Chapter 20.—How does a murderer cleanse and sanctify the water?1525
| 1525 In this and the next two chapters Augustin is examining the seventieth epistle of Cyprian, from himself and thirty other bishops (text of Hartel), to Januarius, Saturninus, Maximus, and fifteen others.
|
How can
darkness bless the
oil? But if
God is present in His sacraments to confirm His words by whomsoever the sacraments may be
administered, then both the sacraments of
God are everywhere valid, and
evil men whom they
profit not are everywhere
perverse.
28. But what kind of argument is this, that "a heretic must be considered not to have baptism, because he has not the Church?" And it must be acknowledged that "when he is baptized, he is questioned about the Church."1526
Just as though the same
question about the
Church were not put in
baptism to him who within the
Church renounces the
world in word and not in
deed. As therefore his false answer does not prevent what he receives from being
baptism, so also the false reply of the other about the holy
Church does not prevent what he receives from being
baptism; and as the former, if he afterwards
fulfill with
truth what he
promised in
falsehood, does not receive a second
baptism, but only
an amended
life, so also in the case of the latter, if he come afterwards to the
Church about which he gave a false answer to the
question put to him, thinking that he had it when he had it not, the
Church herself which he did not possess is given him, but what he had received is not repeated. But I cannot tell why it should be, that while
God can "
sanctify the
oil" in answer to the words which proceed out of the mouth of a murderer, "He yet cannot
sanctify it on the
altar reared by a
heretic," unless it be that He who is not
hindered by the false conversion of the
heart of man within the
Church is
hindered by the false erection of some
wood without from deigning to be present in His sacraments, though no falseness on the part of men can
hinder Him. If, therefore, what is said in the
gospel, that "
God heareth not
sinners,"
1527
extends so
far that the sacraments cannot be celebrated by a
sinner, how then does He hear a murderer praying, either over the
water of
baptism, or over the
oil, or over the eucharist, or over the heads of those on whom his
hand is laid? All which things are nevertheless done, and are valid, even at the
hands of murderers, that is, at the
hands of those who
hate their
brethren, even within, in the
Church itself. Since "no one can give what he does not possess himself,"
1528
how does a murderer give the
Holy Spirit? And yet such an one even baptizeth within the
Church. It is God, therefore, that gives the Holy Spirit even when a man of this kind is baptizing.
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