Chapter 11.—16. But Cyprian was right in not being moved by what Jubaianus wrote, that "the followers of Novatian1283
| 1283 The Novatian bishop, Acesius, was invited by Constantine to attend the Council of Nicaea. Soc., H.E.I. 10.
|
rebaptize those who come to them from the Catholic
Church."
1284
| 1284 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 2.
|
For, in the first place, it does not follow that whatever
heretics have done in a
perverse spirit of mimicry, Catholics are therefore to
abstain from doing, because the
heretics do the same. And again, the reasons are different for which
heretics and the Catholic
Church ought respectively to
abstain from rebaptizing. For it would not be right for
heretics to do so, even if it were fitting in the Catholic
Church; because their argument is, that among the Catholics is
wanting that which they themselves received whilst still within the pale, and took away with them when they departed. Whereas the reason why the Catholic
Church should not
administer again the
baptism which was given among
heretics, is that it may not seem to decide that a
power which is
Christ’s alone
belongs to its members, or to pronounce that to be wanting in the
heretics which they have received within her pale, and certainly could not lose by straying outside. For thus much Cyprian
himself, with all the
rest, established, that if any should return from
heresy to the
Church, they should be received back, not by
baptism, but by the
discipline of penitence; whence it is clear that they cannot be held to lose by their secession what is not restored to them when they return. Nor ought it for a moment to be said that, as their heresy is their own, as their error is their own, as the sacrilege of disunion is their own, so also the baptism is their own, which is really
Christ’s. Accordingly, while the evils which are their own are corrected when they return, so in that which is not theirs His presence should be recognised, from whom it is.
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