Chapter 19.—29. But that I may not seem to be uttering these praises of the blessed martyr (which, indeed, are not his, but rather those of Him by whose grace he showed himself what he was), in order to escape the burden of proof, let us now bring forward from his letters the testimony by which the mouths of the Donatists may most of all be stopped. For they advance his authority before the unlearned, to show that in a manner they do
well when they baptize afresh the faithful who come to them. Too wretched are they—and, unless they correct themselves, even by themselves are they utterly condemned—who choose in the example set them by so great a man to imitate just that fault, which only did not injure him, because he walked with constant steps even to the end in that from which they have strayed who "have not known the way of peace."1207
| 1207 Rom. iii. 17; from which it has been introduced into the Alexandrine Ms. of the Septuagint at Ps. xiv. 3, cf. Hieron.; it is also found in the English Prayer-book version of the Psalms.
|
It is true that
Christ’s
baptism is holy; and although it may exist among
heretics or schismatics, yet it does not
belong to the
heresy or
schism; and therefore even those who come from thence to the Catholic
Church herself ought not to be
baptized afresh. Yet to err on this point is one thing; it is another thing that those who are straying from the
peace of the
Church, and have fallen
headlong into the
pit of
schism, should go on to decide that any who join them ought
to be
baptized again. For the former is a speck on the brightness of a holy
soul which
abundance of
charity1208
would fain have covered; the latter is a stain in their nether foulness which the
hatred of
peace in their
countenance ostentatiously brings to light. But the subject for our further consideration, relating to the authority of the blessed Cyprian, we will commence from a fresh beginning.
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