Jesus — duly accomplished by the mystery of God concerning such men, through the correction of error, the acknowledgment of the truth of the faith, and the cutting away of every stain of past conversation — obtains the place which it was not going to hold, and at last, in the right faith and for furnishing the integrity of the sign, does not stand in the way, since the supplement of what was lacking is added; and with good reason to acquiesce in the authority of so many years and of so many churches, and likewise of the apostles and the bishops; since it is the greatest inconvenience and loss to the most holy mother Church that, against ancient decrees, after so great a series of so many ages, one should now for the first time suddenly and without reason rise up.
For it was not for any other reason that Peter — who had already been baptized and had been asked by the Lord himself what he thought of the Lord, and, the truth of the revelation of the heavenly Father having been placed in him, had confessed that our Lord was not only Christ but also the Son of the living God — was afterward shown to have opposed the same Christ as he preached of his passion, and was therefore shown to be called Satan, except because it was to come to pass that certain men, though varying in their own opinion and at times halting in faith and doctrine, when they were baptized in the name of Jesus, yet, if within a certain interval of time they had been able to correct it, would not for that reason fall away from salvation, but, coming to their senses at some point, would by repenting obtain the entire hope of salvation — especially when they should receive the Holy Spirit, with which each man ought to be baptized — had they marked out some such thing; as we find that not only Peter suffered this in the Gospel, but all the disciples too, to whom, already baptized, the Lord afterward said: You shall all be offended in me.
Who all, as we observe, their faith being corrected, after the resurrection of the Lord were baptized in the Holy Spirit; so that not without reason we believe today also that men corrected from their former error can be baptized in the Holy Spirit — men who, when they were baptized with water in the name of the Lord, had once had a scabby faith; since it makes a great difference whether someone is not baptized at all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or whether he halts in something when he is baptized with the baptism of water, which is the lesser thing, provided that afterward the faith stand firm in the sincere truth in the baptism of the Spirit, which is undoubtedly the greater. And do not reckon that what the Lord said is contrary to this discussion:
Go, teach the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For although this is true and right and in every way to be observed in the Church, and is wont also to be observed, yet it is fitting to consider that the invocation of the name of Jesus ought not to seem futile to us, on account of the veneration and power of the name itself, in which name all the mighty works are wont to be done, and sometimes some even by strangers. Furthermore, to what do those words of Christ pertain, who said that he would deny, and would not know, those who would say to him on the day of judgment:
Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do great mighty works? — answering them even with an oath: I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity — unless it were being shown to us that sometimes even by those who work iniquity these things too can be done, through the exceeding power of the name of Jesus.
And therefore this invocation of the name of Jesus ought to be received as, so to speak, a certain beginning of the Lord's mystery, common to us and to all others, which can afterward be filled up by the remaining things; otherwise such an invocation, when it has remained alone, will not profit, because after the death of such a man nothing at all can be added to him or supplied, nor in any respect avail on the day of judgment, when the things we have mentioned above shall begin to be cast in his teeth by our Lord. Yet all these men today, that they may succor themselves by these means which we have shown above, cannot be forbidden by any of men so harshly and so cruelly.
But to this, as you are wont, you will object, setting against us that the disciples, when they were baptized, were baptized entirely and rightly, and not as these heretics. Which you must take from the person of themselves and of him who baptized them. And therefore we answer this proposition of yours not as accusers of the Lord's disciples, but as we are compelled, because it is necessary that we investigate by reasonings where and when and in what manner salvation has been furnished to each one of us.
For that our Lord was born and that he was the Christ seemed to be believed, not without reason, by his disciples, for many causes: because he had been born of the tribe of Judah, of the line of David, and in the city of Bethlehem; and because it had been announced to the shepherds by angels that a Savior was born to them, at the very moment when, his star having been seen in the east, he had been most anxiously sought out by the Magi and adored and honored with splendid gifts and remarkable presents; because as a mere boy, sitting in the temple with the doctors of the law, he had disputed prudently and to the admiration of all; because, when he was baptized — as had befallen no other — by the opening of the heavens, by the descent of the Holy Spirit and its abiding upon him, and by the testimony also of his own Father,
and likewise had been glorified by John the Baptist; because above human mediocrity he understood the hearts and thoughts of all; because he cured and healed sicknesses and infirmities and ailments with the greatest power; because he granted remissions of sins with evident proof; because he expelled demons by his command; because he cleansed lepers by a word; because, by turning water into wine, he enlarged a wedding feast with wondrous joy; because he restored or granted sight to the blind; because he asserted the Father's teaching with all confidence; because in a desert place he satisfied five thousand men from five loaves; because the leavings and fragments filled more than twelve baskets; because in his mercy he raised the dead here and there; because he commanded the winds and the sea to be still; because he walked upon the sea with his feet; because he accomplished absolutely all the mighty works.
By these things, and by many more of this kind done, pertaining to his glory, it seemed to follow that — just as the Jews think concerning the Christ (which, however, they do not believe concerning Jesus Christ our Lord) — his disciples too should suppose that one so great, having met no death, would endure forever, and would possess the kingdom of Israel and of the whole world in perpetuity, so that it should not be snatched away. Whence also the Jews dared to seize him and anoint him into the kingdom — which indeed he needs must escape by flight; and therefore his disciples thought that by no other means would he furnish them eternal life, unless first he himself had joined this temporal life with that eternal one in his own person.
Finally, when they were dwelling in Galilee, Jesus said to them: The Son of Man begins to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and after three days he will rise again. And they were exceedingly saddened, because, as we have said, they had previously conceived in their souls and minds something far different. Finally, this too was the word of the Jews' contradiction against him, when he indeed taught them and announced things to come, but they said: We have heard from the law that Christ remains forever; and how do you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? And so the disciples had this same presumption concerning the Christ, Peter himself, the leader and chief of the apostles, bursting forth into that word of his unbelief.
For when he had been asked by the Lord, together with the others, what he thought of him — that is, whom he supposed him to be — and had at first confessed the truth, saying that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and had therefore been judged blessed by him, because he had attained this not carnally but through the revelation of the heavenly Father — yet the same man, when Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and priests and scribes, and be killed and rise again after the third day, nonetheless — that true confessor of Christ — a few days later, taking him aside, began to rebuke him, saying: Be it far from you, this shall not be; so that on that account he deserved to hear from the Lord:
Get behind me, Satan; you are an offense to me — because he did not savor the things that are of God but the things that are of men. This rebuke against Peter shone forth more and more when the Lord was seized, when, terrified by a little maidservant, he said: I know not what you say, nor do I know you; and again when he said this same thing with an oath added; and a third time, cursing and swearing, he affirmed that he did not know the man, and denied him not once but often — which resolve, since it was going to persist in him until the passion of the Lord, was made plain by the Lord much beforehand, that we too might not be ignorant of it.