Chapter 10.—15. But some one may say that the tares within may more easily be converted into wheat. I grant that it is so; but what has this to do with the question of repeating baptism? You surely do not maintain that if a man converted from heresy, through the occasion and opportunity given by his conversion, should bear fruit before another who, being within the Church, is more slow to be washed from his iniquity, and so corrected
and changed, the former therefore needs not to be baptized again, but the churchman to be baptized again, who was outstripped by him who came from the heretics, because of the greater slowness of his amendment. It has nothing, therefore, to do with the question now at issue who is later or slower in being converted from his especial waywardness to the straight path of faith, or hope, or charity. For although the bad within the fold are more easily made good yet it will sometimes happen that
certain of the number of those outside will outstrip in their conversion certain of those within; and while these remain in barrenness, the former, being restored to unity and communion, will bear fruit with patience, thirty-fold, or sixty-fold, or a hundred-fold.1388
Or if those only are to be called tares who remain in
perverse error to the end, there are many
ears of corn outside, and many tares within.
16. But it will be urged that the bad outside are worse than those within. It is indeed a weighty question, whether Nicolaus, being already severed from the Church,1389
or
Simon, who was still within it,
1390
was the worse,—the one being a heretic, the other a
sorcerer. But if the mere fact of
division, as being the clearest token of violated
charity, is held to be the worse
evil, I grant that it is so. Yet many, though they have lost all feelings of
charity, yet do not secede from considerations of
worldly profit; and as they
seek their own, not the things which are
Jesus Christ’s,
1391
what they are
unwilling to secede from is not the
unity of
Christ, but their own temporal
advantage. Whence it is said in
praise of
charity, that she "seeketh not her own."
1392
17. Now, therefore, the question is, how could men of the party of the devil belong to the Church, which has no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,1393
of which also it is said, "My
dove is one?"
1394
But if they cannot, it is clear that she
groans among those who are not of her, some treacherously laying wait within, some barking at her
gate without. Such men, however, even within, both receive
baptism, and possess it, and transmit it holy in itself; nor is it in any way
defiled by their
wickedness, in which they persevere even to the end. Wherefore the same
blessed Cyprian
teaches us that
baptism is to be considered as
consecrated in itself by the words of the
gospel, as the
Church has received, without joining to it or mingling with it any consideration of waywardness and
wickedness on the part of either
minister or recipients; since he himself points out to us both truths,—both that there have been some within the
Church who did not cherish kindly
Christian love, but
practised envy and unkind
dissension, of whom the
Apostle Paul spoke; and also that the
envious belong to the
devil’s party, as he testifies in the most open way in the
epistle which
he wrote about
envy and
malignity. Wherefore, since it is clearly possible that in those who
belong to the
devil’s party,
Christ’s sacrament may yet be holy,—not, indeed, to their
salvation, but to their condemnation, and that not only if they are led
astray after they have been
baptized, but even if they were such in
heart when they received the sacrament, renouncing the
world (as the same Cyprian shows) in words only and not in
deeds;
1395
and since even if afterwards they be brought into the right way, the sacrament is not to be again
administered which they received when they were
astray; so
far as I can see, the case is already clear and evident, that in the
question of
baptism we have to consider, not who gives, but what he gives; not who receives, but what he receives; not who has, but what he has. For if men of the party of the
devil, and therefore in no way belonging to the one
dove, can yet receive,
and have, and give
baptism in all its
holiness, in no way
defiled by their waywardness, as we are taught by the letters of Cyprian himself, how are we ascribing to
heretics what does not
belong to them? how are we saying that what is really
Christ’s is theirs, and not rather recognizing in them the
signs of our Sovereign, and correcting the
deeds of deserters from Him? Wherefore it is one thing, as the holy Cyprian says, "for those within in the
Church, to speak in the name of
Christ, another
thing for those without, who are acting against the
Church, to
baptize in His name."
1396
| 1396 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 14.
|
But both many who are within act against the
Church by
evil living, and by
enticing weak souls to copy their lives; and some who are without speak in
Christ’s name, and are not forbidden to
work the works of
Christ, but only to be without, since for the healing of their
souls we grasp at them, or reason with them, or
exhort them. For he, too, was without who did not follow
Christ with His
disciples, and yet in
Christ’s name was casting out
devils, which the
Lord enjoined
that he should not be prevented from doing;
1397
although, certainly, in the point where he was imperfect he was to be made whole, in accordance with the words of the
Lord, in which He says, "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad."
1398
Therefore both some things are done outside in the name of Christ not against the Church, and some things are done inside on the devil’s part which are against the Church.
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