Chapter 12.—17. But the blessed Cyprian shows that it was no new or sudden thing that he decided, because the practice had already begun under Agrippinus. "Many years," he says, "and much time has passed away since, under Agrippinus of honored memory, a large assembly of bishops determined this point." Accordingly, under Agrippinus, at any rate, the thing was new. But I cannot understand what Cyprian means by saying, "And
thenceforward to the present day, so many thousand heretics in our provinces, having been converted to our Church, showed no hesitation or dislike, but rather with full consent of reason and will, have embraced the opportunity of the grace of the laver of life and the baptism unto salvation,"1285
| 1285 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 3.
|
unless indeed he says, "thenceforward to the present day," because from the time when they were
baptized in the
Church, in accordance with the
Council of Agrippinus, no
question of excommunication had arisen in the case of any of the rebaptized. Yet if the
custom of
baptizing those who came over from
heretics remained in force from the time of Agrippinus to that of Cyprian, why should new
Councils have been held by Cyprian on this point? Why does he say to this same
Jubaianus that he is not doing anything new or sudden, but only what had been established by Agrippinus? For why should Jubaianus be disturbed by the
question of novelty, so as to require to be satisfied by the
authority of Agrippinus, if this was the continuous
practice of the
Church from Agrippinus till Cyprian? Why, lastly, did so many of his colleagues urge that reason and truth must be preferred to custom, instead of saying that those who wished to act otherwise were acting contrary to
truth and custom alike?
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