Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| To Pompey, Against the Epistle of Stephen About the Baptism of Heretics.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Epistle LXXIII.2887
| 2887
Oxford ed.: Ep. lxxiv. |
To Pompey, Against the Epistle of
Stephen About the Baptism of Heretics.
Argument.—The Purport of This Epistle is Given in St.
Augustine’s “Contra Donatistas,” Lib. V. Cap.
23. He Says There: “Cyprian, Moreover, Writes to
Pompey on the Same Subject, When He Plainly Signifies that Stephen,
Who, as We Learn, Was Then a Bishop of the Roman Church, Not Only Did
Not Agree with Him on Those Points, But Even Had Written and Charged in
Opposition to Him.”2888
| 2888
On which subject, again, in chap. 25: “I will not now
reconsider what he angrily uttered against Stephen, because there is no
necessity for it. The very same things are indeed said which have
already been sufficiently discussed, and it is better to pass by what
suggested the risk of a mischievous dissension. Stephen, for his
part, had thought that they who endeavoured to annul the old custom
about receiving heretics were to be excommunicated; but the other,
moved with the difficulty of that very question, and very largely
endowed with a sacred charity, thought that unity might be maintained
with them who thought differently. Thus, although there was a
great deal of keenness, yet it was always in a spirit of brotherhood;
and at length the peace of Christ conquered in their hearts, so that in
such a dispute none of the mischief of schism arose between them”
(Migne). [Ed. Migne adds, assuming the mediæval system to
have been known to Cyprian, as follows]: “Thus far
Augustine, whom we have quoted at length, because the passage is
opposed to those who strive from this to assert his schism from the
Roman pontiff.” |
1. Cyprian to his brother Pompeius,
greeting. Although I have fully comprised what is to be said
concerning the baptism of heretics in the letters of which I sent you
copies, dearest brother, yet, since you have desired that what Stephen
our brother replied to my letters should be brought to your knowledge,
I have sent you a copy of his reply; on the reading of which, you will
more and more observe his error in endeavouring to maintain the cause
of heretics against Christians, and against the Church of God.2889
| 2889 [It will be seen, more and more,
that this entire conviction of Cyprian as to Stephen’s absolute
equality with himself, results from the Ante-Nicene system, and accords
with his theory of the divine organization of the Church. So
Augustine, as quoted in the “Argument.”] | For
among other matters, which were either haughtily assumed, or were not
pertaining to the matter, or contradictory to his own view, which he
unskilfully and without foresight wrote, he moreover added this
saying: “If any one, therefore, come to you from any heresy
whatever, let nothing be innovated (or done) which has not been handed
down, to wit, that hands be imposed on him for repentance;2890
since the
heretics themselves, in their own proper character, do not baptize such
as come to them from one another, but only admit them to
communion.”
2. He forbade one coming from any heresy to
be baptized in the Church; that is, he judged the baptism of all
heretics to be just and lawful. And although special heresies
have special baptisms and different sins, he, holding communion with
the baptism of all, gathered up the sins of all, heaped together into
his own bosom. And he charged that nothing should be innovated
except what had been handed down; as if he were an innovator, who,
holding the unity, claims for the one Church one baptism; and not
manifestly he who, forgetful of unity, adopts the lies and the
contagions of a profane washing. Let nothing be innovated, says
he, nothing maintained, except what has been handed down.
Whence is that tradition? Whether does it descend from the
authority of the Lord and of the Gospel, or does it come from the
commands and the epistles of the apostles? For that those things
which are written must be done, God witnesses and admonishes, saying to
Joshua the son of Nun: “The book of this law shall not
depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate in it day and night,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written
therein.”2891
Also
the Lord, sending His apostles, commands that the nations should be
baptized, and taught to observe all things which He
commanded. If, therefore, it is either prescribed in the Gospel,
or contained in the epistles or Acts of the Apostles, that those who
come from any heresy should not be baptized, but only hands laid upon
them to repentance, let this divine and holy tradition be
observed. But if everywhere heretics are called nothing else than
adversaries and antichrists, if they are pronounced to be people to be
avoided, and to be perverted and condemned of their own selves,
wherefore is it that they should not be thought worthy of being
condemned by us, since it is evident from the apostolic
testimony2892
that they are
of their own selves condemned? So that no one ought to defame the
apostles as if they had approved of the baptisms of heretics, or had
communicated with them without the Church’s baptism, when they,
the apostles, wrote such things of the heretics. And this, too,
while as yet the more terrible plagues of heresy had not broken forth;
while Marcion of Pontus had not yet emerged from Pontus, whose master
Cerdon came to Rome,—while Hyginus was still bishop, who was the
ninth bishop in that city,—whom Marcion followed, and with
greater impudence adding other enhancements to his crime, and more
daringly set himself to blaspheme against God the Father, the Creator,
and armed with sacrilegious arms the heretical madness that rebelled
against the Church with greater wickedness and
determination.
3. But if it is evident that subsequently
heresies became more numerous and worse; and if, in time past, it was
never at all prescribed nor written that only hands should be laid upon
a heretic for repentance, and that so he might be communicated with;
and if there is only one baptism, which is with us, and is within, and
is granted of the divine condescension to the Church alone, what
obstinacy is that, or what presumption, to prefer human tradition to
divine ordinance, and not to observe that God is indignant and angry as
often as human tradition relaxes and passes by the divine precepts, as
He cries out, and says by Isaiah the prophet, “This people
honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But
in vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines and commandments of
men.”2893
Also
the Lord in the Gospel, similarly rebuking and reproving, utters and
says, “Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your
own tradition.”2894
Mindful of which precept, the
blessed Apostle Paul himself also warns and instructs, saying,
“If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome
words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to His doctrine, he is proud,
knowing nothing: from such withdraw thyself.”2895
4. Certainly an excellent and lawful
tradition is set before us by the teaching of our brother Stephen,
which may afford us a suitable authority! For in the same place
of his epistle he has added and continued: “Since those who
are specially heretics do not baptize those who come to them from one
another, but only receive them to communion.” To this point
of evil has the Church of God and spouse of Christ been developed, that
she follows the examples of heretics; that for the purpose of
celebrating the celestial sacraments, light should borrow her
discipline from darkness, and Christians should do that which
antichrists do. But what is that blindness of soul, what is that
degradation of faith, to refuse to recognise the unity2896
| 2896
[This “unity” consisted not at all in agreeing with
Stephen, according to our author. See good note (l) Oxford
edition, p. 260.] | which comes
from God the Father, and from the tradition of Jesus Christ the Lord
and our God! For if the Church is not with heretics, therefore,
because it is one, and cannot be divided; and if thus the Holy Spirit
is not there, because He is one, and cannot be among profane persons,
and those who are without; certainly also baptism, which consists in
the same unity, cannot be among heretics, because it can neither be
separated from the Church nor from the Holy Spirit.
5. Or if they attribute the effect of
baptism to the majesty of the name, so that they who are baptized
anywhere and anyhow, in the name of Jesus Christ, are judged to be
renewed and sanctified; wherefore, in the name of the same Christ, are
not hands laid upon the baptized persons among them, for the reception
of the Holy Spirit? Why does not the same majesty of the same
name avail in the imposition of hands, which, they contend, availed in
the sanctification of baptism? For if any one born out of the
Church can become God’s temple, why cannot the Holy Spirit also
be poured out upon the temple? For he who has been sanctified,
his sins being put away in baptism, and has been spiritually reformed
into a new man, has become fitted for receiving the Holy Spirit; since
the apostle says, “As many of you as have been baptized into
Christ have put on Christ.”2897
He who, having been baptized
among the heretics, is able to put on Christ, may much more receive the
Holy Spirit whom Christ sent. Otherwise He who is sent will be
greater than Him who sends; so that one baptized without may begin
indeed to put on Christ, but not to be able to receive the Holy Spirit,
as if Christ could either be put on without the Spirit, or the Spirit
be separated from
Christ. Moreover, it is silly to say, that although the second
birth is spiritual, by which we are born in Christ through the laver of
regeneration, one may be born spiritually among the heretics, where
they say that the Spirit is not. For water alone is not able to
cleanse away sins, and to sanctify a man, unless he have also the Holy
Spirit.2898
| 2898
[Cyprian does not believe in the mere opus operatum of the
water. And one fears that Stephen’s position in this matter
bore its fruit long after in that pernicious dogma of the
schoolmen.] |
Wherefore it is necessary that they should grant the Holy Spirit to be
there, where they say that baptism is; or else there is no baptism
where the Holy Spirit is not, because there cannot be baptism without
the Spirit.
6. But what a thing it is, to assert and
contend that they who are not born in the Church can be the sons of
God! For the blessed apostle sets forth and proves that baptism
is that wherein the old man dies and the new man is born, saying,
“He saved us by the washing of regeneration.”2899
But
if regeneration is in the washing, that is, in baptism, how can heresy,
which is not the spouse of Christ, generate sons to God by
Christ? For it is the Church alone which, conjoined and united
with Christ, spiritually bears sons; as the same apostle again says,
“Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might
sanctify it, cleansing it with the washing of water.”2900
If,
then, she is the beloved and spouse who alone is sanctified by Christ,
and alone is cleansed by His washing, it is manifest that heresy, which
is not the spouse of Christ, nor can be cleansed nor sanctified by His
washing, cannot bear sons to God.2901
| 2901
[Allowing the premisses admitted alike by Stephen and Cyprian (of
which it is not my place to speak), the logic of our author appears to
me irresistible. Practically, how wise the inspired
maxim, Rom. xiv.
1.] |
7. But further, one is not born by the imposition
of hands when he receives the Holy Ghost, but in baptism, that so,
being already born, he may receive the Holy Spirit, even as it happened
in the first man Adam. For first God formed him, and then
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. For the Spirit
cannot be received, unless he who receives first have an
existence. But as the birth of Christians is in baptism, while
the generation and sanctification of baptism are with the spouse of
Christ alone, who is able spiritually to conceive and to bear sons to
God, where and of whom and to whom is he born, who is not a son of the
Church, so as that he should have God as his Father, before he has had
the Church for his Mother? But as no heresy at all, and equally
no schism, being without, can have the sanctification of saving
baptism, why has the bitter obstinacy of our brother Stephen broken
forth to such an extent, as to contend that sons are born to God from
the baptism of Marcion; moreover, of Valentinus and Apelles, and of
others who blaspheme against God the Father; and to say that remission
of sins is granted in the name of Jesus Christ where blasphemy is
uttered against the Father and against Christ the Lord God?
8. In which place, dearest brother, we must
consider, for the sake of the faith and the religion of the sacerdotal
office which we discharge, whether the account can be satisfactory in
the day of judgment for a priest of God, who maintains, and approves,
and acquiesces in the baptism of blasphemers, when the Lord threatens,
and says, “And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for
you: if ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart to
give glory unto my name, saith the Lord Almighty, I will even send a
curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.”2902
Does he give
glory to God, who communicates with the baptism of Marcion? Does
he give glory to God, who judges that remission of sins is granted
among those who blaspheme against God? Does he give glory to God,
who affirms that sons are born to God without, of an adulterer and a
harlot? Does he give glory to God, who does not hold the unity
and truth that arise from the divine law, but maintains heresies
against the Church? Does he give glory to God, who, a friend of
heretics and an enemy to Christians, thinks that the priests of God,
who support the truth of Christ and the unity of the Church, are to be
excommunicated?2903
If glory
is thus given to God, if the fear and the discipline of God is thus
preserved by His worshippers and His priests, let us cast away our
arms; let us give ourselves up to captivity; let us deliver to the
devil the ordination of the Gospel, the appointment of Christ, the
majesty of God; let the sacraments of the divine warfare be loosed; let
the standards of the heavenly camp be betrayed; and let the Church
succumb and yield to heretics, light to darkness, faith to perfidy,
hope to despair, reason to error, immortality to death, love to hatred,
truth to falsehood, Christ to Antichrist! Deservedly thus do
heresies and schisms arise day by day, more frequently and more
fruitfully grow up, and with serpents’ locks shoot forth and cast
out against the Church of God with greater force the poison of their
venom; whilst, by the advocacy of some, both authority and support are
afforded them; whilst their baptism is defended, whilst faith, whilst
truth, is betrayed;2904
| 2904
[Stephen’s presumption in this step is the dark spot in his
record. It was a brutum fulmen, however, even in his own
province. See Augustine’s testimony, Oxf. ed. (note l) p.
258.] |
whilst that which is done without against the Church is defended within
in the very Church itself.
9. But
if there be among us, most beloved brother, the fear of God, if the
maintenance of the faith prevail, if we keep the precepts of Christ, if
we guard the incorrupt and inviolate sanctity of His spouse, if the
words of the Lord abide in our thoughts and hearts, when he says,
“Thinkest thou, when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith
on the earth?”2905
then, because we are God’s faithful soldiers, who war for the
faith and sincere religion of God, let us keep the camp entrusted to us
by God with faithful valour. Nor ought custom, which had crept in
among some, to prevent the truth from prevailing and conquering; for
custom without truth is the antiquity of error.2906
| 2906
[Another of Cyprian’s striking aphorisms: “Consuetudo
sine veritate vetustas erroris est.”] | On which account, let us forsake the
error and follow the truth, knowing that in Esdras also the truth
conquers, as it is written: “Truth endureth and grows
strong to eternity, and lives and prevails for ever and ever.
With her there is no accepting of persons or distinctions; but what is
just she does: nor in her judgments is there unrighteousness, but
the strength, and the kingdom, and the majesty, and the power of all
ages. Blessed be the Lord God of truth!”2907
This truth Christ showed to us in
His Gospel, and said, “I am the truth.”2908
Wherefore, if we are in Christ, and
have Christ in us, if we abide in the truth, and the truth abides in
us, let us keep fast those things which are true.
10. But it happens, by a love of presumption
and of obstinacy, that one would rather maintain his own evil and false
position, than agree in the right and true which belongs to
another. Looking forward to which, the blessed Apostle Paul
writes to Timothy, and warns him that a bishop must not be
“litigious, nor contentious, but gentle and
teachable.”2909
Now he
is teachable who is meek and gentle to the patience of learning.
For it behoves a bishop not only to teach, but also to learn; because
he also teaches better who daily increases and advances by learning
better; which very thing, moreover, the same Apostle Paul teaches, when
he admonishes, “that if anything better be revealed to one
sitting by, the first should hold his peace.”2910
But there is a brief way for
religious and simple minds, both to put away error, and to find and to
elicit truth. For if we return to the head and source of divine
tradition, human error ceases; and having seen the reason of the
heavenly sacraments, whatever lay hid in obscurity under the gloom and
cloud of darkness, is opened into the light of the truth. If a
channel supplying water, which formerly flowed plentifully and freely,
suddenly fail, do we not go to the fountain, that there the reason of
the failure may be ascertained, whether from the drying up of the
springs the water has failed at the fountainhead, or whether, flowing
thence free and full, it has failed in the midst of its course; that
so, if it has been caused by the fault of an interrupted or leaky
channel, that the constant stream does not flow uninterruptedly and
continuously, then the channel being repaired and strengthened, the
water collected may be supplied for the use and drink of the city, with
the same fertility and plenty with which it issues from the
spring? And this it behoves the priests of God to do now, if they
would keep the divine precepts, that if in any respect the truth have
wavered and vacillated, we should return to our original and Lord, and
to the evangelical and apostolical tradition; and thence may arise the
ground of our action, whence has taken rise both our order and our
origin.2911
| 2911
[Elucidation XVIII. See pp. 380 (note 1) and 322 (note 2).] |
11. For it has been delivered to us, that
there is one God, and one Christ, and one hope, and one faith, and one
Church, and one baptism ordained only in the one Church, from which
unity whosoever will depart must needs be found with heretics; and
while he upholds them against the Church, he impugns the sacrament of
the divine tradition. The sacrament of which unity we see
expressed also in the Canticles, in the person of Christ, who says,
“A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a fountain sealed, a
well of living water, a garden with the fruit of
apples.”2912
But if
His Church is a garden enclosed, and a fountain sealed, how can he who
is not in the Church enter into the same garden, or drink from its
fountain? Moreover, Peter himself, showing and vindicating the
unity, has commanded and warned us that we cannot be saved, except by
the one only baptism of one Church. “In the ark,”
says he, “of Noah, few, that is, eight souls, were saved by
water, as also baptism shall in like manner save you.”2913
In how
short and spiritual a summary has he set forth the sacrament of
unity! For as, in that baptism of the world in which its ancient
iniquity was purged away, he who was not in the ark of Noah could not
be saved by water, so neither can he appear to be saved by baptism who
has not been baptized in the Church which is established in the
unity2914
| 2914 [It
is obvious that the Cyprianic theory of unity has not the least
connection with a theory depending on communion with a particular
See. But this calculates the maxim, p. 384, note 7.] | of the Lord
according to the sacrament of the one ark.
12. Therefore, dearest brother, having explored
and seen the truth; it is observed and held by us, that all who are
converted from any heresy whatever to the Church must be baptized by
the only and lawful baptism of the Church, with the exception of those who had
previously been baptized in the Church, and so had passed over to the
heretics.2915
| 2915
[See letter lxxi. p. 378, supra.] | For it
behoves these, when they return, having repented, to be received by the
imposition of hands only, and to be restored by the shepherd to the
sheep-fold whence they had strayed. I bid you, dearest brother,
ever heartily farewell.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
