Liber de Unico Baptismo

We are very often compelled, brother Constantine, to reply to those who think differently and stray from the rule of truth, even concerning those matters which we have treated frequently in various discourses. This I consider to be usefully done, both on account of the slower wits of those who think something else is being said when they read something expressed differently, and for the sake of the abundance of disputations themselves, so that not only may a rare matter reach the diligent, but any one of many may fall into the hands even of the more negligent. Accordingly, the discourse on the one baptism composed by those by whom baptism is repeated—which you gave me, when we were together in the country, received from some Donatist presbyter or other, and which you earnestly begged me to answer—I see to be inflated only with a noise of words and roughened with slanderous accusations; and with the Lord's help, I refute it with whatever ease I can. The first cause for envy there is that a secret matter is aired in public. Therefore, let those who think this ought not to be done be silent; or if they say they are compelled to speak, so as to reply to those who think differently, this is also our cause, that we reply not only to those who think differently, but also to those who act differently. For what harms in secret ought to be openly refuted, because it is also openly defended when it is urged, so that it may harm in secret when it is accomplished. For who baptizes anyone before the profane? And yet no profane person is ignorant that Christians are baptized, who hears in public what, if he believes, he receives in secret.

Let us therefore see what they say about the repetition of baptism, who are ashamed to say openly what they would that they feared to admit openly. “Where,” he says, “the true baptism is sought,” and then he adds: “It is so much mine that what has been given by me alone cannot be repeated even by the sacrilegious themselves.” To this we reply: He is not sacrilegious who dares not to repeat the one baptism, not yours, but Christ’s. For the unique consecration of a person in baptism is Christ’s; the repetition of a unique baptism, however, is yours. I correct in you what is yours; I acknowledge what is Christ’s. For this is just: that when we reject the evils of men, we approve whatever good things of God we find in them. This, I say, is just: that even in a sacrilegious person I do not violate the true sacrament I find, lest in correcting the sacrilegious I myself commit sacrilege. For these men are as evil in a good baptism as the Jews are evil in a good law. Therefore, just as they will be judged by that very law, which their malice did not make evil, so also these will be judged by that very baptism, which the evil have held as good.

Therefore, just as when a Jew comes to us to become a Christian, we do not destroy in him the good things of God but his own evils — for we correct his error in not believing that Christ has already come, been born, suffered, and risen, and by destroying that unfaithfulness we build up the faith by which these things are believed; likewise, we dissuade him from his error of clinging to the shadows of the old sacraments, and we demonstrate that the time has already come when these were to be removed and changed, as the prophets foretold; but that he believes in worshiping one God who made heaven and earth, that he detests all idols and sacrileges of the Gentiles, that he awaits a future judgment, that he hopes for eternal life, that he does not doubt the resurrection of the flesh — we praise, approve, acknowledge, and confirm as he believed them to be believed, as he held them to be held — so also when a schismatic or heretic comes to us to become a Catholic, we cut away his schism and heresy by dissuading and destroying them, but the Christian sacraments, if we find them the same in him, and whatever else true he holds, far be it from us to violate them, far be it from us to repeat them if we know they were once given, lest while we cure human faults, we condemn divine remedies, or by seeking to heal what is not wounded, we wound a man and injure him where he is sound.

Therefore, if I find a heretic who disagrees with me on some matter pertaining to the Christian and Catholic faith, or even on the unity of the Trinity itself, and yet has been baptized according to the evangelical and ecclesiastical rule, I correct the man's understanding, but I do not violate God's sacrament. I speak of Jews and schismatics or heretics who err under the name of Christ in some way. As for the Gentiles themselves and the worshippers of idols, who differ from us by a great diversity in many respects, the apostle shows us nothing else but that in them as well we should correct whatever is crooked, so that we may approve whatever is right. For he certainly rebuked the idolaters—and what is more serious, not only the worshippers but even the institutors of the idols themselves—where he says: "Those who knew God did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. Saying they were wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the corruptible image of man, and of birds, and of four-footed animals, and of serpents." We know, indeed, that such were the idols of the Egyptians, where a more manifold and much more shameful idolatry is said to have been instituted. Yet did he deny that the knowledge of God existed in them, and did he not rather confirm it by saying: "Those who knew God did not glorify him as God"?

If, therefore, he were to try to refute and destroy this knowledge as a lie, because he had found it among sacrilegious persons, would he not, heaven forbid, become an enemy of the truth? For that reason, what they changed into their own lie—for here too he said: they changed the glory of God into the likeness of a corruptible human image, thus fashioning a god such as God is not, and not handing on to men what they knew of him, and a little later he says of such persons: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever; for the truth of the creature is from God, it is not God, which they turned into a lie, worshipping as gods the sun and moon and whatever celestial and terrestrial things—: therefore, what they changed into their own lie, he blames, detests, and overturns; but what they preserved as true in their teaching, although mixed and confused with many falsehoods, he approves, attests, and affirms. For here too he began the same passage by saying: for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and injustice of those men who hold the truth in iniquity, not denying the truth although in in-

held captive by iniquity, and in the Acts of the Apostles, when he was teaching the Athenians about the one true God, that in Him we live, move, and have our being, he immediately added: "as some of your own have said." Therefore, that we live, move, and have our being in God is from that truth, which even those impious worshippers of idols hold captive in iniquity, who, knowing God, did not glorify Him as God. Yet this truth, as we see, when found among the impious and sacrilegious, the apostle does not destroy but confirms, and uses its testimony to teach those who were ignorant of it. A follower of this apostolic rule, Bishop Cyprian, when disputing about the one true God against the worshippers of many false gods, brings forth many testimonies from their books, which they hold as illustrious authorities—that is, from that truth which they hold captive in iniquity. But what the apostle did is far more remarkable: going around their temples, he found an altar among the altars of demons, on which was inscribed: "To the Unknown God," and he did not destroy this by denying and refuting it, but rather, by confirming it, he found from it a most opportune beginning for his own disputation, saying: "Whom you worship in ignorance, this one I proclaim to you.

Therefore, following this apostolic rule handed down to us through our forebears, if we find anything right even in perverse persons, we do not violate that which is right once their perversity has been corrected, so that in one man, from those truths he holds, even falsehoods may be amended, and not that, when falsehoods are refuted, truths also be destroyed. In the times of the apostles, those who said, "I am of Paul," "I am of Apollo," "I am of Cephas," though they used the names not of impious but of holy men, were nonetheless making impious schisms; this was their own detestable vice. But that they knew Christ was crucified for them and that they were baptized in His name was not part of their error, but of the divine gift among them; they held this truth of God captive within the iniquity of their schisms. Seizing upon this, the most blessed Paul did not, by destroying those vices, also destroy this truth, but, by confirming this truth, he proved that those vices needed correction—"Was Paul crucified for you," he says, "or were you baptized in the name of Paul?"—so that through the true thing of God which they held, they would blush at their own false thing which they were doing.

Just as it is said to a Jew: 'Hold to the faith in the resurrection of the dead as you held it, but now believe that Christ has risen from the dead, which you did not believe; for you hold the truth of God concerning the dead who will rise in your iniquity, by which you do not believe that Christ has risen'; just as it is said to a worshiper of idols: 'Hold that the world was created by the one true God, which you held, but do not believe that gods are wood and stones and any particles of the world itself which you worshiped; for you hold the truth of God, by which you believe the world was created by him, in your iniquity, by which you wish to be a worshiper of false gods': so also it is said to a heretic, who has altered none of the Christian sacraments as they are handed down in the Catholic Church by his own falsehood: 'Hold the Christian baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit as you held it, but acknowledge the Church of Christ growing throughout the whole world as was prophesied, which you were cursing with a sacrilegious voice; for you hold the truth of God concerning the unity of baptism in the iniquity of your division. Correct the iniquity of heretical fabrication, lest it destroy you, and do not be proud of the truth of the Christian sacrament, which is there in order to judge you.

But far be it from me to so detest your iniquity that I deny the truth of Christ which I find in you to your condemnation; far be it from me to so correct you that I destroy that by which I correct you, unless perhaps I ought to destroy the bronze that I find in the soul of heretics, when the apostle did not destroy the true thing that he found in the stone of pagans. There is more one God than one baptism—for baptism is not God, but it is something great because it is a sacrament of God—and yet that one God was worshipped even outside the Church by those who did not know him. So too, then, one baptism is given even outside the Church by those who do not know. Whoever says it could not happen that the one true God was worshipped by those who did not know him outside the Church, let him see not what he can answer to me, but what he can answer to the apostle himself, who says: "Him whom you worship without knowing, I proclaim to you." Therefore, just as it did them no good for salvation, those who worshipped the true God without knowing him—indeed, it even harmed them to their ruin, because by worshipping false gods at the same time they were doing sacrilegious injury to that same true God—so too it does heretics no good for salvation that outside the Church they both confer and hold true baptism through ignorance; indeed, it even harms them to their condemnation, because in the sacrilegious iniquity of human error they detain the truth of the divine sacrament, not by which they are cleansed, but by which they are judged more severely.

and just as the apostle, when he was correcting those sacrilegious men, nevertheless acknowledged rather than denied the true God, who was worshipped outside the church by them in their ignorance, so too we, when we correct the errors of heretics in their sacrilegious separation, ought certainly to acknowledge, not deny, the true baptism which they administer in ignorance outside the church. But they say: Paul, when he came to Ephesus, ordered certain men who claimed to be baptized with John's baptism to be baptized in Christ. Whoever thinks by this example that schismatics and heretics should be baptized, let him dare to say, if he can, that John was a heretic or a schismatic. If it is impious to say this, then surely what was lacking was given to those men, not what was present disapproved, whether they lied about having John's baptism, as some think, or because John's baptism was not the baptism of Christ, but nevertheless served Christ, as the old sacraments of the law performed a certain forerunning and prefiguring office. But if, they say, after John, the friend of the bridegroom, baptism was performed, how much more should baptism be performed after a heretic! Another, moved by a similar and seemingly just indignation, might say: if after John, who drank no wine at all, baptism was performed, how much more justly should baptism be performed after a drunkard! So let them do this, if they can; let them baptize after their drunkards, if the apostles baptized after the sober John.

What do they answer to this, except that they do not baptize after these men for this reason, that those who were baptized by them received not their baptism, but the baptism of Christ? Let them therefore believe that baptism was performed after John for this reason, because they either had no baptism at all or did not yet have the baptism of Christ. Now this very point was also raised by the one to whom we are responding, and he did not solve the objection he raised. For he says: "Perhaps someone says: but those whom Paul rebaptized were washed by the baptism of John, not by the baptism of Jesus Christ. Hence I say that those who are known to have been baptized by traditors, yet in the name of Christ, ought not to be rebaptized." When he had set this before himself, observe how vainly he attempted to respond: "To this," he says, "the Lord Christ replied with these words: 'He who does not gather with me scatters,' and again: 'Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. For many will say to me on that day: Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name? And then I will say to them: I do not know you; depart from me, workers of iniquity.' Therefore it is not doubtful that they have lost their false work, who, even if they worked in the name of Jesus Christ, nevertheless dared to act as sacrilegious men.

Whether they will or not, therefore, the traitors offend Christ more with their sacrilegious sacraments; and if they even dare to say, "We have prophesied in your name," He will say to them as to the others, "Depart from me, workers of iniquity; I do not know you." He will rightly say this to them, since indeed in the unworthy the causes are not dissimilar: to baptize, to cast out demons, and to perform other marvelous works. See how much he said and what he proposed from the opposing side, which he was utterly unable to solve; and not only did he not solve it, but he even reminded us of what we ought to say against them. For these evangelical testimonies not only do not help him at all, but they greatly support our cause. The discussion concerned the baptism of John, by whom some were baptized; if the apostle baptized them, he certainly did not give the baptism of John again to those who already had it, but he commanded those who did not have the baptism of Christ to be baptized in Christ; and through this he destroyed neither, but distinguished both. This also the one against whom we are disputing saw, that when he had objected to himself as if from the opposing side, that even those whom they call traitors baptize and are baptized with the baptism of Christ, not of John, and therefore after them baptism ought neither to be rescinded nor repeated, he said that Christ answered this question when He said, "He who does not gather with me scatters," as if Christ had said, "In those who do not gather with me, even what is true and what is mine, if found, is to be denied, blown away, destroyed.

He also says that to some who say, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?" He will answer, "I do not know you; depart from me, you who work iniquity." Did He say here too, 'Because of your iniquity I will also deny my truth held captive in your iniquity'? For He is not going to receive into His kingdom all in whom He finds some truth, but those in whom He finds a charity congruent with the truth, which if it is lacking, there will be iniquity. In that iniquity, however, the truth held captive is not to be denied, but the iniquity itself is to be condemned without destroying the truth. Hence the apostle also says: "And if I know all the sacraments and all knowledge, and if I have all prophecy and all faith so that I move mountains, but I do not have charity, I am nothing." He said he is nothing if he does not have charity, not the sacraments and knowledge and prophecy and faith. For those are great, even if he who has them without charity and holds their truth in his iniquity is nothing. This we also say to these heretics: "We do not destroy the truth of baptism, which you hold captive in your iniquity, but when we correct you we destroy and overturn that [iniquity], while we acknowledge and hold this [truth]." Therefore, the many Gospel testimonies do not help him at all.

Now observe how strongly they also support our position. Consider his very words: "It is not doubtful," he says, "that a false work has been lost, since, even though they dared to work in the name of Jesus Christ, they were sacrilegious." This is entirely true, because those who, being sacrilegious, dared to work in the name of Jesus Christ have lost their own false work. But does it therefore follow that the name itself of Jesus Christ is sacrilegious, even when sacrilegious persons work something through it? Who would dare to say this, even the most insane person? Who, even at this time, would dare to affirm it, even a pagan? Hence, although Jesus Christ himself most truly said, "He who does not gather with me scatters," yet when his disciples told him that they had found someone who was casting out demons in his name and had forbidden him because he was not following the Lord with them, he responded to this: "Do not forbid him; for no one who works miracles in my name can speak ill of me." In this case, his own iniquity was that he did not gather with the Lord nor follow the shepherd with the disciples in the unity of his flock; in that iniquity of his, he held onto an alien truth, because he cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ and did not speak ill of him. Therefore, the Lord condemns that man's iniquity in those words where he says, "He who does not gather with me scatters," yet he does not deny or disapprove of his own truth in that man when he says, "Do not forbid him; for no one who works miracles in my name can speak ill of me.

Following this example of the Lord, we too, to the best of our ability, cannot deny the truth of baptism and whatever else heretics hold that is true; we do not dare to disapprove and destroy it, but we rightly detest their iniquity, by which they do not gather with Christ but scatter, and we condemn, or as far as we are permitted, correct, the inviolate truth that is in them. Let him therefore perceive by what error he said what he next added: "Willing or unwilling, therefore, traitors with sacrilegious sacraments offend Christ more." For it is one kind of rashness, but somehow tolerable, that he calls men traitors whom he does not prove to be such; but who can bear that he calls the sacraments of Christ sacrilegious, even if, as he falsely charges, they were held by traitors, when they are celebrated in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit with evangelical rite? Here perhaps he will say that it is no longer a sacrament of Christ, which is given by sacrilegious men. Why then does he not say that the name of Christ is also not present, which is spoken by sacrilegious men? He did not at all dare to say that. For he says: "It is not doubtful that a false work has been lost, since, even though they dared to work in the name of Jesus Christ, they were sacrilegious." "Even though," he says, "in the name of Jesus Christ." Did he say that it is not the name of Jesus Christ? Therefore, just as it profits sacrilegious men nothing that they work in the name of Jesus Christ, so it profits heretics nothing that they baptize or are baptized in the baptism of Jesus Christ.

but just as that name is of Jesus Christ, so too this baptism is of Jesus Christ, and both are to be acknowledged and approved, not denied and destroyed, lest injury be done to such great gifts of God when the life of sacrilegious persons who misuse these same goods is corrected. That man says that the Lord will say to the sacrilegious: "Depart from me, you who work iniquity, who baptize outside the church or cast out demons or perform any miracles in the name of Jesus Christ"; but we say—indeed, the truth itself says—that the Lord will say this to all, even to those who, within the nets of unity itself, swim as bad fish among the good until the shore. For what else will be said to them, when the good are gathered into the vessels and those bad ones are separated and cast out, except: "Depart from me, you who work iniquity"? Yet we do not destroy the sacraments of Christ in them, when we acknowledge either such persons baptizing or such persons baptized within the same nets of unity. I do not think even they themselves are so shameless as to dare to say that the Lord will not say to so many evil and criminal persons who are in their own faction, lost and polluted by manifest disgrace and crimes—that is, to the greedy and plunderers, or to the savage usurers, or to the bloodthirsty Circumcellions—"Depart from me, you who work iniquity"; and yet they know, see, and maintain that many such persons baptize, and many are baptized by such persons, and they do not violate the sacrament of Christ in them, even those who disapprove of those persons' crimes.

Not only, therefore, did he say nothing against us when he brought forward these evangelical testimonies, but he even reminded us of what we should say against them. Hence, what follows and what he exultantly says: "I have briefly solved the question," he truly solved it, but on our behalf, since by saying that in the unworthy the causes of baptizing, of casting out demons, and of performing the other dissimilar virtues are not dissimilar, to those saying, 'In your name we have done these things,' he will say: 'I do not know you; depart from me, workers of iniquity,' he revealed that it is as true that those who are separated from the Church baptize with the baptism of Jesus Christ as it is true that they cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ, but that they bring neither to eternal life nor deliver from eternal punishments. And through this, just as if someone came to the Church from among those from whom that man, whom the disciples saw separated from the flock of Jesus Christ casting out demons in the name of Jesus Christ, had cast out demons, the power that had been worked in him would by no means be denied, but what was lacking would be added to him, so whoever outside the Church has been consecrated by heretics or schismatics, yet with the baptism of Christ, when he comes to the Church, the sacrament of truth with which he has been imbued is not to be denied, but the piety of unity from which he was separated is to be added, and without which that sacrament could be present in him but could not benefit him.

We do this, we have received this handed down from our ancestors, we preserve this in the Catholic Church, which is spread throughout the whole world, against all the mists of falsehood. What more, therefore, is to be argued by us on this point, when he himself briefly resolves the question by recalling the evangelical testimonies, by which, assuredly, if he were unwilling to be contentious, he would both condemn his own error and recognize the truth of baptism? What need, then, is there to unravel all his words, by which he seems to himself to speak cleverly and, with much loquacity, to turn about the idea that true baptism is with him because it is also acknowledged, not denied, by us? For whoever holds firmly and unshakably what the most true and inviolable rule of truth demonstrates—that in each person what is false and faulty is to be disapproved or corrected, but what is true and right is to be acknowledged and accepted—sees at the same time both what we detest in the heresy of the Donatists and what we must by no means violate. For while they retain the truth of baptism in the iniquity of their separation, their iniquity is blamed by us, but the truth of baptism is everywhere acknowledged and approved.

For he who says that the baptism of Christ is to be destroyed when heretics baptize with it, it follows that he must also say that Christ Himself is to be denied when demons confess Him. Hence Peter was praised when he said: "You are Christ, the Son of the living God," and demons were cast out when they said the same thing: "We know who you are, the Son of God." Therefore this confession is fruitful for Peter, pernicious for the demons, yet in both it is not false but true, not to be denied but acknowledged, not to be detested but approved. So too the truth of baptism is given by right Catholics as that confession was given by Peter, and is given by perverse heretics as that same confession was given by demons; it helps the former, condemns the latter, yet in both it is to be approved by being acknowledged, and in neither is it to be violated by being denied. Hence the Apostle James, when rebuking certain people who said that true faith sufficed for a man and that he did not need to join works of charity to it, convicted them by this comparison with demons, lest they think they belonged to God because they believed what is true about God, even if they did not care to add good works to their faith. "You believe," he says, "that there is one God? You do well; and demons believe and tremble." Therefore he compared those who believe what is true about God and live wickedly to demons, yet he did not destroy that very truth which demons believe about God by denying it out of hatred for demons.

Therefore, since this very opponent against whom we are disputing has proposed that the apostle says: one God, one faith, one baptism, behold we find the same God worshipped outside the Church by the ignorant, behold we find the same faith in one God confessed outside the Church not only by certain men but even by demons, yet both are confirmed rather than denied by the apostles. Why do we not similarly confirm rather than deny the one baptism which we find in those placed outside the Church, so that we do not, from what is crooked in them, also corrupt what is right, but rather, from what they hold rightly, we correct even that in which they have been corrupted? What then is it that he says: there is true baptism where there is true faith? It is entirely possible that some have true baptism and do not have true faith, just as it is possible that they have the true Gospel while, by understanding it incorrectly, they believe something false about God. Surely we would not, on account of the falsity of that faith, think that the Gospel, which is found true among them, is to be detested or corrected? Nor do I think that those Corinthians, whom he reproaches for having broken apart into schisms, had true faith in what they said: "I am of Paul"; for that was false. Yet they had true baptism, from the truth of which, in order that they might correct that falsity, they hear from him himself: "Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

There were also among them those who did not believe that the dead rise again, and in that respect they certainly did not hold and possess a true faith. Yet from that which they did hold as true, because they believed that Christ had risen—in whom they had been baptized—the apostle takes pains to heal even that in which their faith was not sound, saying: if the dead do not rise, neither did Christ rise, so that, since they had believed that Christ rose and this was sound in them, that other matter might also be healed, namely that they did not believe, with the most pernicious error, that the dead rise. For this reason, since in the canonical holy scriptures neither do they find heretics coming to the Catholic Church rebaptized, nor do we find that they were received in the same baptism which they had received in heresy, in this matter alone our case is equal, because neither what they do—that they rebaptize heretics or those whom they consider heretics—nor what we do—that we accept the baptism of Christ even when given among heretics—is confirmed by any explicit example from apostolic times.

But we, finding the apostles among any who are erring or of any sacrilegious impiety, if they have recognized something true, have rather confirmed it than denied it, and have corrected or condemned the error and impiety of men, while preserving what is found true in them, follow this rule also in the truth of baptism, so that, wherever we find it retained and preserved just as it is retained and preserved in the Catholic Church, we neither deny nor destroy it, but, with it remaining, whatever is defective, perverse, or false in each one, we take care to correct, amend, or, if we cannot, we avoid it, having detested and condemned it. Therefore, when we receive them, we do not receive their iniquity, by which they have separated themselves from the Church of Christ through a sacrilegious division, by which they attack the Christian world, to which God bears so many testimonies through the law, through the prophets, through the Gospel, through the Psalms, through the apostles, with slanderous and abusive accusations, nor do we receive that very error by which they refuse to acknowledge the baptism of Christ, even among heretics, preserved by ecclesiastical rule, dare to destroy it, and do not hesitate to repeat it; indeed, not only laymen, but also clerics, and not just any clerics, but even presbyters and bishops, even if they were baptized in those churches which the apostles themselves founded by their own labor, if they have been able in any way to transfer them, seduced, to themselves, they make them catechumens.

We by no means accept these detestable evils of theirs, since they cannot pass over to us unless they are corrected. Nor do we pass over without distinction that those who, already faithful, have deserted the Catholic Church should perform a more humble penance than those who have never been in it, and they are not to be admitted to the clergy, whether they have been rebaptized by heretics or, having been previously received, have returned to them, or whether they were clerics or laity among them. And those of our people who act negligently in these matters and perhaps make them clerics in the Catholic Church or allow them to be so, although they are justly censured by more diligent persons by fraternal right, yet even they themselves do not think that the clerical office should be conferred except on those whom they either know to have been corrected from those evils or believe to be so. And through this, those who separate themselves from the unity of the Catholic Church by a nefarious crime calumniate it in vain. For, to use the words of the apostle more fully, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and injustice of men who detain the truth in iniquity. This wrath, if they do not correct themselves, will also find those who detain the truth of Christian baptism in the iniquity of their own sacrilegious separation.

The Catholic Church, however, which, as was foretold of her, spreads with abundant fertility among all peoples, corrects no one's iniquity in such a way that she destroys in him not her own truth, but that of her Lord. What then does this man cry out, as if with license and confidence: "I have baptized securely, whom you, a sacrilegious man, have polluted; I have baptized, I say; I have done what the apostle Paul did"? Let him read where the apostle Paul did this. If he wishes this to be understood of those at Ephesus, let him then dare to say that John polluted them sacrilegiously. If he does not dare to say this, because it is an utterly manifest impiety, let him finally cease to stir up clouds of false likeness from a matter that is very dissimilar. As for what he adds about the Carthaginian bishop Agrippinus, about the illustrious martyr Cyprian, about the seventy predecessors of Cyprian, because they did this and commanded it to be done—oh, how detestable is the error of men who think they are laudably imitating certain not-rightly-done deeds of famous men, from whose virtues they are alien! For in this way some also wish to compare themselves to the apostle Peter, if they have denied Christ; if, moreover, they have compelled Gentiles to Judaize, they claim to be called his kin.

These things in that great man were reprehensible, but such was the eminence of apostolic grace that they were immediately erased, and no Christian or even bishop of our times—who has neither denied Christ nor compelled Gentiles to Judaize—can be set before him, I do not say, nor even be compared to him from close at hand. So also in the most glorious martyr Cyprian: if he was unwilling to acknowledge the baptism of Christ given among heretics or schismatics, detesting them excessively as he did, grieving that they were separated from the Catholic unity which he greatly loved, such great merits of his, culminating in the triumph of martyrdom, followed that the light of that charity in which he excelled drove away that shadow, and the fruitful branch, to become more fruitful, had whatever needed purging—if nothing else—certainly removed by the final sickle of his passion. Nor are we, because we acknowledge the truth of baptism even in the iniquity of heretics rather than deny it, therefore better than Cyprian, just as we are not better than Peter because we do not compel Gentiles to Judaize. This I have answered concerning Agrippinus and the other bishops who are reported to have held those councils, who thought so differently that they remained in unity with those against whom they held an opinion on this question, where charity covers a multitude of sins. For thus, for those walking in the truth of the Church, into which they had arrived, God was able, as the Apostle says, to reveal to them also that which they thought otherwise.

A new question then arose, how heretics were to be received, which disturbed some brothers, who vehemently and deservedly detested heretical perniciousness, by its very novelty, so that they believed that even this was to be disapproved in them, that they held the good by their own evil. But I, to say briefly what I think about this matter: to rebaptize heretics, which they are said to have done, was then a human error; but to rebaptize Catholics, which these still do, is always a diabolical presumption. But I wish this man would solve a question for me, since, when he recounted the bishops of the Roman church in order, he also recounted Stephen among them, whom he confessed to have exercised an unblemished episcopate. Since Stephen not only did not rebaptize heretics, but also judged that those doing this or decreeing that it be done should be excommunicated, as the letters of other bishops and of Cyprian himself show, yet Cyprian remained with him in the peace of unity. What will they say about this? Let them exert their wits as much as they can, and consider whether they are able to answer.

Behold, there were two men at the same time—to say nothing of others—who held different opinions: two bishops of the most eminent churches, namely those of Rome and Carthage, Stephen and Cyprian, both established in Catholic unity. Stephen judged that the baptism of Christ was in no way to be repeated and was gravely indignant toward those who did so; Cyprian, however, thought that those baptized in heresy or schism, as if not possessing the baptism of Christ, were to be baptized in the Catholic Church. Many agreed with him, and some with Stephen as well, both parties remaining in unity with them. If, therefore, it is true what these men say, and from which they attempt to assert or excuse the cause of their separation—that in one communion of sacraments the wicked defile the good, and that one must withdraw by physical separation from the contagion of the wicked lest all perish alike—then it must be confessed that already in the times of Stephen and Cyprian the Church perished, and that none was left for posterity, where Donatus himself might be spiritually born.

If they judge it impious to say so—because it truly is impious—if the Church remained from those times up to the times of Caecilian and Majorinus without Donatus, and those who, according to them, were admitted into it without baptism, full of all their sins and crimes, could not defile and destroy it, and no division was made by Cyprian and those who thought alike about baptism from their communion, because they did not believe they could be defiled by the evils of others in the unity and communion of Christ’s sacraments, then likewise the Church could continue thereafter, growing throughout the whole world as was foretold of it, and in no way could the alien crimes of any traditors or criminals defile it, just as in a single threshing-floor the grains cannot be defiled by the chaff until the time of winnowing, and just as within a single net until the time of the shore, bad fish do not destroy good fish while swimming together.

There was therefore no reason, but the greatest madness, by which these men, as if avoiding communion with the wicked, separated themselves from the unity of Christ, which is spread throughout the whole world. Unless perhaps they distinguish crimes from crimes by some marvelous art, bringing forth rules of distinction not from the Scriptures but from their own hearts, and saying that in the unity of communion of the sacraments, other alien crimes are tolerated without contamination, but that by the crime of *traditio* all who have communicated the sacraments with such men are held. But to argue about this at greater length is superfluous, especially because they very rarely dare to say this, themselves blushing and feeling that they speak vainly, and when they say these things, they do not attempt to support them with any divine testimony. For they more often have on their lips, when they accuse others of the sins of others, to excuse the wickedness of their own separation: "You saw a thief and you ran with him," and "Do not communicate with the sins of others," and "Withdraw, go out from there, and do not touch the unclean," and "He who touches a polluted thing is polluted," and "A little leaven corrupts the whole lump," and other things of this sort, by which the crime of *traditio* is not distinguished from other crimes by any special property, but all association with sin is forbidden. Yet if Cyprian understood these divine testimonies or precepts in the way that these men do, he would surely have separated himself from Stephen and would not have persisted with him in the communion of Catholic unity.

For that man, according to the opinion which these men think should be held concerning baptism, by admitting into the church heretics and schismatics who, as they suppose, do not possess baptism, was communicating with the sins of others, because, evidently, the sins of those who had not been washed by true baptism remained in them. Therefore Cyprian ought to have withdrawn from communion with him, lest he run with the thief, lest he communicate with the sins of others, lest he be polluted by the contagion of the unclean, lest he become defiled by touching the defiled, lest he be corrupted by the leaven of others. Since, therefore, he did not do this, but remained with them in unity, the whole mass of that unity was then corrupted, and the church which afterwards would produce these saints of Maiorinus and Donatus did not endure. Because they dare by no means to say this, it remains that they admit that the good have remained with the bad in the communion of Christian sacraments without any stain upon themselves, and that the church of Christ endured up to the time of Caecilian not as already stored away without any evil men, as in a granary, but as still established with the chaff mixed in, as on a threshing floor. Thus, therefore, it could continue afterwards, just as it does continue, until on the last day of judgment it is winnowed and cleansed.

What then is the meaning of such great madness in the separation of these men from the unity of the body of Christ, which, as is read in prophecy and is already seen to be fulfilled, is spread throughout the whole world and among all nations? Here indeed, as it is written, the bad son calls himself just, but does not wash away his own departure—that is, he does not excuse, does not cleanse, does not defend the fact that in schismatic fury he did not fear to go out from the house of God into heretical pestilence—because, if he were truly just, like the apostle Paul with the false brethren over whom he groans in his epistles, and like Cyprian with those whom he considered full of their past sins without baptism and knew were being admitted to the church by Stephen, he would persist in the church of Christ with those whom he either knew or thought to be unjust, without any defilement of himself, and would not abandon the good on account of the bad, but would rather tolerate the bad for the sake of the good, like grain bearing the threshing with chaff under the weight of charity, not like the lightest dust yielding to the winds even before the winnowing. For in that way, even with the wicked whom these nets must necessarily contain all the way to the shore, persisting in catholic unity, he would not nevertheless run with the thief nor share in the sins of others nor be stained by touching anyone's filth nor be polluted by touching the polluted nor be corrupted by anyone's leaven.

These things happen, you see, by the consent of sins, through which the serpent deceived the first man through the woman even in the happiness of paradise, not by the communion of sacraments, in which Judas could not defile his clean fellow disciples, though he himself was unclean. But from the wicked, with whom they share the sacraments of God, even now on the threshing-floor, not yet in the granary, the good nevertheless depart and separate by a dissimilarity of morals, not by a segregation of bodies, by living differently, not by coming to other conventicles. Thus they neither become one with the wicked nor depart from the unity of the Church. Why, then, do they exaggerate for us the crime of certain traditors, whom, however, they themselves have never been able to convict? But if we defend them against the slanders of these men, we will seem to be pleading the cause of certain men, not of the Church. Absolutely, whoever and wherever traditors were, and not only the sin of the traditors, but even of those who compelled them to hand over, and of all utterly criminal, shameful, sacrilegious men—Stephen, according to them, admitted them into the Church, because, if they did not have baptism, all the sins, however grave and horrible they had committed, were in them and held them guilty without any remission. Stephen admitted such men, Cyprian was in unity with such men in the Catholic Church, and yet he did not perish, but the Church endured.

Therefore, the sins of others do not stain anyone in its unity. The bad son rushed out of his father's household in vain; he declares himself just in vain, but his departure does not wash him clean. Or perhaps they will say that those whom Stephen admitted in this way were cleansed by participation in the unity itself, because charity covers a multitude of sins? If only they would say that! For we also say this when we urge or advise them to return to unity. But on this basis, there will no longer be any question of baptism between us. For if those baptized among heretics or schismatics are cleansed by the charity of the unity itself when they come to the Church, then certainly they are not rebaptized without cause. So you see in this sermon, to which you wanted me to respond, how many things he said on our behalf. What need is there now for us to refute the crimes alleged by him against the bishops of the Roman Church, whom he attacked with incredible slanders? Marcellinus and his presbyters Miltiades, Marcellus, and Silvester are accused by him of the crime of handing over divine books and of offering incense. But does that also prove them guilty, or are they shown to be convicted by any firmness of evidence? He says they were criminal and sacrilegious; I reply that they were innocent. Why should I labor to prove my defense, when he has not even made a slight attempt to prove his accusation?

If there is any humanity in human affairs, I think we can be more justly reproached if we believe unknown men, whom enemies accuse and whose crime they demonstrate by no testimony, to be guilty rather than innocent, because, if perhaps the truth is otherwise, what is owed to humanity itself is certainly rendered when a man does not rashly suspect anything evil of another man, nor easily believe anyone who accuses, when, bringing a charge without a witness and without any evidence, he has shown himself to be a slanderous reviler rather than a truthful accuser. To this is added the fact that under Miltiades, then presiding as bishop of the Roman church, by the command of the Emperor Constantine, to whom the accusers of Caecilianus, bishop of the church of Carthage, had referred that entire case through the proconsul Anullinus, the same Caecilianus was declared innocent. Concerning that judgment, when the elders of these men, with the most importunate obstinacy, complained to the aforementioned emperor that it had not been fully nor rightly examined and decided, they said nothing about the betrayal or the incense-offering of Miltiades, to whose hearing they certainly ought not to have come; rather, they suggested to the emperor beforehand, or insisted that it be suggested, that they ought not to plead their case before a betrayer of the divine books and one polluted by sacrifices to idols.

Since, therefore, they neither suggested this before, nor, after judgment was given against them in favor of Caecilian, did they, even when defeated and angry, think it should be brought up, why do they now, so belatedly, weave together empty calumnies, as if the innocence of Caecilian were to be darkened by the discoloration of the judge Miltiades, and the Roman church itself, where they could neither condemn anyone by their own judgment, such as it was, nor substitute anyone of their own in place of the condemned, against which they, with very few Africans of their party, first sent stealthy and far-off interlopers, whom this man was not ashamed to name explicitly, until they ordained them as quasi-proper bishops for the deceived little congregations? Did they not accuse Felix of Aptunga, the bishop, after Caecilian’s purgation before the emperor, on the grounds that he himself was a most manifest traditor and that therefore Caecilian could not be a bishop, because he had been ordained by that traditor? At that time Constantine did not deny a hearing even to this accusation of theirs, although he had experienced them as slanderers in the false charges against Caecilian, and therefore he ordered that Felix’s case be examined. It was examined in Africa by the proconsul Aelian; Felix also was declared innocent. The proconsular records exist; whoever wishes may take and read them.

This, however, pertains not only to the height of demonstrating the innocence of Caecilian and the most evident purgation of Felix himself and the declaration of the calumnies of those who had called him the source of all evils in their council, but also to the consideration of the most pure life of Miltiades, free from their accusations. For unless someone is so foolish as to believe that they, who did not spare Felix, by whom Caecilian had been ordained, could have spared Miltiades, by whom he had been absolved, if the life of that bishop, even if no wound of conscience had destroyed it, had at least been stained by any kind of reputation. Or was it that what had been fabricated about the forum of Aptugni was to be accused by them, and what had been done in the Capitol of the Romans was to be kept silent? But what am I to answer concerning Mensurius, since in his time, up to the day of his death, the people of the unity were not divided, and the very letters of Secundus of Tigisis, by which he is asserted to have been reproved, confirm that they wrote to each other peaceably and remained in the fellowship of the college? And now, as for what he also wished to say about the church of Cirta and has attacked the Catholic bishops there with the curses he wished, what else has he done but, by reviling holy men even of our own times and well known to us, sufficiently show what we ought to think also about the unknown, whom he similarly curses?

Therefore, if Profuturus, who died only a very few years ago, and Fortunatus, who is still alive and succeeded him as bishop, were Manichaeans, then those men were also traditors, whom they never cease to accuse, though they are most unknown and far removed from our times, and whose life, now that it is pure from the disgraces of these men, is most well known to us. It is certainly no small and inglorious consolation for any of us, if we are accused along with the Church herself by the enemies of the Church; nevertheless, her defense does not consist in the defense of those men whom these people attack by name with false accusations. Absolutely, whatever Marcellinus, Marcellus, Silvester, Miltiades, Mensurius, Caecilian, and others may have been, to whom they impute whatever they wish because of their own dissension, they in no way prejudice the Catholic Church spread throughout the whole world; in no way are we crowned by their innocence, in no way are we condemned by their iniquity. If they were good, they were cleansed like grains in the threshing of the Catholic threshing-floor; if they were bad, they were crushed like chaff in the threshing of the Catholic threshing-floor. Within that threshing-floor, both good and bad can exist; outside it, good men cannot exist. Whoever is separated from this unity by the wind of pride, like mere chaff, what does he slander about the Lord's threshing-floor because of the chaff mixed in with it?

We also say—and we do not merely say, but prove by both ecclesiastical and public written records—that Secundus of Tigisis, at whose assembled council they claim Caecilian was condemned, gave peace to confessed traditors to prevent a schism, even though he himself had been accused of the crime of traditio by Purpurius of Liniata; we say that Victor of Rusiccade, Donatus of Calama, Donatus of Mascula, Marinus from the Waters of Tibilitana, and Silvanus of Cirta were traditors, and that these same men were the most severe condemners of alleged traditors. This we prove by ecclesiastical, municipal, and judicial records. But neither are all in the Donatist party traditors because these men were in it, nor is the Donatist party innocent if these men are shown to be innocent of the crime of traditio. For we listen better to holy scripture, which teaches us neither to slander anyone for the sins of others nor to fear any such slander from anyone.

For the soul that sins will itself die, and each one will bear his own burden; and whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment not for another, but for himself. And both are allowed to grow until the harvest, lest, when the tares are gathered before the time, the wheat be uprooted along with them; and lambs and kids graze together in the best pastures, until they are separated by the shepherd who cannot err; and nets are filled with every kind of fish for the sake of unity, until they are brought to the judgment of the shore—except that these men, by their perverse and false opinion, prejudge themselves, claiming to be justly separated from the communion of the Christian world because of the sins of others. For by this absurd and insane opinion, they themselves cause the sins of some of their own to be imputed to all of them. If they consider this just, then all are guilty of any most manifest crime found in a single man among them. But if they recognize this to be unjust, as it is, then all are guilty of a most iniquitous separation.

Now, since in this discourse the question is more about the unique baptism, so that our disputation may be concluded from where it began: just as in the unity of the Lord’s threshing-floor neither are the wicked to be praised on account of the good, nor are the good to be abandoned on account of the wicked; just as in one man neither is his perversity to be accepted on account of what is sound in him, nor is his soundness to be denied on account of what is perverse in him; because even in the iniquity of the Jews the truth of the resurrection of the dead is retained, and in the iniquity of the Gentiles the truth of the one God who created the world is retained, and in the iniquity of those who, because they do not gather with Christ, scatter, the truth is retained by which in his name they drive out the unclean spirit, and in the iniquity of sacrilegious temples the truth was found by which they worshipped an unknown god, and in the iniquity of demons the truth was found by which they confessed Christ: so also in the iniquity of heretics the truth is found, which is not to be denied, by which the sacrament of baptism is retained.

From the Retractations of Augustine, Book II, Chapter 51 (34) (Page 172, Knoell edition). On the Unique Baptism against Petilianus, to Constantinus, One Book. At that time a certain friend of mine received a book on the unique baptism from some Donatist presbyter, indicating that their bishop Petilianus of Constantina had written it. This book he brought to me and earnestly begged that I reply to it. I also wished my own book, in which I replied, to bear the same title, that is, On the Unique Baptism. In that book, what I said—that the Emperor Constantinus, when the Donatists were accusing the ordainer of Caecilianus, Felix of Aptunga, did not deny them a place for the accusation, although he had experienced that they were slanderous against Caecilianus with false charges—was later, upon consideration of the order of times, found to be otherwise. For the aforementioned emperor first had the case of Felix heard by a proconsul, where he is recorded as having been acquitted, and afterwards he himself, having heard Caecilianus together with his accusers, found him innocent, where he experienced that they were slanderous in their charges against him. This order of times, declared by the consuls, much more vehemently convicts and utterly overturns the slanders of the Donatists in that case, as we have shown elsewhere.

This book begins thus: To answer those who think otherwise.