Chapter 7.—14. Petilianus said: "And again, ‘He who is baptized by one that is dead, his washing profiteth him nothing.’1977
He did not mean that the baptizer was a
corpse, a lifeless body, the remains of a man ready for
burial, but one lacking the Spirit of
God, who is compared to a dead body, as He declares to a
disciple in another place, according to the witness of the
gospel. For His
disciple says, ‘
Lord,
suffer me first to go and bury my
father. But
Jesus said unto him, Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.’
1978
The
father of the
disciple was not
baptized. He declared him as a pagan to
belong to the
company of pagans; unless he said this of the unbelieving, The dead cannot bury the dead. He was dead, therefore, not as smitten by some
death, but as smitten even during
life. For he who so lives as to be
doomed to
eternal death is
tortured by a
death in
life. To be
baptized, therefore, by the dead, is to have received not
life but
death. We must therefore consider and declare
how
far the
traditor is to be accounted dead while yet alive. He is dead who has not deserved to be
born again with a true
baptism; he is likewise dead who, having been
born again with a true
baptism, has become involved with a
traditor. Both are wanting in the
life of
baptism,—both he who never had it at all, and he who had it and has lost it. For the
Lord Jesus Christ says, ‘There shall come to that man seven spirits more
wicked than the former one, and the last
state of
that man shall be worse than the first.’"
1979
15. Augustin answered: Seek with greater care to know in what sense the words which you have quoted from Scripture in proof of your position were really uttered, and how they should be understood. For that all unrighteous persons are wont to be called dead in a mystical sense is clear enough; but Christ, to whom true baptism belongs, which you say is false because of the faults of men, is alive, sitting at the right hand of the
Father, and He will not die any more through any infirmity of the flesh: death will no more have dominion over Him.1980
And they who are
baptized with His
baptism are not
baptized by one who is dead. And if it so happen that certain
ministers, being
deceitful workers, seeking their own, not the things which are
Jesus Christ’s, proclaiming the
gospel not in
purity, and
preaching Christ of
contention and
envy, are to be called dead because of their
unrighteousness, yet the sacrament of the living
God does not
die even in one that is dead. For that
Simon was dead who was
baptized by
Philip
in
Samaria, who wished to
purchase the
gift of
God for
money; but the
baptism which he had lived in him still to
work his
punishment.
1981
| 1981 Acts viii. 13, 18, 19.
|
16. But how false the statement is which you make, that "both are wanting in the life of baptism, both he who never had it at all, and he who had it and has lost it," you may see from this, that in the case of those who apostatize after having been baptized, and who return through penitence, baptism is not restored to them, as it would be restored if it were lost. In what manner, indeed, do your dead men baptize according to your interpretation? Must we not
reckon the drunken among the dead (to say nothing of the rest, and to mention only what is well known and of daily experience among all), seeing that the apostle says of the widow, "But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth?"1982
In the next place, in that
Council of yours, in which you
condemned Maximianus with his advisers or his
ministers, have you forgotten with what eloquence you said, "Even after the manner of the Egyptians, the shores are full of the bodies of the dying, on whom the weightier
punishment falls in
death itself, in that, after their
life has been wrung from them by the avenging waters, they have not found so much as
burial?" And yet you yourselves may see whether or no one of
them, Felicianus, has been brought to
life again; yet he has with him within the
communion of your body those whom he
baptized outside. As therefore he is
baptized by One that is alive, who is
clothed with the
baptism of the living
Christ, so he is baptized by the dead who is wrapped in the baptism of the dead Saturn, or any one like him; that we may set forth in the meanwhile, with what brevity we may, in what sense the words which you have quoted may be understood without any cavilling on
the part of any one of us. For, in the sense in which they are received by you, you make no effort to explain them, but only strive to entangle us together with yourselves.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
