Chapter 15.—20. Accordingly, if Marcion consecrated the sacrament of baptism with the words of the gospel, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,"1294
the sacrament was complete, although his
faith expressed under the same words, seeing that he held opinions not taught by the Catholic
truth, was not complete, but stained with the falsity of
fables.
1295
| 1295 Cp. Concilium Arelatense, A.D. 314, can. 8. "De Afris, quod propria lege utuntur ut rebaptizent; placuit ut si ad ecclesiam aliquis de hæresi venerit, interrogent eum symbolum; et si perviderint eum in Patre, et Filio, et Spiritu sancto esse baptizatum, manus ei tantum imponatur, ut accipiat Spiritum sanctum. Quod si interrogatus non responderit hanc Trinitatem, baptizetur."
|
For under these same words, "In the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost," not Marcion only, or Valentinus, or Arius, or Eunomius, but the
carnal babes of the
Church themselves (to whom the
apostle said, "I could not speak unto you as unto
spiritual, but as unto
carnal"), if they could be individually asked for an accurate exposition of their opinions, would probably show a
diversity of opinions as numerous as the persons who held them, "for the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of
God." Can it, however, be said on this account that they do not receive the complete sacrament? or that, if they shall advance, and correct the
vanity of their
carnal opinions, they must
seek again what they had received? Each man receives after the fashion of his own
faith; yet how much does he obtain under the guidance of that
mercy of
God, in the confident assurance of which the same
apostle says, "If in anything ye be otherwise
minded,
God shall
reveal even this unto you"?
1296
Yet the
snares of
heretics and schismatics
prove for this reason only too
pernicious to the
carnally-
minded, because their very progress is intercepted when their
vain opinions are confirmed in opposition to the Catholic
truth, and the perversity of their
dissension is strengthened against the Catholic
peace. Yet if the sacraments are the same, they are everywhere complete, even when they are wrongly understood, and perverted to be
instruments of discord, just as the
very writings of the
gospel, if they are only the same, are everywhere complete, even though quoted with a boundless variety of false opinions. For as to what Jeremiah says:—"Why do those who
grieve me
prevail against me? My
wound is stubborn, whence shall I be
healed? In its origin it became unto me as
lying water, having no certainty,"
1297
—if the term "
water" were never used figuratively and in the allegorical
language of
prophecy except to signify
baptism, we should have
trouble in discovering what these words of Jeremiah meant; but as it is, when "waters" are expressly used in the
Apocalypse1298
to signify "peoples," I do not see why, by "lying water having no certainty," I should not understand, a "lying people, whom I cannot trust."
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