Chapter 13.—24. Venantius of Tinisa1794
| 1794 Tinisa (Thinisa) was in ecclesiastical province of Zeugitana. In Cypr. Ep. lxvii. the name Venantius is found.
|
said: "If a
husband, going on a
journey into
foreign countries, had entrusted the guardianship of his
wife to a
friend, he would surely keep her that was entrusted to his care with the utmost
diligence, that her chastity and
holiness might not be
defiled by any one.
Christ our
Lord and
God, when going to the
Father,
committed His
bride to our care: do we keep her uncorrupt and
undefiled, or do we
betray her
purity and chastity to
adulterers and corrupters? For he who
makes the
baptism of
Christ common with
heretics betrays the
bride of
Christ to
adulterers."
1795
| 1795 Conc. Carth. sec. 49.
|
25. We answer: What of those who, when they are baptized, turn themselves to the Lord with their lips and not with their heart? do not they possess an adulterous mind? Are not they themselves lovers of the world, which they renounce in words and not in deeds; and they corrupt good manners through evil communications, saying, "Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die?"1796
Did not the
discourse of the
apostle take heed even against such as these, when he says, "But I
fear, lest by any means, as the
serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds [also] should be
corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ?"
1797
When, therefore, Cyprian held the
baptism of
Christ to be in common with such men, did he therefore
betray the bride of Christ into the hands of adulterers, or did he not rather recognize the necklace of the Bridegroom even on an adulteress?
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