Chapter 34.—65. Quietus of Burug1712
| 1712 Burug (Buruc) or Burca was in ecclesiastical province of Numidia. Quietus may be identical with the one mentioned in Cypr. Ep. lxvii.
|
said: "We who
live by
faith ought with believing observance to obey what has been before foretold for our
instruction. For it is written in
Solomon, ‘He that is
washed by one dead, what availeth his washing?’
1713
| 1713 In the English version this is, "He that washeth himself after touching a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his washing?"—Ecclus. xxxiv. 25.
|
Which assuredly he says of those who are
washed by
heretics, and of those who
wash. For if they who are
baptized among them receive
eternal life through the
remission of their
sins, why do they come to the
Church? But if no
salvation is received from a dead person, and they therefore, acknowledging their former error, return with penance to the
truth, they ought to be sanctified with the one
life-giving
baptism which is in the Catholic
Church."
1714
| 1714 Conc. Carth. sec. 27.
|
66. What it is to be baptized by the dead, we have already, without prejudice to the more careful consideration of the same scripture, sufficiently declared before.1715
| 1715 Contra Parmenianum, II. 10. 22.
|
But I would ask why it is that they wish
heretics alone to be considered dead, when
Paul the
apostle has said generally of
sin, "The
wages of
sin is
death;"
1716
and again, "To be
carnally minded is
death."
1717
And when he says that a
widow that liveth in
pleasure is dead,
1718
how are they not dead "who
renounce the
world in words and not in
deeds"? What, therefore, is the
profit of washing in him who is
baptized by them, except, indeed, that if he himself also is of the same character, he has the laver indeed, but it does not
profit him to
salvation? But if he by whom he is
baptized is such, but the man who is
baptized is turned to the
Lord with no false
heart, he is not
baptized by that dead person, but by that
living One of whom it is said, "The same is He which baptizeth."
1719
But to what he says of
heretics, that if they who are
baptized among them receive
eternal life through the
remission of their
sins, why do they come to the
Church? we answer: They come for this reason, that although they have received the
baptism of
Christ up to the point of the celebration of the sacrament, yet they cannot attain to
life eternal save through the
charity of
unity; just as neither would those envious and malicious ones attain to
life eternal, who would
not have their
sins forgiven them, even if they
entertained hatred only against those from whom they
suffered wrong; since the
Truth said, "If ye
forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your
Father forgive your trespasses,"
1720
how much less when they were hating those towards whom they were rewarding
evil for good?
1721
And yet these men, though "renouncing the
world in words and not in
deeds," would not be
baptized again, if they should afterwards be corrected, but they would be made holy by the one living
baptism. And this is indeed in the Catholic Church, but not in it alone, as neither is it in the saints alone who are built upon the rock, and of whom that one dove is composed.
1722
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