Chapter 35.—81. Petilianus said: "Nor indeed will it be possible that the Holy Spirit should be implanted in the heart of any one by the laying on of the hands of the priest, unless the water of a pure conscience has gone before to give him birth."
82. Augustin answered: In these few words of yours two errors are involved; and one of them, indeed, has no great bearing on the question which is being discussed between us, but yet it helps to convict you of want of skill. For the Holy Spirit came upon a hundred and twenty men, without the laying on of any person’s hands, and again upon Cornelius the centurion and those who were with him, even before they were baptized.
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| 2084 Acts i. 15, ii. 4, x. 44.
|
But the second error in these words of yours entirely overthrows your whole case. For you say that the
water of a pure conscience must necessarily precede to give new
birth, before the
Holy Spirit can follow on it. Accordingly, either all the
water consecrated in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost, is
water of a pure conscience, not for the merits of those by whom it is
administered, or by whom it is received, but in
virtue of the stainless
merits of Him who instituted this
baptism; or else if only a pure conscience on the part both of the ministrant and the recipient can produce the
water of a pure conscience, what do you make of those whom you find to have been
baptized by men who bore a conscience stained with as yet undiscovered guilt, especially if there exist among the said
baptized persons any one that should confess that he at the time when he was
baptized had a bad conscience, in that he might possbily have desired to use
that opportunity for the accomplishment of some
sinful act? When, therefore, it shall be made clear to you that neither the man who
administered baptism, nor the man who received it, had a pure conscience, will you give your
judgment that he ought to be
baptized afresh? You will assuredly neither say nor do anything of the sort. The
purity therefore of
baptism is entirely unconnected with the
purity or impurity of the conscience either of the
giver or the recipient. Will you therefore
dare
to say that the
deceiver, or the robber, or the oppressor of the
fatherless and
widows, or the sunderer of marriages, or the betrayer, the seller, the divider of the patrimony of other men,
2085
| 2085 Optatus Gildonianus.
|
was a man of pure conscience? Or will you further
dare to say that those were men of pure conscience, whom it is hard to
imagine wanting in such times, men who made interest with the man I have described, that they might be
baptized, not for the sake of
Christ, nor for the sake of eternal life, but to conciliate earthly friendships, and to satisfy earthly desires? Further, if you do not venture to say that these were men of pure conscience, then if you find any of their
number who have been baptized, give to them the water of a pure conscience, which they as yet have not received; and if you will not do this, then leave off casting in our teeth a matter which you do not understand, lest you should be forced to answer in reply to us about a matter which you know full well.
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