Note G. On C. Xv. P. 274.

Note G. On C. Xv. P. 274.

OF BAPTISM

[The De Baptismo seems to have been written before Tertullian’s fall; in that he says, c. 15, “the very privation of communion testifieth that they [heretics] are aliens,” which he would hardly have said, had he himself been out of communion with the Church. Lumper (c. 3. art. 3. §. 4.) infers the same from the Bishops being placed first, whereas according to S. Jerome (Ep. 41. ol. 213. ad Marcell. c. Montan. §. 3.) the Montanists (like a modern sect) had two orders above them; he notices also a different tone in speaking of Bishops, here and in the de Pudicit. c. i.; and that the Acta Theclæ, against which Tertullian speaks, (c. 17.) were probably written by Leucius, whom Pacian says, (Ep. i. ad Sympr. init.) that the Montanists said falsely that they derived their origin “animatos a Leucio mentiuntur.”]

I. HAPPY the Sacrament of our water! whereby being cleansed from the sins of our former blindness, we are made free unto eternal life! A discussion of this matter will not be idle, as instructing both those who are most perfectly informed, and those also, who content with simply believing, without examining the bearings of traditions, carry about with them through ignorance a belief which recommendeth itself, yet untried. And therefore a certain most venomous serpent of the heresy of the Cainites, lately dwelling in these parts, hath carried away very many with her doctrine, beginning with the overthrow of Baptism; plainly according to her nature; for vipers, and asps, and king-serpents, themselves mostly seek after places that are dry and without water. But we poor fishes, following after our ΙΧΘΥΣ, Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor are we safe, except by abiding in the water. Therefore that most monstrous woman Quintilla, who had not the right to teach even pure doctrine, knew excellently well how to kill the fishes, by taking them out of the water.

II. But now how great is the force of perverseness in overthrowing the Faith, or in preventing its being received at all, when it impugneth it by the very arguments by which it is established! In truth there is nothing which so hardeneth the minds of men, as the simplicity of the Divine works as visible in the act, and their greatness promised in the effect: so that in this case also, because a man going down into the water, and being with few words washed therein, with so much simplicity, without pomp, without any novel preparation, and finally without expense, riseth again not much or not a whit the cleaner, therefore his gaining Eternity is thought incredible. I am much mistaken if the rites and mysteries pertaining to idols on the contrary build not their credit and authority on their equipments and their outward show and their sumptuousness. O wretched unbelief! who deniest to God His own proper qualities, simplicity and power! What then? Is it not wonderful that death should be washed away by a mere bath? Yea, but if, because it is wonderful, it be therefore not believed, it ought on that account the rather to be believed. For what else should the works of God be but above all wonder? We ourselves also wonder, but because we believe: while unbelief wondereth and believeth not, for it wondereth at simple things, as foolish, and at great things, as impossible. And be it altogether as thou thinkest, yet hath the declaration of God sufficiently prevented thee in both points. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wisdom thereof, and, the things which are exceeding difficult with men, are easy with God. For if God be both wise and powerful, which even those who pass Him by deny not, with good cause placeth He the materials of His operations in the contraries of wisdom and power, that is in foolishness and impossibility, since every excellence taketh its rise from those things by which it is called forth.

III. Remembering this declaration, as one precluding farther question, let us nevertheless consider this mighty foolishness and impossibility that man should be re-formed by water. How, in fact, hath this material thing deserved an office of so much dignity? We must, I suppose, demand the authority of the liquid element. But of this there is abundance, and that from the beginning. For it is one of those things which, before the world was furnished with any thing, remained as yet in a rude form, quiescent in the hands of God. In the beginning (he saith) God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters. Thou hast first, O man, to reverence the age of the waters, in that they are an ancient substance, next their dignity, in that they were the seat of the Spirit of God, to wit, because more pleasing to Him, even then, than the rest of the elements. For there was as yet a total shapeless darkness, without the adorning of the stars, and there was the gloomy deep, and the earth unprepared, and the heaven unformed: water alone, a matter ever perfect, cheerful, simple, pure of its own nature, supplied a vehicle worthy of God. What shall I say of the disposition of the world having been thereupon based in a manner by God upon water as its regulating principle? For that He might suspend the firmament of Heaven in the midst, He did so by dividing the waters; and that He might suspend the dry land, He set it free by separating the waters. When, the world being afterwards disposed according to its elements, inhabitants were given unto it, it was commanded to the waters first to bring forth living creatures; water first brought forth that which had life, so that there might be no wonder, if in Baptism the waters should be able to give life. For even the work of forming man himself was accomplished by the waters joining their aid. The material was formed of the earth, yet not fit for use unless moist and full of juice, which, in fact, the waters, separated before the fourth day to their own place, had, through the moisture which remained behind, made, by their admixture, clay. If after this I were to go on to all or to any more of what I can say of the authority of this element, how great its power or its grace, how many contrivances, how many services, how mighty an instrument it furnisheth to the world, I am afraid lest I should seem rather to have collected together praises of water than arguments for baptism, although I should thus more fully shew, that we ought not to doubt whether God hath made that matter to obey Him in His own Sacraments also, which He hath disposed through all things and all His works; whether that, which ruleth the earthly life, minister also in the heavenly.

IV. But it will be sufficient to have briefly premised these things, among which is also recognized that first notice of Baptism, whereby even at that time it was, by the very posture, fore-signified as a figure of Baptism, that the Spirit of God, Which, in the beginning, was borne above the waters, will still abide upon the waters as the Baptizer. But an Holy Thing was surely borne above an holy, or that which bore borrowed holiness from that which was borne above it; since every substance lying beneath must needs catch the quality of that which lieth above: specially the bodily that of the spiritual, which, by the subtlety of its own nature, can easily penetrate and sink into it. Thus the nature of water sanctified by the Holy One, itself also received the power of sanctifying. Let no one say, ‘Are we then washed in the same waters which were then, in the beginning?’ Assuredly not in the same, unless so far as the genus is the same, while the species are many: and whatever is attributed to the genus appeareth again in the species also. And therefore there is no difference whether a man be washed in the sea or in a pool, in a river or in a fountain, in a lake or in a canal: nor is there any distinction between those whom John baptized in the Jordan, and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber, unless that eunuch too, whom Philip baptized on his journey, in the water on which they chanced, received thereby more or less saving benefit. Wherefore all waters, from the ancient privilege of their origin, obtain, after prayer to God, the sacrament of sanctification. For the Spirit straightway cometh down from the Heavens above, and is over the waters, sanctifying them from Himself; and so sanctified they imbibe the power of sanctifying. Besides, for the simple act the similitude of the things may suffice, so that since we are defiled by sins, as though by dirt, we should be cleansed by water. But as our sins do not appear upon the flesh, (for no man carrieth upon his skin the stain of idolatry, or adultery, or theft,) so persons of this sort are filthy in the spirit, which is the author of sin. For the spirit ruleth, the flesh serveth; nevertheless each shareth the guilt, the one with the other, the spirit for commanding, the flesh for obeying. Wherefore, the waters being in a certain manner endued with power to heal by the intervention of the Angel, the spirit is washed in the water after a carnal manner, and the flesh cleansed in the same after a spiritual manner.

V. But then the heathen, who are strangers to the understanding of spiritual things, give to their own idols a power of equal efficacy: but they deceive themselves with mere solitary water. For they are admitted by washing to certain sacred rites, of a certain Isis, or Mithra. Even the gods themselves they exalt by washings. For the rest, water every where carried about, maketh expiation, by sprinkling, for town and country houses, temples and entire cities. Certainly they are baptized at the games of Apollo and those at Eleusis; and this they suppose that they do unto regeneration, and impunity in their perjuries. So also among the ancients, whosoever had stained himself with murder was wont to make expiation for himself by the water of purification. Wherefore if men make much of water, as ominous of inward cleansing, solely from its nature, because it is the proper matter for washing outwardly, how much more truly will water perform this office by the authority of God, by Whom its whole nature is framed! If they think that water receiveth an healing power from Religion, what Religion is better than that of the living God? Which being acknowledged, we here also recognize the zeal of the Devil, rivalling the things of God, when even he performeth baptism upon his own people. What resemblance is there? The unclean cleanseth, the destroyer delivereth, the condemned absolveth! He will destroy forsooth his own work, washing away those sins which he himself inspireth! These things indeed are set down for a testimony against those who refuse the Faith, if they in no wise believe in those things of God, in the pretended imitations of which by the rival of God they do believe. But do not unclean spirits in other ways also, and without any religious rite, brood over the waters, pretending to imitate the up-bearing of the Divine Spirit at the beginning? Witness all shady fountains, and all unfrequented streams, and the pools at the baths, and all the conduits and cisterns in houses, and the wells which are said to carry men off, to wit, by the power of the noxious spirit. For they call men stifled, and water-stricken, and hydrophobic, whom water hath killed, or hath worked upon by madness or fear. To what purpose have we related these things? that none may think it too hard a thing that the holy Angel of God should be present to prepare the waters for the salvation of man, when the bad angel hath ofttimes unholy dealings with the same element for the destruction of man. If it seemeth a strange thing, that an Angel should interpose in the waters, an example of what was to be hath gone before. An angel interposing troubled the pool at Bethsaida. They who complained of ill health watched for him: for whosoever first stepped down thither, after washing ceased to complain. This figure of bodily medicine spake of a spiritual medicine, according to that rule whereby carnal things ever go before as the figures of spiritual. Wherefore, when the grace of God increased among men, more was added to the waters and to the Angel. They that did cure the ills of the body, now heal the spirit: they that did work out the temporal health, now frame anew the eternal: they that did deliver one man once in the year, now save whole nations every day, death being abolished through the washing away of sins. For the guilt being taken away, the punishment is taken away also. Thus man, who aforetime had been in the image of God, will be restored to God after His likeness. The image is considered to be in His form, the likeness in eternity: for he receiveth again that Spirit of God, which he had then received by His breathing upon him, but had afterwards lost by sin.

VI. Not that we obtain the Holy Spirit in the water, but being cleansed in the water, under the Angel, we are prepared for the Holy Spirit. Here also hath a figure gone before. For thus was John aforetime the forerunner of the Lord, preparing His way: and so also for the Holy Spirit, about to come upon us, doth the Angel, the witness of Baptism, make the paths straight, by the washing away of sins, which Faith obtaineth, being sealed in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. For if in three witnesses every word shall be established, how much more doth the Number also of the Divine Names suffice for the assurance of our hope, when we have, through the blessing pronounced, the same for witnesses of our faith, whom we have also as sureties for our salvation! But since both the testimony of faith and the promise of salvation is pledged under three, there is necessarily a mention made besides of the Church, seeing that where three are, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, there is the Church, which is a body of three.

VII. After this, having come out from the bath, we are anointed thoroughly with a blessed unction, according to the ancient rule, by which they were wont to be anointed for the priesthood with oil out of an horn. Wherefore Aaron was anointed by Moses; whence Christ is named from Chrism, which is “anointing,” which, being made spiritual, furnished a name for the Lord, because He was anointed with the Spirit by God the Father: as it is said in the Acts, For of a truth against Thy Holy Child, Whom Thou hast anointed, they were gathered together in that city. So in us also the anointing runneth over us bodily, but profiteth spiritually, as likewise in Baptism itself the act is carnal, that we are dipped in the water, the effect spiritual, that we are delivered from our sins.

VIII. Next to this, the hand is laid upon us, calling upon and inviting the Holy Spirit, through the blessing. Shall the wit of man forsooth be allowed to summon a spirit into water, and, by adjusting his hands above, to animate the compound of the two with another spirit of such dulcet sound, and shall not God be allowed, by means of holy hands, to tune on his own instrument the lofty strains of the Spirit? But this also cometh of an ancient mystery, wherein Jacob blessed his grandsons born of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, his hands being laid upon their heads, and interchanged, and turned indeed crosswise, the one over the other, so that, representing Christ in a figure, they might even then foreshew the blessing to be accomplished in Christ. Then that most Holy Spirit cometh down willingly from the Father upon the bodies that have been cleansed and blessed, and resteth upon the waters of Baptism, as though remembering His ancient abiding place, Who in the form of a dove descended upon the Lord, that the nature of the Holy Spirit might be shewn forth by a creature of simplicity and innocence. For the dove wanteth the very gall even in the body: and therefore He saith, Be ye harmless as doves. And even this was not without the token of a figure which had gone before. For as, after the waters of the flood, whereby the former iniquity was purged, after the baptism (so to speak) of the world, the herald dove sent forth from the ark, and returning with an olive branch,—a sign, which even among the Gentiles foretokeneth peace,—announced to the world the appeasement of the wrath of Heaven; by the same ordering of spiritual effect, doth the Dove of the Holy Spirit fly down upon our earth, that is, our flesh, when it cometh forth from the laver after its former sins, bringing to us the peace of God, sent forth from the Heavens, wherein is the Church, the prefigured ark. But the world sinneth a second time, (wherein Baptism can ill be compared to the flood): and therefore it is reserved unto fire, as is also the man, who, after Baptism, reneweth his sins, so that this also ought to be received as a token of warning to us.

IX. How many pleas therefore of nature in its behalf, how many privileges of grace, how many rites of religious discipline, figures, preparatory forms, prayers, have ordained the religious use of water! First indeed when the people being at large and set free from Egypt, escaped the violence of the king of Egypt by passing over the water, the water utterly destroyed the king with all his armies. What figure more manifest in the Sacrament of Baptism? The nations are delivered from the world, to wit by water, and leave the devil, their former master, overwhelmed in the water. Likewise was the water cured of its fault of bitterness, unto its own good state of sweetness, by the wood of Moses. That wood was Christ, curing, to wit, through His own Self, the streams of nature once poisoned and bitter, unto the most wholesome waters of Baptism. This is the water which flowed for the people from that rock that followed them. For if that rock was Christ, without doubt we see Baptism blessed by the water in Christ. How great, for the confirming of Baptism, is the grace of water in the sight of God and of His Christ! Never is Christ without water. Forasmuch as He Himself is baptized in water: called to the marriage, He commenceth the first beginnings of His power in water. When He discourseth, He inviteth the thirsty to His everlasting water: when He teacheth concerning charity, He approveth among the works of love, a cup of water offered to a poor man: He refresheth His strength at a well: He walketh upon the water: readily passeth over the sea: ministereth water to His disciples. The testimony to Baptism continueth even to His Passion. When He is delivered to be crucified, water cometh in between: witness the hands of Pilate: when He is wounded, water breaketh forth from His Side: witness the spear of the soldier.

X. I have spoken, as far as to my poor wit hath been permitted, concerning those things in general which lay the foundation of the Sacrament of Baptism. I shall now proceed equally, as I may be able, to treat of certain particular questions respecting what remains to be said of its character. The baptism which John preached, was, even in those days, the subject of a question, proposed indeed by the Lord Himself to the Pharisees, whether it were a baptism from heaven or of the earth. About which they were not able to answer consistently, as not understanding because not believing. But we with the same pittance of understanding as we have of Faith, are able to judge that that baptism was divine, but this in respect of the command, not in respect of its power also; (for we read that even John was sent by the Lord unto this office,) being nevertheless in its nature human; for it bestowed no heavenly thing, but fore-ministered unto heavenly things, being in truth set over the work of repentance, which is in the power of man. Finally, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, who would not believe, would also not repent. But if repentance be of men, the baptism of repentance also must needs be of the same nature; otherwise it would give the Holy Spirit also, and remission of sins, if it were from heaven. But none forgiveth sins or granteth the Spirit, but God only. Even the Lord Himself said, that the Spirit would not otherwise descend except He first ascended to the Father. What the Lord did not as yet bestow, His servant surely would not be able to give. Indeed we find afterwards in the Acts of the Apostles, that they who had John’s baptism had not received the Holy Ghost, Whom they knew not, not having so much as heard of Him. Wherefore this was not an heavenly thing, which gave not forth heavenly things, seeing that even that heavenly thing which was in John, the spirit of prophecy, did, after that the whole Spirit had passed to the Lord, so fall away from him, that of Him, Whom he had preached beforehand, Whom when yet coming he had pointed out, he sent afterwards to ask whether it were really He. The baptism of repentance therefore was employed as aspiring unto the remission and the sanctification about to follow in Christ. For in that he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, the declaration was made in respect of a future remission. Indeed since repentance goeth before, remission followeth after; and this it is to prepare the way; for he that prepareth the way doth not himself also perfect, but procureth it to be perfected by another. He himself confesseth that the heavenly things are not his, but Christ’s, when he saith, He that is of the earth, speaketh of the earth, He that cometh from above, is above all: and likewise that he himself baptized unto repentance alone, but that One should presently come, Who should baptize with the Spirit and with fire: to wit, because a true and stedfast faith is concerned with water, whereby it is baptized unto salvation, but a pretended and a weak one is baptized with fire unto judgment.

XI. But behold, say they, the Lord came and baptized not: for we read, nevertheless He baptized not, but His disciples. As if John had preached that he should Himself actually baptize with His own hands! Surely it ought not to be so understood, but as having been spoken simply by a common form of speech. As we have, for instance, ‘The Emperor propounded a decree,’ or, ‘The Præfect beat him with clubs.’ Doth the one propound, or the other beat, in person? He is always said to do the thing, for whom it is ministerially done. Wherefore, He shall baptize you, must be taken to signify the same as, ‘ye shall be baptized through Him, or into Him.’ But let it not move any that He Himself baptized not. For whereunto should He baptize? Unto repentance? to what purpose then His forerunner? Unto remission of sins? which He gave by a word! Into Himself? Whom in humility He hid! Into the Holy Ghost? Who had not as yet descended from the Father! Into the Church? which the Apostles had not as yet founded! Wherefore His disciples baptized as ministers, as John His forerunner did before, with the same baptism of John: for let no one suppose that it was with any other, because there doth not exist any other, save that of Christ afterwards, which surely could not then be given by His disciples, seeing that the glory of the Lord was not as yet made perfect, nor the effectual power of the laver established by His Passion and Resurrection; for neither could our death be abolished, save by the Passion of the Lord, nor our life restored, without His Resurrection.

XII. But since the rule is laid down that salvation cometh to none without Baptism, chiefly from that declaration of the Lord, Who saith, Except a man be born of water, he hath not life; up come, on the part of certain men, questions too scrupulous, yea rather too unscrupulous, how, according to that rule, salvation cometh to the Apostles, whom we do not find to have been baptized in the Lord, except Paul. Nay, that, since Paul alone among them put on the Baptism of Christ, either the peril of the rest, who are without the water of Christ, is already determined, that the rule may be maintained, or the rule is made void, if salvation be appointed even for men unbaptized. I have heard, the Lord is my witness, sayings of this sort, lest any should think me so abandoned as to moot of mine own accord, in the wantonness of my pen, questions which may excite a doubt in others. And now I will, as well as I am able, make answer to those who deny that the Apostles were baptized. For suppose they had undergone the human baptism of John, and were without that of the Lord, according as the Lord Himself had determined that baptism is one, when He said to Peter, who was unwilling to be washed, He that is once washed, needeth it not again; which He surely would not have said to one unwashed, and this is a proof put forward against those who deprive the Apostles of even the baptism of John, that they may overthrow the sacrament of water. Can it be thought credible that the way of the Lord, that is, the baptism of John, was not at that time prepared in these persons, who were designed to open the way of the Lord throughout the whole world? Was the Lord Himself, Who owed no repentance, baptized; and was it not necessary for sinners? Well! but others were not baptized. Yea, but these were not the companions of Christ, but the adversaries of the Faith, the teachers of the Law and Pharisees. Whereby also it is suggested, that, since the enemies of the Lord would not be baptized, those who followed the Lord were baptized, and were not of the same mind with their adversaries, especially when the Lord, to Whom they clave, had by His testimony exalted John, saying, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater than John the Baptist. Some drop a hint, sufficiently forced surely, that the Apostles supplied the place of Baptism, at the time when they were sprinkled and covered with the waves in the ship; and that Peter himself also, when walking upon the sea, was sufficiently dipped. But to my thinking it is one thing to be sprinkled and caught by the violence of the sea, and another to be washed according to the rite of Religion. Nevertheless that ship set forth a figure of the Church, inasmuch as it is tossed in the sea, that is in the world, by the waves, that is by persecution and temptations, while the Lord is, as it were, patiently sleeping, until, being awakened in the last extremity by the prayers of the saints, He stilleth the world, and giveth again a calm to His own. Now whether they were, by whatever means, baptized, or whether they continued unbaptized, so that that saying of the Lord touching the one washing pertaineth only to us under the person of Peter, nevertheless it is sufficiently rash to judge concerning the salvation of the Apostles, as though even the privilege of their being first chosen unto Christ, and of their inseparable and familiar companionship with Him afterwards, could not bestow upon them at once all the benefit of Baptism, seeing that they, as I think, followed Him Who promised salvation to every believer. Thy faith, said He, hath saved thee, and thy sins be forgiven thee: and this to one believing, yet not baptized. If this were wanting to the Apostles, I know not to whom belongeth faith! Stirred up by a single word of the Lord, a man left the receipt of custom, abandoned father and ship, and the trade by which he supported life; disregarded the burial of a father; fulfilled, even before he heard, the chief commandment of that Lord, He that preferreth father or mother to Me, is not worthy of Me.

XIII. Here then these most wicked men provoke questions. Indeed they say, ‘Baptism is not necessary for those for whom Faith is sufficient: for Abraham also pleased God by a sacrament wherein was no water, but only faith.’ But in all cases, the things which come last determine the question, and the things which follow overrule those which go before. Be it that salvation was once through bare faith, before the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord: but when faith grew up to a belief in His Birth, Passion, and Resurrection, an enlargement was added to the sacrament, the sealing of Baptism, the clothing, in a manner, of that Faith which before was naked. Nor doth it now avail without its own condition: for the condition of Baptism was imposed, and the form prescribed. Go, saith He, teach the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. When with this law is compared that limitation, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven, this hath bound down faith to the necessity of Baptism. Wherefore from that time all believers were baptized. Then also was Paul, as soon as he believed, baptized: and this it was which the Lord had commanded during that afflicting bereavement, saying, Arise, and go into Damascus: there it shall be shewn thee what thou oughtest to do, to wit, to be baptized, which was the only thing wanting to him. For the rest, he had learned enough, and had believed that He of Nazareth was the Lord, the Son of God.

XIV. But they turn back upon us the case of the Apostle himself, in that he said, for Christ sent me not to baptize, as if Baptism were overthrown by this argument! For why did he baptize Gaius and Crispus, and the household of Stephanas? Besides, although Christ had not sent him to baptize, yet He had commanded the other Apostles to baptize. But these words were written to the Corinthians according to the circumstances of that time, because that divisions and dissensions were stirred up among them, when one called himself of Paul, another of Apollos. Wherefore the peace-making Apostle, that he might not seem to claim every thing to himself, saith that he was not sent to baptize but to preach. For preaching moreover cometh first, Baptism afterwards. But be it that he first preached, I suppose that he, who was permitted to preach, was permitted also to baptize.

XV. I know not whether any farther show be made of calling Baptism into question. For my own part, I shall go through what I have hitherto omitted, lest I should seem to break off the train of thoughts immediately pressing. To us, in any case, there is one Baptism, as well according to the Gospel of the Lord, as the letters of the Apostle: seeing that there is one God, and one Baptism, one Church in the Heavens. But certainly one may well enquire what ought to be maintained about heretics; for this saying was directed to ourselves. Now heretics have no fellowship in our discipline, of whom indeed the very privation of Communion testifieth that they are aliens. I am not bound to admit in their case that which hath been taught to me, because we and they have not the same God, nor One, that is the same, Christ. And therefore neither have we one, because not the same, Baptism with them, which, since they have it not rightly, without doubt they have not at all, nor can that be counted, which is not there: and so also they cannot receive it, since they have it not. But this hath been already more fully discussed by me in Greek. We enter then the laver but once: our sins are washed away once, because these ought not to be repeated. But Jewish Israel washeth daily, because he is daily defiled: and that this may not be practised amongst us also, on this very account is the rule laid down about the one washing. Happy the water which washeth once for all, which is not a mockery unto sinners, which doth not, being stained by continual filth, defile again those whom it hath washed!

XVI. We have indeed, besides, a second washing, itself also one, to wit that of blood, whereof the Lord saith, I have a Baptism to be baptized with, when He had been already baptized. For He had come by water and Blood, as John hath written, that He might be washed by water, glorified by Blood. Wherefore that He might make us to be called by water, chosen by blood, He sent forth these two Baptisms from the wound of His pierced Side; so far as that those who believed in His Blood might be washed with water, and that those who had been washed with water, might also drink His Blood. This is that Baptism which both standeth in the place of the laver, when not received, and restoreth it when lost.

XVII. To conclude my little work, it remaineth that I give an admonition also concerning the right rule of giving and receiving Baptism. The right of giving it indeed hath the chief Priest, which is the Bishop: then the Presbyters and Deacons, yet not without the authority of the Bishops, for the honour of the Church, which being preserved, peace is preserved. Otherwise laymen have also the right, for that which is equally received may equally be given, unless the name disciples denote at once Bishops or Priests or Deacons. The word of God ought not to be hidden from any: wherefore also Baptism, which is equally derived from God, may be administered by all. But how much more incumbent on laymen is the duty of reverence and modesty! Seeing that these things belong to those of higher estate, let them not take upon themselves the office of the Bishoprick set apart for the Bishops. Emulation is the mother of divisions. A most holy Apostle hath said that all things are lawful, but all things are not expedient. Let it in truth suffice thee to use such things in thy necessities, whensoever the circumstances of place, or time, or person compel thee. For then is a boldness, in him that aideth, admissible, when the case of him that is in danger is urgent. For he will be guilty of destroying a man, if he shall forbear to do that for him which he had free power to do. But the wantonness of woman which hath taken upon itself to teach, will not surely bring forth for itself the right of baptizing also, unless some new monster shall arise like unto the former, so that, as one hath taken away Baptism, in like manner some other may of her own self confer it. But if they claim those writings, which have been wrongly ascribed to Paul, the writing of Tecla, as giving licence to women to teach and to baptize, let them know that the Presbyter in Asia, who framed that writing, heaping up, as it were, from his own store unto the name of Paul, having been convicted, and having confessed that he did this out of love for Paul, yielded up his place; for how near would it seem to approach to a thing credible, that he should give to a woman the power of teaching and of baptizing, who suffered not a woman to be bold even in learning? Let them, saith he, keep silence, and ask their husbands at home.

XVIII. But they, to whom the office belongeth, know that Baptism must not be rashly entrusted. Give to every man that asketh of thee, cometh under its own proper head, which in truth pertaineth to almsgiving. Nay rather we should consider this saying, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine: and, Lay hands suddenly on no man, lest thou be partaker of other men’s sins. If Philip so suddenly baptized the eunuch, let us remember that the sanction of the Lord, clear and distinctly put forward, had intervened. The Spirit had commanded Philip to turn his course that way: the eunuch himself also was not found in a state of listlessness, nor one desirous on a sudden of being baptized, but he had gone up to the Temple for to worship, was intent upon the Divine Scriptures: so ought he to be found, to whom God had of His own will sent an Apostle, whom the Spirit a second time commanded to join himself to the chariot of the eunuch: a Scripture falleth in with the man’s own faith: being in due season exhorted, he is received as a disciple: the Lord is shewn to him: Faith delayeth not: water is not to seek: the Apostle having fulfilled his task is caught away. But Paul too was really baptized suddenly. Yes: for his host Simon had come suddenly to know that he was appointed a chosen vessel. God’s good pleasure ushereth itself in by its own special claims: in every petition there may be both deceit and self-deception. Wherefore the delaying of Baptism is more profitable according to the condition, and disposition, and moreover the age of each person, but especially in the case of children. For why is it necessary, if the thing be not so necessary, that the sponsors also be brought into danger? for both they themselves may, from their mortal nature, fail of their promises, and they may be disappointed by the growing up of a bad disposition. The Lord indeed saith, Forbid them not come unto Me. Let them come then when they are of riper years: let them come when they are disciples, when they are taught whither they are coming: let them become Christians when they are able to know Christ. Why is the age of innocence in haste for the remission of sins? Men will act more cautiously in worldly matters, so that to one, to whom no earthly substance is committed, that which is Divine is committed! Let them know how to ask for salvation, that thou mayest seem to give to him that asketh. With no less reason unmarried persons also should be put off, within whom temptation is already prepared, as well in virgins by reason of their ripe age, as in widows by reason of their wandering about, until they either marry or be confirmed in continency. They that understand the weighty nature of Baptism will fear its attainment rather than its postponement. Faith unimpaired is assured of salvation.

XIX. Easter furnisheth the most solemn day for Baptism, at which time likewise the Passion of the Lord, into which we are baptized, was finished. Nor would any one interpret it unsuitably as a figure, that when the Lord was about to keep His last Passover, in sending His disciples to make ready, He saith, Ye shall find a man bearing water. He sheweth the place for celebrating the Passover by the sign of water. Next the Pentecost is a very large space of time for the appointment of Baptisms, during which the Resurrection of the Lord was frequently manifested among the disciples, and the grace of the Holy Spirit was solemnly consigned to them, and the hope of the coming of the Lord suggested, because at that time when He was received up into Heaven, the Angels said to the Apostles that He should so come in like manner as He went up to Heaven, that is, at the Pentecost. But moreover when Jeremiah saith, And I will gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth on an holy day, he signifieth the day of the Passover and that of the Pentecost, which is specially an holy day. But every day is the Lord’s: every hour, every season, is meet for Baptism. If there be a difference as touching its solemnity, there is none as touching its grace.

XX. They who are about to enter upon Baptism ought to pray with frequent prayers, fastings, and bowings of the knee, and long watchings, and with confession of all their past sins, that they may shew forth even the baptism of John. They were baptized, saith the Scripture, confessing their sins. We have cause to be thankful, if we do not confess in public our iniquities or our infamies: for, by the afflictings of flesh and the spirit we at the same time both make satisfaction for things past, and build up beforehand a barrier against temptations to come. Watch and pray, saith He, that ye fall not into temptation. And it was, I think, because they slept that they were so tempted that they forsook the Lord when He was seized, and that he who continued with Him, and used his sword, denied Him also thrice: for this saying had gone before, that no one should gain the kingdom of Heaven without temptations. Temptations beset the Lord Himself immediately after Baptism, after that He had passed forty days in fasting. ‘It is after Baptism then rather,’ some men will say, ‘that we too ought to fast?’ And who hindereth, pray, save the necessity of rejoicing, and thanksgiving for our salvation? But the Lord, to my poor thinking taking occasion of the type of Israel, cast a reproach upon him. For the people having passed over the sea, and being carried about in the wilderness for forty years, while they were there nourished with divine stores, thought no less of their belly and their gluttonous throat than of God. After this the Lord being alone in the wilderness after His Baptism, having measured out a fast of forty days, shewed that the man of God doth not live by bread alone, but by the word of God; and that the temptations which attend upon fulness and excessive indulgence of the belly are stifled by abstinency. Do ye therefore, blessed men, for whom the grace of God waiteth, when ye arise out of that most holy laver of your new birth, and spread your hands for the first time together with your brethren in your mother’s presence, ask of the Father, ask of the Lord, Who supplieth goods, graces, diversities of gifts. Ask, saith He, and ye shall receive, for ye have sought, and ye have found; ye have knocked, and it hath been opened unto you. Only I beseech you that, when ye ask, ye remember also the sinner Tertullian.

NOTE G. ON C. XV. P. 274.

Tertullian lays down two grounds, why the baptizing of those already baptized out of the Church is no second Baptism, the one excluding all schismatical baptism, the second, that of heretics who rejected the true faith as to any of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity: the first, that the non-communicating with the Church shewed them to be aliens; the second, that they had not the same God nor the same Christ. Heretical baptism is excluded, not as using a wrong form of words, but as not having the same Object of Faith. They had not “One Lord,” and so neither “one Baptism.”

The Baptism then of the Church was no second Baptism, because there had been no first. On this question there were three views in the ancient Church; first, that of the early African Church and of Asia Minor, in the time of Firmilian, which rejected all baptism out of the Church, schismatical as well as heretical; second, that of the Greek Church generally, stated fully by S. Basil, which accepted schismatical, but rejected heretical baptism; third, that first mentioned by Stephen, Bishop of Rome, who accepted all baptism, even of heretics, which had been given in the name of the Trinity. The second continues to be the rule of the Greek, the third (with some modifications) of the Latin, Church. (In both, it was presupposed that the Minister had at one time received the commission to baptize; the case of schismatical baptism, as it is now found among us, not occurring.)

Of these three, the two views which lasted, were founded on the respective traditions, or ancient practice of the East and West; that which excluded schismatical baptism seems, as it were, an offshoot of the original Greek tradition. The point at issue between the two views was, whether a wrong belief in the Object of Faith vitiated the Baptism conferred in Their Name, although the words were sound, (which the Greeks held,) or whether the Baptism, deriving its efficacy from the Name of the Blessed Trinity being pronounced over the baptized, was valid, although understood in an heretical sense by the baptizing priest, and by the baptized. This was the view of Stephen, and afterwards adopted by the Council of Arles, and developed and defended by S. Augustine.

The Greek view first occurs in the Apostolical Canons. Canon 46. “A Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon, who admitteth the baptism or sacrifice of heretics, we command to be deposed. For what concord has Christ with Belial, or what part has a believer with an infidel?” Canon 47. “Let a Bishop or Presbyter, who baptizes anew one who hath true Baptism, or does not baptize one defiled by the ungodly, be deposed, as mocking the Cross and the Death of the Lord, (Rom. 6:3.) or [in the second case] not distinguishing priests from false priests.” Canon 68. “If any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon, receive a second imposition of hands from any one, let both him, and he who laid on hands, be deposed; unless he shew that he had imposition of hands from heretics; for neither can those baptized by such be believers, nor those who have imposition of hands from them be Clergy.” Heretical baptism is accordingly rejected in the Greek Churches by S. Clement of Alexandria, (Strom. i. 19. fin. p. 137. ed. Sylb.) “ ‘strange waters,’ i.e. heretical baptism, not regarding it water belonging to herself [Wisdom] or genuine.” In the third century S. Dionysius of Alexandria (ap. Euseb. H. E. vii.) speaks of the rejection of heretical baptism as an ancient tradition in Egypt or the East altogether; he states that he had “received from Heraclas, their Bishop of blessed memory,” that those who having been baptized in the Church, fell away into heresy, “needed no second Baptism, for they had before received the Holy Spirit through it;” and subjoins, (after a fuller discussion which Eusebius omits,) “I have learnt this also, that not they in Africa only have now brought in this practice, but that it was approved of, and that long ago, under the Bishops amongst us, in the most populous Churches, and in the Synods of brethren at Iconium and Synnada, and among many others, whose decrees I cannot endure to subvert, so casting strife and contention among them; for it is written, ‘thou shalt not remove the land-mark of thy neighbour, which thy fathers have set.’ “ It is plain from this on which side S. Dionysius was, both from the ground alleged for not baptizing those, who having fallen into heresy, had recovered, viz. because these (having been baptized in the Church) had received the Holy Ghost, (implying that in heretical baptism It would not have been conveyed) and in that he maintains the custom of baptizing heretics as the ancient usage of the Eastern Church. S. Jerome also distinctly asserts that he agreed with S. Cyprian and Firmilian. In his letter to Xystus, successor of Stephen, S. Dionysius mentions that Stephen had “rejected the communion of Helenus and Firmilian, and all those of Cilicia, and Cappadocia, and Galatia, and all the neighbouring nations, in succession; on the ground, as he alleged, that they re-baptized heretics.” “Consider,” he subjoins, “the greatness of this matter. For indeed decrees, as I hear, have been made thereon in the largest Synods of Bishops, to the effect that they who come over from heresy, having been first instructed, should then wash and purge away the defilement of the old impure leaven.” (ib. c. 6.) Firmilian, at the same time, states it to have been an Apostolic tradition, and that there was no trace of any other practice. “We [in the East], to the ground of truth,” [the tenor of Scripture on which the African Church rested,] “add that of received custom, and to the Roman custom we oppose custom, but the custom of truth, holding this from the beginning which hath been delivered by Christ and the Apostles. Nor have we any memory of this custom having begun among us, inasmuch as it has ever been observed there, that we recognize one only Church of God, and account Baptism to belong only to the Holy Church. Of a truth, because some doubted of the baptism of such as, although they do not receive the prophets as we, yet seem to acknowledge the same Father and Son with us, very many of us, meeting together at Iconium, treated thereon most diligently, and set firm that all baptism whatever, out of the Church, was to be rejected.” (Ep. ap. Cypr. §. 19.) In an earlier part of the Epistle §. 6. he speaks of this Synod as having been held “some time before;” “all which, (some being in doubt on this matter,) we some time since (jampridem) being collected together in Iconium, a place in Phrygia, out of Galatia and Cilicia, and the other neighbouring provinces, established was to be held firmly and maintained against heretics.” If Firmilian, in using the first person in each place, means that the Synod of Iconium was in his own time, and that he assisted in its decrees, (which seems probable,) it seems also, as though a distinction were to be made between the decrees of that Synod, and the tradition upon which it was founded. Its decree would then seem to be a particular application of the ancient practice; heretical baptism had never been acknowledged in the Eastern Church; but since the line between heresy and schism is sometimes indistinct, a doubt had arisen in the minds of some, as Firmilian states, and the Synod decided against all baptism given out of the Church. And this is, perhaps, the more probable, on account of the very grievous nature of the heresies, which harassed the Eastern Church, so that the lasting rents from her seem to have been caused by heresy rather than by schism. And Firmilian himself, towards the close of his Epistle, does seem to consider schismatical, a less clear case than heretical, baptism; “We have judged that those also are to be accounted unbaptized, whom these have baptized, who were once Bishops in the Catholic Church, and afterwards claimed to themselves the power of their clerical ordination. And this is observed among us, that whosoever come from them to us having been dipped, are, as being aliens and having obtained nothing, baptized among us with the one true Baptism of the Catholic Church, and obtain the regeneration of the lifegiving laver. And yet there is much difference between him who sunk unwilling and overpowered by the constraining of persecution, (alluding perhaps to the occasion of the Novatian schism,) and him who, with sacrilegious will, daringly rebels against the Church, or with impious voice blasphemes the Father and God of Christ, and the Creator of the whole world.” If this were so, S. Dionysius and Firmilian in speaking of the Synod as “long ago,” (πρὸ πολλοῦ, jampridem,) would mean, long before this present question was raised by Stephen, at the beginning of Firmilian’s Episcopate. Firmilian was distinguished as a Bishop, in the tenth year of Alexander Severus, i.e. 232, (Eus. vi. 26.) and so, twenty-four years before the question on Baptism was raised by Stephen in the West (256.) Firmilian’s statement of the Eastern tradition would thus agree with the more explicit one of S. Basil in the same Diocese. (Ep. 188. ad Amphil. [Can. i.] can. i.) He says “those of old decided to admit such Baptism, as no ways departed from the Faith. Whence they called some heresies, some schisms, some conventicles.—Heresies, such as were wholly broken off, and estranged from the Faith itself; schisms, such as disagree as to certain ecclesiastical matters, and questions which may be healed; conventicles, congregations formed by insubordinate Presbyters or Bishops, and undisciplined laity. Thus, if one convicted of a fall, were suspended from officiating, and would not submit to the Canons, but claimed to himself preeminence and the right to officiate, and certain leaving the Catholic Church went off with him, this were a conventicle; a schism were to hold differently from the Church as to Repentance; heresies are such as of the Manichees, Valentinians, Marcionites, and these same Pepuzenes; for their difference relates directly to the Faith itself toward God. It seemed good then to those from the beginning, wholly to annul the baptism of heretics, but admit that of those who separate, as being yet of the Church, but those in conventicles to join on again to the Church, when amended by adequate repentance and conversion, and that so as oftentimes to admit to the same rank, after repentance, such as having order in the Church, went off with the insubordinate.” In the same place, S. Basil distinguishes from this tradition the decision of Firmilian as something of his own; “Nevertheless it seemed good to the ancients, Cyprian and his colleagues and our Firmilian, to subject all these to one sentence—on the ground that the beginning of the separation took place through schism; but they who fell away from the Church, had no longer the grace of the Holy Spirit with them; for that by cutting off the connection, the transmission failed; they then who first departed received the laying on of hands from the fathers, and through the imposition of their hands, had the spiritual gift; but they who were rent off having become lay, had neither the power of baptizing, nor of ordaining, being unable any longer to impart the grace of the Holy Spirit to others, out of which they had fallen themselves.” It is remarkable in this respect, that Firmilian throughout his letter refers to “heretics,” except in the passages above cited, relating not to the tradition, but to the acts of the Synods; his principles extend further; but that which seems chiefly on his mind, (and in that of S. Cyprian also,) is, that Stephen had maintained the validity of all “heretical” baptism: that which he speaks against, even in the passage apparently alluded to by S. Basil, is “heretical.” “Nay, all other heretics if they cut themselves off from the Church, [not the Cataphrygians, or Montanists only] can have no power or grace, inasmuch as all power and grace is deposited in the Church, where the elders preside, who have the power both of baptizing, and of laying on of hands, and of ordaining. For as a heretic may not ordain or lay on hands, so neither may he baptize, nor do any holy or spiritual act, as being an alien from the spiritual and deifying holiness.” This looks as if what Firmilian chiefly had been accustomed to and had most in his mind was “heretical” baptism; as it will often happen that the principles upon which we maintain a traditional truth, being our own, will go beyond the truth which we maintain.

Further witnesses for the rejection of heretical baptism in the Eastern Church, are, in the Church of Jerusalem, S. Cyril, its Bishop, (Catech. Introd. Lect. §. 7. p. 4. Oxf. Transl.) S. Athanasius and S. Epiphanius, and even in the Western Church, (the practice of Milan in other points differing from that of Rome,) S. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.

S. Athanasius thus speaks, (Orat. 2. c. Ariann. §. 42. t. i. p. 510. ed. Ben.) “But these [the Arians] risk the very fulness of Mystery, I mean of Baptism. For since this perfecting is conferred ‘into the Name of the Father and the Son,’ but these acknowledge not the true Father because they deny That Which is derived of, and Consubstantial with Him; and deny again the true Son, and feign to themselves another, created out of things which were not, and name Him; how should not what they administer be wholly vain and profitless, having a semblance but nothing real as an aid to holiness; for the Arians impart not Baptism into the Father and the Son, but into Creator and creature, Maker and made? But as their ‘created’ is different from the Son, so would that which they are thought to give, be from the reality, although, on account of what is written, they affect to name the Name of the Father and the Son. For not he who merely saith ‘Lord,’ imparteth also, but he who with the Name, has also the right Faith. For this cause did the Saviour also not merely command to baptize, but saith first, ‘teach,’ then on this wise, ‘baptize in the Name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost;’ that through the teaching the Faith may be right, and with the Faith the perfecting of Baptism may be added. Many other heresies, moreover, which pronounce the Names only, but are not right-minded, as was said, nor have the sound Faith, make unprofitable the water which they also bestow, as wanting in godliness, so even that whoso is sprinkled by them, is rather defiled by them in ungodliness, than redeemed. Thus also the Heathen, although with the lips speaking of God, are charged with ungodliness, because they know not Him Who is indeed the True God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the Manichæans and Phrygians, and the disciples of him (Paul) of Samosata, naming the Names, are not the less heretics: thus also in their order they also who think with Arius, although they rehearse what is written and say the Names, they, too, mock those who receive (Baptism) from them, being more ungodly far than other heresies.”

The Romanist editor of S. Athanasius attempts to conform this with the Western view, in that S. Augustine says that Baptism out of the Church is profitless, tending only to condemnation; but it is distinctly the Greek view as opposed to the Western; for, 1. the Western held that all in which the sacred Names were pronounced was valid Baptism, though unprofitable out of the Church, whether in heresy or schism; the Eastern held, that Baptism, even if administered in the Sacred Names, was invalid and empty, if administered with a wrong belief as to Them, which is just what S. Athanasius here insists upon: 2. the instances which he gives, at least the Phrygians and Paulianists, are those rejected, as invalid, as being heretical.

The same is evinced by the principle upon which Epiphanius admits Arian Baptism. He speaks against the rashness of those, who “without the decision of an Œcumenical Council, venture to rebaptize those who come to them from the Arians, the matter not having been as yet, as I said, decided by the judgment of a Council, because the people continue unseparated until now, and that many are orthodox, but are feignedly joined to those who exercise the priesthood until a separation of such a blasphemous heresy take place, and then it will be decided concerning it.” (adv. Hær. 1. 3. t. 2. Expos. Fid. Eccl. c. 13.)

S. Epiphanius, then, blames the rejection of Arian baptism as being a private unauthorized act, and because the Arians were not yet formally put out of the Church, and many who were accounted such, were sound in the Faith, so that if their baptism were rejected, there would be risk of rejecting valid Baptism along with it; thereby, as well as by the last hint, shewing that if they were altogether separated, so as to be purely heretics and deriving no benefit from what connection they still had with the Church, he would have thought their baptism altogether invalid. And this corresponds with S. Athanasius’ expression, “they risk the very fulness of the Mystery,” leaving some doubt, though expressing his own conviction, whereas of the other sects, who had been severed altogether as heretics, the Montanists, Paulianites, Manichees, he declares the baptism altogether void.

The Greek rule, which rejected heretical Baptism, extended very widely, including under the term, “difference of Faith in God” not only such misbelief as involved the rejection of the very doctrine of the Trinity, in Whose Name they were baptized, but serious error as to the several Persons in the Trinity. Thus S. Basil declares that the baptism of the Encratites and others was to be rejected, because, although they used the form of sound words, by condemning wine and marriage they made God the author of evil. “The Encratites, and Saccophori, and Apotactites” [names assumed as if they were eminently ascetics, “the Abstinent,” “Sackcloth-wearers,” “Renouncers,”] are [not] subjected to the same rule, as the Novatians, because as to these a canon has been published, though variously; but silence kept as to the others. We then rebaptize all such equally; and if among you rebaptizing is forbidden, as among the Romans for some reason of convenience (οἰκονομίας τινὸς), yet let our rule prevail, for, since their heresy is a sort of off-shoot of the Marcionites, who abhor marriage and reject wine, and say that the creature of God is defiled, we do not receive them into the Church, unless they be baptized with our Baptism. For let them not say, ‘We have been baptized into Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’ who under this form understand God to be the author of evil, according to the Marcionite and other heresies.” (Ep. 199. [Can. 2.] can. 47.) In like way he rejects Montanist baptism, because they gave to Montanus and Priscilla the title of “The Paraclete,” and so virtually baptized to Montanus instead of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. “The Pepuzenes then are manifestly heretics. For they blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, wickedly and shamefully ascribing to Montanus and Priscilla the appellation of ‘The Paraclete.’ Whether then as making of men a god, they are condemned; or as guilty of contumely against the Holy Ghost, by comparing Him with men, and thus subject to eternal condemnation, in that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is unpardonable. What reason then hath it, that their baptism should be accounted of, who baptize to the Father, the Son, and Montanus or Priscilla? For they who baptize into what has not been delivered to us, baptize not.”

The Eastern rule, in consequence of this very extent, had some difficulty; S. Dionysius’ distinction is indeed clear, in that heresy implied blasphemy against God, as in the case of Marcion against the Father, or the Arians against the Son, or the Montanists against the Holy Ghost, whereas the Novatian doctrine did not change men’s thoughts of God, but only their views of His dealings with men; yet the lines would often approach very close, for S. Cyprian accounts the Novatians heretics, as going against an article of the Creed; and when the doctrine (as in the case of the Encratites) did not so directly relate to the very Being of God, doubt might arise whether it were heresy or schism. The rule, then, was differently applied in different Bishoprics, and the Greek Church held that it had the power of enforcing re-baptizing or accepting the previous baptism, as it saw best for the good of the whole. Thus S. Basil expresses his surprise that the “nullity of Montanist baptism” should have “escaped the great Dionysius,” “being well versed in the canons;” [probably, as being at a distance from the seat of the heresy;] “still,” he adds, “we must guard against imitating his mistake. For how unreasonable it is, is at once manifest and evident to all, who have ever so little reasoning power.” Even as to the Cathari or Novatians, although schismatics only, S. Basil does not speak decisively, but, at the outset, adopts the suggestion of Amphilochius, “thou hast well suggested, that the practice of each country should be followed, because they who then decided these points, held differently as to their baptism;” afterwards he says, “since it seemed good to some of those in Asia, out of a kindly regard to the people (οἰκονομίας ἕνεκα τῶν πολλῶν) that their baptism should be received, be it received.” With regard to the Encratites, S. Basil says, “since nothing has been publicly decided about them, we ought to annul their baptism; and if any have received it of them, to baptize him when he comes to the Church. Should this however be likely to be injurious to the well-being of the whole, the practice must be adhered to, and the fathers who ordered things among us, be followed. For I have some fear lest, while we wish to make them more slow to baptize, we may by the rigidness of our sentence place hindrance in the way of the saved. But if they respect our Baptism, let not this shame us out of our rule. For we are not bound to requite them with the like, but to follow the canons precisely. But in any case, be it enacted, that they who come from their baptism receive the Chrism in presence of the faithful, and so approach to the Mysteries. I know we have received the brethren, Izoin and Saturninus, out of their orders to the Episcopal chair; so that we can no longer separate from the Church those joined to their orders, in that we have set forth a sort of Canon of communion with them, by receiving their Bishops.”

S. Basil himself, then, in all cases leans to the stricter side as the side of propriety, but thinks that in these lighter cases, the strictness, in itself desirable, may be dispensed with for some greater good. This may account perhaps for the apparent want of distinct rule in the Eastern Church, in their rejection or admission of the baptism of different heretics. Thus the baptism of the Cathari or Novatians was admitted by the Councils of Laodicea (can. 7.), Constantinople 1. (can. 7.), as was also the Quartodeciman at Laodicea and Constantinople; which last also admitted the Arian, Macedonian, and Apollinarian; rejecting that of “all other heretics,” and by name that of the Montanists and Sabellians; the Montanists were also rejected at Laodicea (can. 8.) and the Paulianists at Nice (can. 19.) The Council in Trullo (A.D. 692.) instances the Eunomians, Montanists, Sabellians, and Paulianists as among those who were to be baptized, without specifying whose baptism it accounted valid, (can. 95.)

S. Cyprian and Firmilian both have traces of the Greek rule, though they extend it further. Thus Firmilian uses the same instance as S. Basil, of the Montanist heretics: “It suffices to say briefly that they who hold not the true God the Father, cannnot hold the truth of the Son or the Holy Spirit, according to which they also who are called Cataphryges, and essay to maintain new prophecies, can have neither the Father nor the Son; of whom if we ask what Christ they preach, they will answer that they preach Him Who sent the Spirit by Montanus and Prisca. In whom when we perceive that there is a spirit not of truth but of error, we know that they who maintain a false prophecy against the faith of Christ, cannot have Christ.” §. 6.

In like way S. Cyprian, although he joins schismatics and heretics together, in the detail of his arguments dwells chiefly on heretical baptism, and his great earnestness in this question seems to have been called out by Stephen’s broad declaration in favour not of schismatical, but of all heretical, baptism; “from whatever heresy.” Thus to Jubaianus, §. 4. “Since I found it written in an Epistle, of which you transmitted a copy to me, that no enquiry is to be made who baptized, since the baptized person may receive remission of sins according to his belief, I thought this topic not to be passed over, especially when in the same Epistle, I observed mention to be made of Marcion also, saying that not even such as came from him were to be baptized, as appearing to have been already baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. We ought therefore to consider the faith of those who believe out of the Church, whether according to that same faith they can obtain any grace. For if we have one Faith with heretics, there may be one grace also. If the same Father, the same Son, the same Holy Ghost, the same Church, is confessed by Patripassians, Anthropians, Valentinians, Appelletians, Ophites, Marcionites, and the other pests and swords and poisons for the destruction of the truth, then also may there be ‘one Baptism,’ if there is ‘one Faith.’ Of these S. Cyprian takes the case of Marcion mentioned in the letter, and having laid down as the rule, the Form of Baptism given by our Lord after the Resurrection, he says, “He conveys the Trinity, in Whose sacrament the nations were to be baptized. Does then Marcion hold this Trinity? Does he maintain the same Father, the Creator, as we? Does he know the same Son, Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, Who being ‘the Word, was made flesh,’ Who ‘bore our sins,’ Who by dying overcame death, Who first by Himself commenced ‘the Resurrection of the flesh,’ and shewed His disciples, that He had risen in the same flesh? Far other is the faith with Marcion, yea and with the other heretics.—How then can he who is baptized among them seem to have obtained remission of sins and the grace of the Divine pardon through his faith, who hath not the truth of the Faith itself? For if, as some think, one could receive any thing out of the Church according to his faith, he hath assuredly received that which he believed. But believing what is false, he could not receive the true, but rather things adulterous and profane, like his belief?” and later, (§. 16.) “What then is it other than to become partaker with blaspheming heretics, to undertake to maintain, that he can receive remission of sins in the Name of Christ, who blasphemes and sins heavily against the Father and Lord and God of Christ? What then, what sort of thing is, that he who ‘denieth the Son’ of God, ‘hath not the Father,’ and he who denieth the Father hath the Son, when the Son Himself solemnly pronounceth, ‘No one can come unto Me unless it were given him of the Father?’—Believest thou that Christ giveth remission to the impious and sacrilegious and blasphemous against His Father, and in Baptism remitteth sins to them, who are known, when baptized, to heap up the same blasphemies against the Person of the Father?—It is an execrable and detestable thing, which is by some asserted, that He Who threateneth that whoso blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost shall be guilty of an eternal sin, should be said to sanctify in saving Baptism blasphemers against God the Father;” and a little later, (§. 18.) “Wherefore we and heretics cannot have a common Baptism, since we have neither God the Father, nor the Son Christ, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the faith, nor the Church in common.” In like way in the Epistle to Pompeius, (Ep. 73. §. 7.) “Whereas then no heresy whatever, nor even any schism can know the sanctification of saving Baptism out of the Church, how is it that the harsh obduracy of our brother Stephen has burst forth so vehemently, as to affirm that even of the baptism of Marcion, of Valentinus again and Apelles and the other blasphemers against God the Father, sons of God are born, and that remission of sins is given them in the Name of Jesus Christ, when they blaspheme against the Father and the Lord God Christ?” [? “of Christ,” as before.]

Thus far S. Cyprian speaks quite according to the tenor of the Greek rule; and even the rejection of Novatian baptism seems rather an extension of the application of that rule, than the adoption of a new one. “Heresy,” according to S. Basil, was misbelief in the Blessed Trinity; according to S. Cyprian, it seems to have been rejection of any article of the Creed, and so obstinate rejection of the Church became heresy as well as schism. Thus the Council argues, (Ep. 69. ad Januar. &c. de Bapt. Hæret.) “But the very interrogatory in Baptism is a witness of the truth. For when we say, ‘Believest thou in everlasting life and remission of sins through the holy Church?’ we mean that remission of sins is not given except in the Church, but that among heretics, where there is no Church, sins cannot be forgiven. They then who affirm that heretics can baptize, let them either change the interrogatory, or maintain the truth, unless they ascribe also a Church to those, whom they contend to have a baptism;” and of Novatian himself, (Ep. 75. ad Magn. §. 6.) “But if any object that Novatian holds the same rule as the Catholic Church, baptizes with the same Creed as we, knoweth the same God the Father, the same Son Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and on that account may claim the power of baptizing, because in the interrogatory of Baptism he seemeth not to differ from us, whosoever objecteth this, let him know, in the first instance, that we and schismatics have not one rule of the Creed, nor the same interrogatory. For when they say, ‘Believest thou remission of sins and life eternal through the holy Church?’ they lie in the interrogatory, since they have not a Church. Then further by their own words, themselves confess that remission of sins cannot be given save through the holy Church; which not having, they shew that sins cannot be remitted among them.”

The origin of this modification of the Greek view (as it may be considered) is not known; we see it to be as old as Tertullian; S. Cyprian only states it to have been settled many years before him by a Council under Agrippinus; his date or the grounds upon which he went we know not. “This did Agrippinus, a man of excellent memory, with the rest of his co-Bishops, who at that time governed the Church of the Lord in the provinces of Africa and Numidia, set fast and establish by the well-weighed investigation of a common Council;” (Ep. 70. ad Quint. §. 4.) and again, (Ep. 72. ad Jub. §. 3.) “Among us it is no new or sudden thing, that we hold that they who from the heretics come to the Church, should be baptized, since it is now many years and a long period, since the Bishops assembling together with Agrippinus, a man of excellent memory, established this, and thenceforward to the present day have so many thousands of heretics in our provinces, being converted to the Church, not disdained or hesitated, yea rather have reasonably and readily embraced the reception of the grace of the life-giving Washing and saving Baptism.”

S. Cyprian does not, however, appeal to tradition; rather he is so fully persuaded that the African practice was that required by Holy Scripture, that he hesitates not to call that alleged by Stephen a “human tradition,” as, of course, any must be which really opposed Holy Scripture. And herein we may see again, how the question of schismatical baptism was in S. Cyprian’s mind incidental and subordinate to that of heretical; for the passages of Scripture, on which he maintains the rejection of the baptism, are those in which Scripture strongly rejects the heretics themselves, “If heretics are no otherwise named than as adversaries and antichrists, and are pronounced persons to be avoided, and perverse, and condemned of themselves, what manner of thing is this, that it is not to be thought good that they be condemned by us, of whom it is certain by the Apostolic witness, that they are condemned of themselves? So that no one ought to impute to the Apostles, as though they had approved of the baptism of heretics or received them to communion without the Baptism of the Church, when the Apostles wrote such things of heretics, and this, when the more grievous heretical plagues had not burst out; for not as yet had Marcion of Pontus raised his head from Pontus—who, more shamelessly and rudely than the rest, formed his blasphemies against God the Father, the Creator.—Since then it is certain that more and worse heresies arose afterwards, and since in times past, it was no where commanded that the heretics receive imposition of hands only to repentance, and since ‘Baptism’ is ‘one’ only, that with us, and within, and by the Divine mercy vouchsafed to the Church, what is that obduracy or that presumption of preferring a human tradition to the Divine ordinances?” (Ep. 73. ad Pomp. §. 2. 3.) and again, (ad Jubaian. §. 13.) “But if we consider what the Apostles thought of heretics, we shall find that in all their Epistles they execrated and abhorred the sacrilegious pravity of heretics. For when they say that ‘their word creepeth as doth a cancre,’ how can that ‘word’ give remission of sins, which ‘like a cancre’ creepeth to the ears of the hearers? And when they say that ‘righteousness hath no fellowship with unrighteousness, light no communion with darkness,’ how can either ‘darkness’ enlighten, or ‘unrighteousness’ justify? And when they say that they are ‘not of God,’ but are of the ‘spirit of Anti-Christ,’ how do they bear spiritual and Divine things, who are enemies of God, and whose breast the ‘spirit of Anti-Christ’ has possessed? Wherefore if, laying aside the errors of human contention, we go back with pure and holy faithfulness to the authority of the Gospel and tradition of the Apostles, we shall understand that they have no power as to the saving grace in the Church, who, scattering and opposing the Church of Christ, are by Christ Himself called ‘adversaries,’ by His Apostles, Anti-Christs.”

S. Cyprian then, declares the claim of Stephen for the Roman practice to be an Apostolic tradition to be erroneous; he speaks of it as “a practice which had crept in among certain,” (ad Pomp. §. 9.) as Firmilian adverts to other points in which the practice of Rome was no proof of genuine tradition, (§. 5.) S. Cyprian also seems to account for the absence of a tradition strictly Apostolic, in that the case itself would scarcely occur in Apostolic times. (Ep. 70. ad Quint. §. 2.) “And they say that in this they follow ancient practice when among the ancients heresy and schism were yet in their first beginnings, so that those involved therein were such as departed from the Church, and had been baptized in her, whom when they returned to the Church and performed penitence, there was then yet no need to baptize.” “This we also,” subjoins S. Cyprian, “observe to this day, so that for those, of whom it is known that they were baptized in the Church, and went over from us to the heretics, if afterward perceiving their sin—they return to the truth and to their original, imposition of hands to repentance sufficeth; so that, because it had been a sheep, the Shepherd may receive back this estranged and wandering sheep into His fold. But if he who cometh from the heretics, was not before baptized in the Church, but comes, being altogether an alien and profane, he is to be baptized that he may become a sheep, because there is one water in the holy Church, which maketh sheep.” This is the same principle as Dionysius states that he had received from Heraclas, and this may have been, as S. Cyprian seems to suggest, the origin of the Roman practice, that it continued to apply to all cases what was the practice in all cases, so long as heresy was in its infancy, and the only heretics were such as had “gone out” (1 John 2:19.) from the Church.

The principle of the Roman practice is contained in the few fragments of the Epistle of Stephen, Bp. of Rome, preserved in Firmilian and S. Cyprian; it is the same as that developed by S. Augustine, though its known date is much more modern than the Greek view, A. 256. It is, as before said, that the invocation of the Sacred Names with the use of water, constitutes valid Baptism, whatever may have been the mind of the officiating Priest; (a view at variance with their modern doctrine, that the “intention” of the Priest is essential to the efficacy of the Sacrament.) Firmilian says, (§. 8.) “That also is unreasonable that they hold that no enquiry is to be made who is the baptizer, because the baptized may obtain the grace, by the invocation of the Names of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” And this by virtue of that Invocation, (ib. §. 18.) “But, he saith, the Name of Christ availeth much to faith and the sanctification of Baptism, so that whosoever is wheresoever, baptized in the Name of Christ forthwith obtains the grace of Christ.” And S. Cyprian meets the same statement, “Or if they ascribe the effect of Baptism to the majesty of the Name, so that they who are wheresoever and howsoever baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, are judged to be renewed and sanctified,” (ad Pomp. §. 5.) And this is again probably the meaning of Stephen, in the saying quoted by Firmilian, (§. 11.) “Of what sort is that which Stephen will have to be, that to those who are baptized by heretics, there cometh the Presence and Holiness (sanctimoniam) of Christ?”

Two limitations of this view, which are afterwards found in S. Augustine, seem fairly to be supplied in this statement of Stephen. 1. That where he insists, that persons shall be received “from whatever heresy,” he meant that the greatness of the heresy did not alone preclude their reception, provided that the holy words had been used; so that there is no ground for thinking that he would have admitted baptism, not in the Name of the Trinity, from which he derived its validity. 2. That he did not hold that the baptism was sufficient without being received into the Church, but that birth was then given, yet in order that it might grow up into life, those so born must be brought up in the Church. On this Firmilian says, (§. 13.) “Unless indeed, as Stephen thinks, heresy gives birth and exposes her children, and when exposed the Church adopts, and nourishes as her own, those whom she bare not, seeing she cannot be the mother of alien children.”

The Roman view was established in the West by the Council of Arles, (A. 314.) Can. 8. “With regard to the Africans, who act on a rule of their own, in rebaptizing, it hath seemed good, that if any come to the Church out of heresy, he be asked the Creed, and if they see that he was baptized in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, let him receive imposition of hands, that he may receive the Holy Ghost; but if when interrogated, he answer not this Trinity, let him be baptized.”

To this Council it seems most probable that S. Augustine refers, in the many places, when he speaks of the question having been settled by a full Council of the whole Church; at least, the Council of Arles is the only Council which speaks directly upon it. If we supposed S. Augustine to refer to the Council of Nice, we must have concluded that he made the same inference as S. Jerome, that in that the Council (Can. 19.) only commanded the Paulianists to be rebaptized, the Fathers there meant that all other heretics might be admitted by laying on of hands only, which is contrary to the Greek practice, both before and after.

The Council of Carthage (A. 349.) enforced (against the Donatists) the decision of that of Arles; the adherence of that Church became the more fixed, through the misapplication made by the Donatists of S. Cyprian’s rule and authority: nor would she be tempted to violate the principles she had adopted, by the advantage taken by the Donatists, who represented that it was the safer side to receive their baptism, since the Church, by not rebaptizing, acknowledged its validity, whereas the Donatists, by rebaptizing, disallowed that of the Church. Adherence to her rule under this disadvantage would strengthen the Church’s stedfastness in it. The validity then of all Baptism, wherein the right “matter” and “words” had been used, became thenceforth the rule of the Latin Church, except that in the later times, the Roman Church has left it to her Bishops to dispense with her rule, when there seems to them “reasonable cause,” and virtually (among ourselves at least) has adopted conditional rebaptizing as her rule; the Scotch branch of our Church has formally sanctioned conditional Baptism, wherever the parties themselves entertain doubts of their schismatical baptism; and such is the growing practice in our own.

The Greek Church continued their rule, retaining the tradition both of the rule, and of the cases in which it had been enforced, without defining it in the same formal way as the Latin Church. The Council in Trullo (Quini-sextum) formally acknowledged as part of its code, not the Apostolic Canons only, but those of S. Basil, (Can. 2.) while in a subsequent Canon, (95) it speaks generally of “heretics whose Baptism is accounted valid,” i.e. according to the tradition of the Church, and of others “whose Baptism is not accounted valid,” but of these it mentions only some cases, (see ab. p. 289.) The same is observable in the lists given by Timotheus Presbyter, (A. 500.) afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople, who divides heretics into three classes, according as they were) baptized on returning to the Church, or ) received the Chrism only, or ) only anathematized their errors. Yet we cannot see for the most part on what principle they are so distributed, but Timotheus asserts it to be traditionary. “We then, considering all these things with the wise fathers, have been taught by them, that as the Catholic Church of old received, and as our practice is preserved in the patriarchates and metropolitan Churches, so we also ought to follow.” And this traditionary character of the rule is the more implied, in that heresies are enumerated, as falling under the different heads, which have for many centuries been extinct in the Church, and which would have been forgotten, had the Greek, like the Roman Church, proceeded on a precise well-defined line, and not rather on what had been done in former times.

The same classification is retained, and the same persons ranked in each class by Theodorus Studites, (A.D. 817.) who is less accurate however in details.

In later times, we find the Romanists complaining (Conc. Lat. iv. Can. 43.) that in times past “the Greeks presumed, with a rash boldness, even to re-baptize those who had been baptized by Latins, and some (as we have heard) still do not fear to do this.” This the Greeks did, in conformity with their old practice, regarding the Latins as heretical as to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, in that they added Filioque to the Nicene Creed.

Possibly, the difference of the Greek and Roman practice may be accounted for (as far as conjecture may be allowed in a point so obscure) by the more grievous character of the heresies, with which the Greek Church was harassed; so that the original rule may have been to reject heretical, accept schismatical Baptism, (as S. Basil states it to have been in the East,) and this having been acted upon with regard to heretics in the East, schismatics in the West, the one practice may have been extended to heretics by Stephen, as the other to schismatics by the Bishops in the time of Firmilian, when the validity of schismatic baptism was a novel question.

The practice now adopted by the Scotch Church and in our own, with regard to persons baptized by such as are not only in schism, but never received any commission to baptize, (a case to which there is no parallel in the early Church,) unites the advantages of the Latin and Greek practice; of the Latin, in that it avoids the risk of real re-baptizing, which the ancients regarded as a profanation of the Sacred Names; of the Greek, in that it does what it in us lies, to provide that none of the blessings and grace of Baptism be lost through our omission, and is an act of piety towards God, desiring that whatever may have hitherto been lacking, be supplied.

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