Chapter 33.—77. Petilianus said: "But that I may thoroughly investigate the baptism in the name of the Trinity, the Lord Christ said to His apostles: ‘Go ye, and baptize the nations, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you.’2081
Whom do you
teach,
traditor? Him whom you
condemn? Whom do you
teach,
traditor? Him whom you
slay? Once more, whom do you
teach? Him whom you have made a murderer? How then do you
baptize in the name of the
Trinity? You cannot call
God your
Father. For when the
Lord Christ said, ‘
Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called the
children of
God,’
2082
you who have not
peace of
soul cannot have
God for your
Father. Or how, again, can you
baptize in the name of the Son, who
betray that Son Himself, who do not
imitate the Son of
God in any of His sufferings or crosses? Or how, again, can you
baptize in the name of the Holy
Ghost, when the Holy
Ghost came only on those
apostles who were not
guilty of treason? Seeing, therefore, that
God is not your
Father, neither are you truly
born again with the
water of
baptism. No
one of you is
born perfectly. You in your impiety have neither
father nor mother. Seeing, then, that you are of such a
kind, ought I not to
baptize you, even though you
wash yourselves a
thousand times, after the similitude of the
Jews, who as it were
baptize the
flesh?"
78. Augustin answered: certainly you had proposed thoroughly to investigate the baptism in the name of the Trinity, and you had set us to listen with much attention; but following, as it would seem, what is the easiest course to you, how soon have you returned to your customary abuse! This you carry out with genuine fluency. For you set before yourself what victims you please, against whom to inveigh with whatsoever bitterness you
please: in the midst of which last latitude of discourse you are driven into the greatest straits if any one does but use the little word, Prove it. For this is what is said to you by the seed of Abraham; and since in him all nations of the earth are blessed, they care but little when they are cursed by you. But yet, since you are treating of baptism, which you consider to be true when it is found in a just man, but false when it is found in the unjust, see how I too, if I were to
investigate baptism in the name of the Trinity, according to your rule, might say, with great fullness, as it seems to me, that he has not God for his father who in a Count has God for his companion,2083
nor believes that any is his
Christ,
save him for whose sake he has
endured suffering; and that he has not the Holy
Ghost who
burned the
wretched Africa in so very different a fashion with
tongues of
fire. How then can they have
baptism, or how can they
administer it in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost? Surely you must now perceive that
baptism can exist in an
unrighteous man, and be
administered by an
unrighteous man, and that no
unrighteous
baptism, but such as is just and true,—not because it
belongs to the
unrighteous man, but because it is of
God. And herein I am uttering no calumny against you, as you never cease to do, on some pretense or other, against the whole
world; and, what is even more intolerable, you do not even bring any
proof about the very points on which you found your calumnies. But I know not how this can possibly be
endured, because you not only bring calumnies against holy men about
unrighteous men, but you
even bring a charge against the holy
baptism itself, which must needs be holy in any man, however
unrighteous he may be, from a comparison with the infection arising from the
sins of
wicked men, so that you say that
baptism partakes of the character of him by whom it is
possessed, or
administered, or received. Furthermore, if a man partakes of the character of him in whose
company he approaches
sacred mysteries, and if the sacraments themselves partake of the character of the men in whom they
are, holy men may well be satisfied to find consolation in the thought that they only fare like holy
baptism itself in hearing false
accusations from your
lips. But it would be well for you to see how you are
condemned out of your own mouths, if both the sober among you are
counted as
drunken from the infection of the
drunken in your ranks, and the merciful among you become robbers from the infection of the robbers, and whatever
evil is found among you in the persons of
wicked men is perforce shared by those who are not
wicked; and if
baptism itself is
unclean in all of you who are
unclean, and if it is of different kinds according to the varying character of uncleanness itself, as it must be if it is perforce of the same character as the man by whom it is
possessed or
administered. These suppositions most undoubtedly are false, and accordingly they in no wise injure us, when you bring them forward against us without looking back upon yourselves. But they do
injure you, because, when you bring them forward falsely, they do not fall on us; but since you imagine them to be true, they recoil upon yourselves.
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