Chapter 25.—48. Therapius of Bulla1827
| 1827 Bulla (Vulla) was in ecclesiastical province of Africa Proconsularis. For Therapius cp. Cypr. Ep. lxiv. 1.
|
said: "If a man gives up and
betrays the
baptism of
Christ to
heretics, what else can he be said to be but a
Judas to the
Bride of
Christ?"
1828
| 1828 Conc. Carth. sec. 61.
|
49. How great a condemnation have we here of all schismatics, who have separated themselves by wicked sacrilege from the inheritance of Christ dispersed throughout the whole world, if Cyprian held communion with such as was the traitor Judas, and yet was not defiled by them; or if he was defiled, then were all made such as Judas; or if they were not, then the evil deeds of those who went before do not belong to those who came after even though they were the
offspring of the same communion. Why, therefore, do they cast in our teeth the traditores, against whom they did not prove their charge, and do not cast in their own teeth Judas, with whom Cyprian and his colleagues held communion? Behold the Council in which these men are wont to boast! We indeed say, that he who approves the baptism of Christ even in heretics, does not betray to heretics the baptism of Christ; just in the same way as he does not betray to murderers the baptism of
Christ who approves the baptism of Christ even in murderers: but inasmuch as they profess to prescribe to us from the decrees of this Council what opinions we ought to hold, let them first assent to it themselves. See how therein were compared to the traitor Judas, all who said that heretics, although baptized in heresy, should not be baptized again. Yet with such Cyprian was willing to hold communion, when he said, "Judging no man, nor depriving any of the right of communion if he entertain
a contrary opinion." But that there had been men of such a sort in former times within the Church, is made clear by the sentence in which he says: "But some one will say, What, then, shall be done with these men who in times past were admitted into the Church without baptism?"1829
| 1829 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 23.
|
That such had been the
custom of the
Church, is testified again and again by the very men who compose this
Council. If, therefore, any one who does this "can be said to be nothing else but a
Judas to the
Bride of
Christ," according to the terms in which the
judgment of Therapius is couched; but
Judas, according to the teaching of the
gospel, was a
traitor; then all those men held
communion with
traitors who at that time uttered those very judgments, and before they
uttered them they all had become
traitors through that
custom which at that time was retained by the
Church. All, therefore—that is to say, both we and they themselves who were the
offspring of that
unity—are
traitors. But we
defend ourselves in two ways: first, because without prejudice to the right of
unity, as Cyprian himself declared in his opening
speech, we do not assent to the
decrees of this
Council in which this
judgment was pronounced; and secondly, because we hold that the
wicked
in no way hurt the good in Catholic
unity, until at the last the
chaff be separated from the
wheat. But our opponents, inasmuch as they both shelter themselves as it were under the
decrees of this
Council, and maintain that the good
perish as by a
kind of infection from
communion with the
wicked, have no resource to
save them from allowing both that the earlier
Christians, whose
offspring they are, were
traitors, inasmuch as they are convicted by their own Council; and that the deeds of those
who went before them do reflect on them, since they throw in our teeth the deeds of our ancestors.
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