Chapter 10.—13. Therefore Cyprian writes to Jubaianus as follows, "concerning the baptism of heretics, who, being placed without, and set down out of the Church," seem to him to "claim to themselves a matter over which they have neither right nor power. Which we," he says, "cannot account valid or lawful, since it is clear that among them it is unlawful."1280
| 1280 Ctpr. Ep. lxxiii. 1.
|
Neither, indeed, do we deny that a man who is
baptized among
heretics, or in any
schism outside the
Church, derives no
profit from it so
far as he is partner in the perverseness of the
heretics and schismatics; nor do we hold that those who
baptize, although they confer the real true sacrament of
baptism, are yet acting rightly, in gathering adherents outside the
Church, and entertaining opinions contrary to the
Church. But it is one thing to be without a sacrament,
another thing to be in possession of it wrongly, and to usurp it unlawfully. Therefore they do not cease to be sacraments of
Christ and the
Church, merely because they are unlawfully used, not only by
heretics, but by all kinds of
wicked and impious persons. These, indeed, ought to be corrected and
punished, but the sacraments should be acknowledged and revered.
14. Cyprian, indeed, says that on this subject not one, but two or more Councils were held; always, however, in Africa. For indeed in one he mentions that seventy-one bishops had been assembled,1281
| 1281 Ctpr. Ep. lxxiii. 1.
|
—to all whose
authority we do not hesitate, with all due deference to Cyprian, to prefer the
authority, supported by many more
bishops, of the whole
Church spread throughout the whole
world, of which Cyprian himself
rejoiced that he was an inseparable member.
15. Nor is the water "profane and adulterous"1282
| 1282 Ctpr. Ep. lxxiii. 1.
|
over which the name of
God is invoked, even though it be invoked by
profane and adulterous persons; because neither the creature itself of
water, nor the name invoked, is adulterous. But the
baptism of
Christ,
consecrated by the words of the
gospel, is necessarily holy, however polluted and
unclean its
ministers may be; because its inherent sanctity cannot be polluted, and the
divine excellence
abides in its sacrament, whether to the
salvation of those who use it aright,
or to the
destruction of those who use it wrong. Would you indeed maintain that, while the
light of the sun or of a
candle, diffused through
unclean places, contracts no foulness in itself therefrom, yet the
baptism of
Christ can be
defiled by the
sins of any man, whatsoever he may be? For if we turn our thoughts to the visible materials themselves, which are to us the medium of the sacraments, every one must know that they admit of
corruption. But if we think on that
which they convey to us, who can fail to see that it is incorruptible, however much the men through whose ministry it is conveyed are either being rewarded or punished for the character of their lives?
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
