BOOK ONE. In those books which we wrote against the epistle of Parmenianus which he addressed to Tychonius, we promised that we would treat more diligently the question of baptism; and even if we had not there promised it, we remember and acknowledge it nonetheless as a debt demanded of us by the brethren who press us.
Wherefore in this work, with the Lord's help, we have undertaken not only to refute those things which the Donatists are wont to object against us on this matter, but also, from the authority of the most blessed martyr Cyprian — whereby they attempt to prop up their own perversity, lest it fall before the onslaught of the truth — to say what the Lord shall grant, so that all who judge, being not blinded by party zeal, may understand that they are not only not aided by the authority of Cyprian, but are chiefly through it convicted and overthrown. It has indeed already been said in the aforementioned books that baptism can be given outside the Catholic communion in the same way as it can also be held outside it.
But none of them denies that even apostates have baptism; and since to these, when they return and are converted through penance, it is not repeated, it is judged that it could not have been lost. So too those who, through the sacrilege of schism, depart from the communion of the Church, certainly have the baptism which they received before they departed. For if they too return, it is not given them again; whence it is shown that that which they had received while placed in unity, they could not, once separated, lose. But if it can be held outside, why can it not also be given? If you say: 'It is not rightly given outside,' we answer: just as it is not rightly held outside and yet is held, so it is not rightly given outside, but nevertheless is given.
And just as, through the reconciliation of unity, that begins to be usefully held which outside unity was uselessly held, so through the same reconciliation that begins to be useful which outside it was uselessly given. Yet it is not lawful to say that that was not given which was given, or that anyone should slanderously charge that a man did not give this, when he confesses that the man gave that which he had received. For the sacrament of baptism is what the baptized person has, and the sacrament of giving baptism is what the ordained person has. And just as the baptized man, if he departs from unity, does not lose the sacrament of baptism, so also the ordained man, if he departs from unity, does not lose the sacrament of giving baptism. For no injury is to be done to any sacrament.
If he departs from evils, he departs from both; if he remains in evils, he remains in both. As therefore the baptism is accepted which he who had departed from unity could not lose, so is the baptism to be accepted which was given by him who, when he departed, had not lost the sacrament of giving. For just as those who return, who were baptized before they withdrew, are not rebaptized, so those who return, who were ordained before they withdrew, are certainly not ordained again; but either they administer what they used to administer, if the Church's usefulness requires it, or, if they do not administer it, they nevertheless bear the sacrament of their ordination — and therefore no hand is laid upon them as upon the laity.
For Felicianus lost neither the sacrament of baptism nor the sacrament of giving baptism when he departed from them together with Maximianus; for now they have him among their own number, together with those very ones whom, while he was outside in the schism of Maximianus, he baptized. Wherefore the others could receive from them that which those men had not lost when they had withdrawn from our fellowship — even though they had not come to our fellowship. By which things it is shown both that they act impiously who attempt to rebaptize the unity of the world, and that we act rightly who dare not disapprove the sacraments of God even in the schism itself. For in that in which they agree with us, in that also they are with us; but in that in which they dissent from us, in that they have withdrawn from us.
For this approach and this departure are to be measured by movements not corporeal but spiritual. For just as the joining of bodies takes place through continuity of places, so of minds a certain contact is the agreement of wills. If, therefore, he who has withdrawn from unity should wish to do anything other than what he received in unity, in that he withdraws and is disjoined; but that which he wishes to do just as it is done in unity, where he received and learned it, in that he remains and is joined. And so these men are with us in certain things, but in certain others they have gone out from us. Accordingly, those things in which they are with us we do not forbid them to do;
but in those things in which they are not with us, we exhort them, that by coming they may receive, or by returning may recover; and by what means we can, we strive with charity that they may choose this, amended and corrected. We do not therefore say to them: 'Do not give,' but: 'Do not give in schism'; nor do we say to those whom they seem about to baptize: 'Do not receive,' but: 'Do not receive in schism.' For if perhaps extreme necessity should compel someone — where he has not found a Catholic through whom to receive, and, with peace preserved in his heart in Catholic fashion, has received through someone placed outside Catholic unity that which he was going to receive within Catholic unity itself — if he should straightway depart also from this life, we reckon him none other than a Catholic.
But if he should be delivered from bodily death, when he has restored himself, even by bodily presence, to the Catholic congregation, from which he had never departed in heart, we not only do not disapprove what he did, but even most securely and most truly praise it, because he believed God to be present to his heart, where he was preserving unity, and, without the sacrament of holy baptism — which, wherever he found it, he recognized to be not of men but of God — he was unwilling to depart from this life.
But if anyone, when he could receive in the Catholic Church itself, through some perversity of mind chooses to be baptized in schism — even if he afterward intends to come to the Catholic Church, because he is certain that the sacrament profits there, which indeed can be received elsewhere but cannot profit — he is beyond doubt perverse and iniquitous, and the more perniciously so the more knowingly. For thus he does not doubt that it is rightly received there, just as he does not doubt that even what he received elsewhere profits there. For there are two things which we say: both that baptism is in the Catholic Church, and that only there is it rightly received; both of which the Donatists deny. Likewise we say two other things: that there is baptism among the Donatists, but that it is not rightly received there;
of these two, they strongly affirm the one — that is, that baptism is there — but they are unwilling to admit the other, that it is not rightly received there. Of these four propositions, three are ours alone, but one we both assert. For that baptism is in the Catholic Church, and is rightly received there, and among the Donatists is not rightly received — we alone say; but that there is baptism both among the Donatists — they too assert, and we concede. Whosoever therefore wishes to be baptized, and is now certain that our Church is to be chosen by him for Christian salvation, and that in it alone the baptism of Christ profits, even if it has been received elsewhere — but nevertheless wishes to be baptized in the party of Donatus, because we say that baptism is there, not they alone nor we alone, but both — let him attend to the other three.
For if he has chosen to follow us in those points on which they say nothing, while he nevertheless prefers those things which both of us affirm to those which we alone affirm, it is enough for us that he prefers those things which they do not say and which we alone affirm to those which they alone affirm. Now that there is baptism in the Catholic Church, we affirm and they do not deny; that baptism is rightly received in the Catholic Church, we affirm and they do not deny; that baptism is not rightly received in the party of Donatus, we affirm and they do not deny. As therefore he rather believes what we alone say is to be believed, so let him rather do what we alone say is to be done. But what both of us say is to be believed, let him, if he so judges, believe the more firmly than that which is affirmed by us alone.
For he will more firmly believe that there is the baptism of Christ in the party of Donatus—which is affirmed by both of us—than that there is baptism in the Catholic Church, which is affirmed by Catholics only. But again he will rather believe that the baptism of Christ exists even among us—which we alone affirm—than that it does not exist among us, which they alone affirm. For he has already decided and is certain that in the points on which we differ, we are to be preferred to them. So then he will rather believe that what we alone say is rightly received among us, than that it is not rightly received among us, since this only they affirm. By the same rule he will rather believe what we alone say, namely that it is not rightly received among them, than that which they alone say, that is, that it is rightly received among them.
In vain, therefore, does he seem to himself to be secure in receiving there what both of us indeed say exists there, but where we do not both say it is to be received. But he himself has chosen, in the matter on which we do not both agree, to cleave rather to us. Let him therefore here receive securely, where he is certain both that it exists and that it is rightly received; but let him not receive there where those, whose opinion he has decided to choose, indeed say it exists but do not say it is to be received there. And yet even if he held it doubtful that it is not rightly received there, while holding it certain that it is rightly received in the Catholic Church, he would sin gravely in matters pertaining to the soul's salvation, on this ground alone, that he preferred uncertain things to certain.
For by this very fact he is certain that a man is rightly baptized in the Catholic Church, namely that though baptized elsewhere he has resolved to pass over to it. But that a man is rightly baptized among the Donatists, let him at least hold as uncertain, since this is affirmed by those whose opinion he holds ought to be set behind that of the Donatists; and, preferring the certain to the uncertain, let him be baptized here, where he is certain that it is rightly done for this reason, that even when he thought of doing it elsewhere he had resolved that he must pass over to this place. But now if anyone does not understand how it can come about that what we confess to exist there we say is not rightly given there, let him attend to this: that we do not even say it rightly exists there, which they too affirm concerning those who depart from their communion.
Let them also consider the likeness of the military mark, which can be both had and received outside of military service by deserters, yet outside of military service it ought neither to be had nor received, and in one brought back or led to military service it ought neither to be changed nor repeated. Nevertheless the case is different of those who imprudently fall in with these heretics, supposing them to be the very Church of Christ, and different of those who know that there is no Catholic Church except that which, as it was promised, is spread abroad throughout the whole world and extended even to the ends of the earth—which, growing up among the tares and desiring, in weariness of offenses, the rest to come, says in the Psalms: from the ends of the earth have I cried out to you, when my soul was in weariness: you have exalted me upon a rock.
Now that rock was Christ, in whom the Apostle says we are already raised up and seated in heaven—not yet in reality, but in hope. And therefore the Psalm continues and says: you have led me, for you have become my hope, a tower of strength from the face of the enemy. For from his promises, set as it were like darts and javelins in a most fortified tower, the enemy is not only guarded against but also assailed—the enemy who clothes his wolves in sheep's skins so that they may say: behold, here is Christ, behold, there he is, and who from the universality of the city set upon a mountain draw many away to the corners of their ambushes and, having cut their throats, devour them.
And when they know this, they choose to receive the baptism of Christ outside the communion of the unity of Christ's body, intending afterwards to migrate to that same communion together with what they will have received elsewhere. For, knowing it, they are about to hold the baptism of Christ against the Church of Christ on the very day on which they receive it. But if this is a wicked thing, who is there who would say: 'let me be permitted to commit a wickedness for one day'? For if he is going to pass over to the Catholic Church, I ask the reason. What else will he answer, except that it is an evil to be in the party of Donatus and not in the Catholic unity? This evil, then, for as many days as you do it, so many days' evil you will be doing; and it can be said that a greater evil is done over more days, and a lesser over few, but it cannot be said that no evil is done at all.
But what need is there to commit this so execrable an evil even for one day or one hour? For he who wishes this to be granted to him can ask it of the Church or of God himself—that it be granted him to be an apostate even for one day. For there is no reason why he should fear to be an apostate for one day, and yet not fear to be a schismatic or heretic for one day. 'There,' he says, 'I chose rather to receive, where both parties agree that the baptism of Christ exists.' But there it is not rightly received, say those to whom you are about to migrate; and there it is rightly received, say those from whom you are about to migrate. That therefore which those affirm whom you yourself put behind, while those whom you yourself put before contradict them, is either false or—to put it more mildly—uncertain.
Prefer therefore true things to false or uncertain, and certain things to uncertain. For there, whither you are about to migrate, when you have received elsewhere, that what you desire can be rightly received not only those to whom you are about to pass over confess, but you yourself who are about to pass over confess it. For if you doubted whether it could be rightly received there, you would also doubt whether you ought to pass over thither. To receive, therefore, in the party of Donatus—if it be uncertain whether it is a sin—who would doubt that it is certain to be a sin not rather to receive where it is certain that there is no sin? But those who through ignorance are baptized there, thinking it to be the very Church of Christ, sin indeed less in comparison with these; yet they are wounded by the sacrilege of schism—not that they are not gravely wounded, but that others are wounded more gravely.
For when it was said to certain persons: it will be more tolerable for the Sodomites in the day of judgment than for you, it was not said because the Sodomites will not be tormented, but because the others will be tormented more grievously. And yet this had perhaps at one time been hidden and uncertain. But from that whereby those are healed who take heed and are corrected, from that same are those weighed down who, when they are no longer permitted to be ignorant, obstinately rage to their own destruction. For the condemnation of the Maximianists and the reception of those condemned, together with those whom outside their communion, in sacrilegious schism—as their own council proclaims—they baptized, resolves this whole question and takes away the whole dispute.
It leaves absolutely nothing between us and those Donatists who are in communion with Primianus, whereby it might be doubted that the baptism of Christ can not only be had but even be given by those who are separated from the Church. For as they themselves are compelled to confess that those whom Felicianus baptized in schism received true baptism—since they now have them with themselves in that very baptism which they received in schism—so we say that the baptism of Christ exists even outside the Catholic communion, which those give who have been cut off from that same communion, because when they were cut off they did not lose it. And that which they think they have conferred on those whom...
...whom Felicianus baptized in schism, when they reconciled them to themselves—that is, not that they should receive what they did not have, but that what they had uselessly received and held in schism might profit them—this God truly confers and bestows through the Catholic communion upon those who come from any heresy or schism where they received the baptism of Christ: that is, not that they should begin to have the sacrament of baptism which they did not have, but that what they had might begin to profit them. Wherefore, between us and those, so to speak, cardinal Donatists—whose bishop at Carthage is Primianus—there is now on this matter no controversy at all.
For God willed that through the Maximianists it should be brought to an end, so that what they were unwilling to confess when love persuaded, they might confess when their own example compelled. But we still argue on this account, lest those who are not even in communion with these should seem to themselves to say something—those who contend that among themselves the fewer the Donatists who have remained, the more sincere they are. If these were the Maximianists alone, we ought not even to despise their salvation;
how much more, then, since that same party of Donatus has been cut up into many most minute fragments—all which minute particles reproach this one much larger party, in which Primianus is, concerning the received baptism of the Maximianists, and each singly attempts to assert that with itself alone the true baptism has remained, and that it is not at all elsewhere, neither in the whole world over which the Catholic Church is spread, nor in that very larger party of Donatus, nor in the rest besides its one self among the most minute parties!
If all these particles would heed the voice not of a man but of the most manifest truth itself, and would tame the fierce spirit of their own perverseness, they would return—not indeed to the larger party of Donatus from which, being cut off, they were themselves cut off, but from their own aridity to the very greenness of the Catholic root. For all these, where they are not against us are for us; but where they do not gather with us they scatter.
Now then, lest I should seem to conduct this by human arguments—seeing that the obscurity of this question, in earlier times of the Church before the schism of Donatus, so drove great men and fathers, bishops endowed with great love, to dispute among themselves, with peace preserved, and to waver, that for a long time the diverse decrees of councils in their several regions were unsettled, until by a plenary council of the whole world what was most wholesomely held was established, even the remaining doubts being removed—I bring forward from the Gospel certain proofs, by which, with the Lord's help, I show how rightly and truly according to God it was resolved: that ecclesiastical medicine should heal in any schismatic or heretic that wherein he was wounded by separation, while that which remained sound should rather be acknowledged and approved than, being condemned, be wounded.
Certainly the Lord says in the Gospel: he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Yet when the disciples reported to him that they had seen someone casting out demons in his name and had forbidden him, because he did not follow him along with them, he said: forbid him not. He who is not against you is for you. For no one can do anything in my name and speak evil of me. If there was nothing to be corrected in him, then let anyone be secure who, though set outside the communion of the Church, gathers in the name of Christ while dissociated from Christian society; and thus that saying will be false: he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.
But if that which the disciples of the Lord wished to do through ignorance is to be corrected in him, in that the Lord said: forbid him not, why did he himself forbid the forbidding? And how will that be true which he there says: he who is not against you is for you? For in this deed he was not against them but for them, where through the name of Christ he was working cures. In order, therefore, that both sentences may be true—as indeed they are true—both that where he says: he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters, and that where he says: forbid him not.
For 'he who is not against you is for you'—what remains to be understood, except that that man was to be confirmed in the veneration of so great a name, where he was not against the Church but for the Church, and yet was to be blamed in that separation where, if he gathered, he would scatter; so that if perchance he should come to the Church, he would not receive there what he already had, but would amend that in which he had gone astray? For neither were the prayers of Cornelius the Gentile unheard, nor his alms unaccepted; nay rather, he merited both that an angel should be sent to him and, being sent, that he should behold him—through whom he might indeed, without the access of any man, have learned all things necessary.
But since whatever of good he had in his prayers and alms could not profit him unless, through the bond of Christian society and peace, he were incorporated into the Church, he is bidden to send for Peter, and through him he learns Christ; through him also, being baptized, he is joined in fellowship of communion to the Christian people, to whom he was joined only by a likeness of good works. For he would perilously have despised the good which he did not yet have, priding himself upon that which he had.
So also those who, separating themselves from the society of the rest, with love violated, break the bond of unity: if they do none of those things which they received in that society, they are separated in all respects, and therefore whomever they have joined to themselves, if he should wish to come to the Church, must receive all that he did not receive. But if they do some of those same things, they have not separated themselves in these, and by that part they are held within the fabric of the weave, while in the rest they are torn. Accordingly, if they have joined anyone to themselves, by that part he is knit to the Church in which even they are not separated; and therefore, if he should wish to come to the Church, he is healed in that wherein, being mangled, he wandered, but where he was soundly connected he is not cured but acknowledged, lest, while we wish to cure sound things, we should rather wound them.
And so those whom they baptize, they heal from the wound of idolatry or unbelief, but they strike more grievously with the wound of schism. For the sword slew the idolaters among the people of God, but the opening of the earth swallowed up the schismatics. And the Apostle says: if I should have all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If someone were brought to a physician, wounded with a grievous wound in some necessary part of the body, if the physician should say: 'he will die of it unless it be cured,' I do not think that those who brought him are so foolish that, having considered and counted his other sound members, they would answer the physician and say:
'Are then these so many sound members not enough for his life, and that one wounded member enough for his death?' They certainly do not say this, but offer it to be cured. Nor yet, because they offer it to be cured, do they ask the physician also to cure those parts which are sound, but rather that he should urgently apply the medicine to that one place from which death threatens even the rest being safe, and unless it be healed it will come. What then does it profit a man to have either a sound faith, or perhaps the sound sacrament of faith alone, where by the deadly wound of schism the health of love has been destroyed—by whose destruction alone even those whole things are dragged to death?
That this may not happen, the mercy of God does not cease, through the unity of the holy Church, that they may come and be cured through the medicine of reconciliation, through the bond of peace. And let them not therefore think themselves sound because we say they have something sound, nor again think that what is sound must be cured because we point out that something is wounded. So then, in the soundness of the sacrament, because they are not against us, they are for us; but in the wound of schism, whatever they do not gather with Christ they scatter. Let them not be exalted by the things they have. Why do they lead their proud eyes so far merely by the things that are sound? Let them deign humbly to look upon their own wound, and attend not only to what is present, but also to what is lacking.
Let them see how many and how great things profit nothing, if that one thing be lacking, and let them see what that one thing is; and in this let them not hear me, but the Apostle: if I speak, he says, with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
What then does it profit them, if they have both an angelic tongue in the sacred mysteries, and prophecy—as did Caiaphas and Saul, who at times prophesied, whom Holy Scripture testifies to have been damnable—if they not only know the sacraments but also have them, as Simon Magus had; if they have faith, as the demons confessed Christ—for they did not disbelieve when they said: what have we to do with you, Son of God? we know who you are—if they even distribute their own substance to the poor, as many do not only in the Catholic Church but also in diverse heresies; if, when some persecution presses, they hand over their body to the flames together with us for the faith which they equally confess?
Yet because they do these things being separated, not bearing with one another in love nor endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, having no love at all, even with all those things which profit them nothing, they cannot attain to eternal salvation. But they seem to themselves to inquire most cleverly whether the baptism of Christ in the party of Donatus begets sons or does not beget them, so that if we grant that it begets, they may assert that that is their own mother-Church which was able to beget sons from the baptism of Christ, and, because there must be one Church, may thence charge that ours is not the Church.
But if we say 'it does not beget,' 'why then,' they say, 'are those not born again through baptism who pass over from us to you, when they have been baptized among us, if they are not yet born?' As though, forsooth, she begets from that whereby she is separated, and not from that whereby she is joined. For she is separated from the bond of love and peace, but she is joined in the one baptism. And so there is one Church which alone is called Catholic; and whatever of her own she has in the communions of the various parties separated from her unity, through that which she has of her own in them she it is that begets, not they. For it is not their separation that begets, but what they have retained with themselves of hers; and if they let go even of this, they do not beget at all.
She therefore begets in all in whom her sacraments are retained, whence such a thing may anywhere be begotten, although not all whom she begets belong to her unity, which will save those persevering unto the end. For not only do those not belong to her who are manifest by the open sacrilege of separation, but also those who, being corporeally mingled in her unity, are separated by a most wicked life. For the Church herself had borne Simon Magus through baptism, to whom nevertheless it was said that he had no part in the inheritance of Christ. Did baptism fail him? did the Gospel? did the sacraments? But because love was lacking to him, he was born in vain, and it would perhaps have been expedient for him not to be born.