Chapter 17.—25. "Can the power of baptism," says Cyprian, "be greater or better than confession? than martyrdom? that a man should confess Christ before men, and be baptized in his own blood? And yet," he goes on to say, "neither does this baptism profit the heretic, even though for confessing Christ he be put to death outside the Church."1441
| 1441 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 21.
|
This is most true; for, by being put to
death outside the
Church, he is
proved not to have had
charity, of which the
apostle says, "Though I give my body to be
burned, and have not
charity, it profiteth me nothing."
1442
But if martyrdom is of no avail for this reason, because it has not
charity, neither does it
profit those who, as
Paul says, and Cyprian further sets forth, are living within the
Church without
charity in
envy and
malice; and yet they can both receive and transmit true
baptism. "
Salvation," he says, "is not without the
Church."
1443
Who says that it is? And therefore, whatever men have that
belongs to the
Church, it
profits them nothing towards
salvation outside the
Church. But it is one thing not to have, another to have so as to be of no use. He who has not must be
baptized that he may have; but he who has to no avail must be corrected, that what he has may
profit him. Nor is the
water in the
baptism of
heretics "adulterous,"
1444
because neither is the creature itself which
God made
evil, nor is fault to be found with the words of the
gospel in the mouths of any who are
astray; but the fault is theirs in whom there is an adulterous spirit, even though it may receive the adornment of the sacrament from a
lawful spouse.
Baptism therefore can "be common to us, and the
heretics,"
1445
just as the
gospel can be common to us, whatever difference there may be between our
faith and their error,—whether they think otherwise than the
truth about the
Father, or the Son, or the
Holy Spirit; or, being
cut away from
unity, do not
gather with
Christ, but scatter abroad,
1446
—seeing that the sacrament of
baptism can be common to us, if we are the
wheat of the
Lord, with the covetous within the
Church, and with robbers, and drunkards, and other pestilent persons of the same sort, of whom it is said, "They shall not
inherit the kingdom of God,"
1447
and yet the vices by which they are separated from the kingdom of God are not shared by us.
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