Chapter 12.—19. But he urges that "we find that the apostles, in all their epistles, execrated and abhorred the sacrilegious wickedness of heretics, so as to say that ‘their word does spread as a canker.’"1404
What then? Does not
Paul also show that those who said, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die," were corrupters of good manners by their
evil communications, adding immediately afterwards, "
Evil communications
corrupt good manners;" and yet he intimated that these were within the
Church when he says, "How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?"
1405
But when does he
fail to express his abhorrence of the covetous? Or could anything be said in stronger terms, than that
covetousness should be called
idolatry, as the same
apostle declared?
1406
Nor did Cyprian understand his
language otherwise, inserting it when need required in his letters; though he confesses that in his time there were in the
Church not covetous men of an ordinary type, but robbers and usurers, and these found not among the masses, but among the
bishops. And yet I should be willing to understand that those of whom the
apostle says, "Their word does spread as a canker," were without the
Church, but Cyprian himself
will not allow me. For, when showing, in his letter to Antonianus,
1407
| 1407 Antonianus, a bishop of Numidia, wrote 252 A.D., to Cyprian, favoring his milder view in opposition to the purism of Novatian: subsequently Novatian wrote to him, advocating the purist movement and impugning the laxity of Cornelius, bp. of Rome. To overthrow the effect upon A. of this letter, Cyprian wrote Epistle LV. In Ep LXX., A. is of the number of those Numidian bishops whom Cyprian addresses.
|
that no man ought to sever himself from the
unity of the
Church before the time of the final separation of the just and
unjust, merely because of the admixture of
evil men in the
Church, when he makes it manifest how holy he was, and deserving of the illustrious martyrdom which he won, he says, "What swelling of arrogance it is, what forgetfulness of
humility and
gentleness, that any one should
dare or believe that he can do what the
Lord did not grant even to the
apostles,—to think that he can distinguish the tares from the
wheat, or, as if it were granted to him to carry the
fan and
purge the floor, to endeavor to separate the
chaff from the
grain! And whereas the
apostle says, ‘But in a great
house there are not only
vessels of
gold and of
silver, but also of
wood and of
earth,’
1408
that he should seem to choose those of
gold and of
silver, and
despise and cast away and
condemn those of
wood and of
earth, when really the
vessels of
wood are only to be
burned in the day of the
Lord by the burning of the
divine conflagration, and those of
earth are to be broken by Him to whom the ‘
rod of
iron1409
has been given.’"
1410
By this argument, therefore, against those who, under the pretext of avoiding the society of
wicked men, had severed themselves from the
unity of the
Church, Cyprian shows that by the great
house of which the
apostle spoke, in which there were not only
vessels of
gold and of
silver, but also of
wood and of
earth, he understood nothing else but the
Church, in which there should be good and bad, till at the last day it should be cleansed as a threshing-floor by the
winnowing-
fan. And if this be so, in the
Church herself, that is, in the great
house itself, there were
vessels to
dishonor, whose word did spread like a canker. For the
apostle, speaking of them, taught as follows: "And their word," he says, "will spread as doth a canker; of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus; who concerning the
truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and
overthrow the
faith of some. Nevertheless the
foundation of
God standeth sure, having this seal, The
Lord knoweth them that are His. And, Let every one that nameth the name of
Christ depart from
iniquity. But in a great
house there are not only
vessels of
gold and of
silver, but also of
wood and of
earth."
1411
If, therefore, they whose words did spread as doth a canker were as it were
vessels to
dishonor in the great
house, and by that "great
house" Cyprian understands the
unity of the
Church itself, surely it cannot be that their canker polluted the
baptism of
Christ. Accordingly, neither without, any more than within, can any one who is of the
devil’s party, either in himself or in any other person, stain the sacrament which is of
Christ. It is not, therefore, the case that
"the word which spreads as a canker to the
ears of those who hear it gives
remission of
sins;"
1412
| 1412 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 15.
|
but when
baptism is given in the words of the
gospel, however great be the perverseness of understanding on the part either of him through whom, or of him to whom it is given, the sacrament itself is holy in itself on account of Him whose sacrament it is. And if any one, receiving it at the
hands of a misguided man, yet does not receive the perversity of the
minister, but only the
holiness of the
mystery, being closely bound to the
unity of the
Church in good
faith and
hope and
charity, he receives
remission of his
sins,—not by the words which do eat as doth a canker, but by the sacraments of the
gospel flowing from a heavenly source. But if the recipient himself be misguided, on the one hand, what is given is of no avail for the salvation of the misguided man; and yet, on the other hand, that which is received remains holy in the recipient, and is not renewed to him if he be brought to the right way.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
