Augustine in His Own Words
Against the Donatists 255 of the person by whose power it is given, not with the quality of the person through whose ministry it is given. . . .
(15) If the minister is just, I rank him with Paul, I rank him with Peter. I rank just ministers with them, because, in fact, just ministers do not seek their own glory, for they are ministers. They do not wish to be considered as judges. They dread that hope be put in them. Therefore, I rank the just minister with Paul. For what does Paul say? "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase" (1 Cor 3:6–7). The one who is a proud minister, however, is in a class with the devil, but uncontaminated is the gift of Christ which flows through him undefiled, which passes through him the way perfectly clear water flows into fertile soil. Think of [the proud minister] as made of stone because he cannot produce fruit from the water. But the water passes through the stone conduit, the water flows onto garden plots; in the stone conduit it produces nothing but nevertheless brings forth plentiful fruit in the gardens. For the spiritual power of a sacrament is like light in this way: it is both received pure by those to be enlightened, and, if it passes through the impure, it is not defiled. Let the ministers be just, indeed, and let them not seek their own glory but Christ's, whose ministers they are. Let them not say, "It is my baptism," because it is not theirs.34
Theology of Baptism: Character
Few things irritated Catholics more than the Donatist policy of rebaptism. But why was it wrong? Augustine knew (as did his opponents) that the New Testament spoke of one and only one baptism. This led him to speculate on whether there might be a deeper spiritual reality that made rebaptism offensive. He argued that baptism marked one as belonging to the flock of Christ in some indelible way, what he called "the Lord's brand-mark" (dominicus character).35 The analogy Augustine routinely appealed to was a military one. Roman soldiers received a tattoo, known as a stigma or puncta, on the back of the right hand.36 Just as soldiers who deserted were not re-tattooed, so those who received baptism outside the Church were not to be rebaptized. Augustine admitted that Donatists possessed a valid baptism, that they bore the "tattoo" of Christ; but since they had broken from the unity of the Church, they were, in effect, deserters from the militia of Christ. If readmitted, they were not to be rebaptized, but simply brought back into communion. From On Baptism (Against the Donatists), Book 1:
34. Jo. ev. tr. 5.6–15 (BA 71:302–28); trans. Rettig, FOTC 78:122–23 (modified). See De baptismo 3.10.15. 35. Ep. 185.23 (CSEL 57:22). 36. On this, see Bradley Mark Peper, "On the Mark: Augustine's Baptismal Analogy of the Nota Militaris," Augustinian Studies 38 (2007): 353–64. He argues that, given military procedures of the time, this nota militaris should be spoken of as a "tattoo," not a "brand."