De Infantibus Baptizandis

Councils of Carthage. The Third Council of Carthage under Cyprian on the Baptism of Infants, Held in the Year 253 after the Birth of Christ. (Erasm., III, 3. Pamel., Rigalt., Balux., LIX. Paris., LVIII. Oxon., Lips., LXIV. Routh. Bell. sacrae, p. et 116.) PREFACE. In the year of Christ, with the persecution ceasing, Cyprian and his fellow bishops of the African Church assembled according to custom to restore the shaken Church; partly to preserve the right faith and Catholic unity, and partly also to restore collapsed ecclesiastical discipline and to inform the good morals of the faithful. In this synod it was first established that that deacon whom Rogatianus had denounced before the Fathers of the council for insolence and insults inflicted upon him should either abstain, or, unless he corrected his sin, be entirely deposed. Wishing the same to be established concerning the other insolent and contumelious clerics, because contumacy in subject clerics is dangerous, from which for the most part they are accustomed to fall into heresy. The responsive words of Cyprian writing to Rogatianus on this matter are these: "These are the beginnings of heretics and the origin and attempts of schismatics thinking evilly, that they may please themselves, that they may despise the prelate with proud arrogance. Thus is the Church departed from: thus is a profane altar set up outside: thus is rebellion made against the peace of Christ and the ordinance and unity of God.

But if he further provokes and exasperates you by his insults, you shall exercise the authority of your office over him, so that you either depose him or suspend him. Secondly, in this same synod, the fathers of the council, understanding that Geminius Victor, a Christian departing from this life, had named a certain Fortunatus, a presbyter, as guardian of his sons in his will, and thus, according to the decree of some council formerly held on this matter in Africa under their predecessors, had incurred the penalty of excommunication, declare that the deceased Geminius himself, because he had called a presbyter away from the worship of God to secular affairs, is excommunicated; and therefore they strictly forbid that the sacrifice be offered for the deceased, or that his name be mentioned at the altar; and they confirm the decree of their predecessors by this synodal constitution. These things are evident from Cyprian's letter 66, in which he says: "We were greatly disturbed, I and my colleagues who were present, and our fellow presbyters who were sitting with us," etc. Baronius, year 257, number 14. In this same council, it appears that the baptism of infants was to be hastened before the eighth day in case of necessity, in response to the doubt of some; especially because that council was celebrated in a peaceful time of the Church, not under Lucius, as the Venetian edition has it, but rather it may be certainly gathered that it was held around the beginning of Valerian's reign.

What that controversy concerning the baptism of infants was like, may be learned from the fifty-ninth letter of Cyprian to Fidus the presbyter, subjoined here. Cyprian and the other colleagues who were present at the council, sixty-six in number, to Fidus their brother, greeting. ARGUMENT. The African fathers decree that the peace granted by Therapius is valid. — The baptism of newly born infants is established by them. — The superstitious custom of not admitting infants to the kiss before the eighth day is noted. — No one is to be hindered from baptism. I. We have read your letter, dearest brother, in which you indicated concerning Victor, formerly a presbyter, that before he had performed full penance and had satisfied the Lord God, against whom he had sinned, our colleague Therapius rashly, at an untimely time and with over-hasty precipitation, gave him peace. This matter has moved us considerably, that there has been a departure from the authority of our decree, that before the legitimate and full time of satisfaction, and without the petition and knowledge of the people, peace should be granted to no one, even when urgency of infirmity and necessity compel it. But after long deliberation among us, it was sufficient to rebuke our colleague Therapius for having done this rashly, and to instruct him not to do such a thing in the future. Nevertheless, we did not think that peace, once given in any manner by a priest of God, should be taken away, and through this we have permitted Victor to avail himself of the communion granted to him.

As for the matter concerning infants, whom you said ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after they are born, and that the law of ancient circumcision (Gen. 17:12) should be considered, so that you thought one who is born should not be baptized and sanctified before the eighth day, a far different view was held by all in our council. For in this matter, which you thought should be done, no one agreed, but rather we all judged that the mercy of God and grace should be denied to no one born. For since the Lord says in his Gospel (Luke 9:56), "The Son of man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save them," as far as it is in us, if it can be done, no soul should be lost. For what is lacking to one who has once been formed in the womb by the hands of God? For to us and to our eyes, according to the course of worldly days, those who are born seem to receive increase. But whatever is done by God is perfect by the majesty and work of the divine maker.

III. Finally, that there is among all, whether infants or those of more advanced age, one equality of the divine gift is declared to us by the faith of divine Scripture. Elisha, over the infant son of the widow who lay dead, prayed to God, stretching himself out in such a way that head was joined to head and face to face, and the individual limbs of Elisha were spread over the limbs of the little one, and feet were joined to feet (4 Kings 4:34). If this matter is considered according to the inequality of our birth and body, an infant could not be made equal to an adult and fully grown person, nor could the small limbs cohere with and be sufficient for the larger ones. But there a divine and spiritual equality is expressed, because all men are equal and alike, once they have been made by God, and our age can have a distinction in the increments of the body according to the world, not according to God; unless indeed that grace itself, which is given to the baptized, is bestowed as lesser or greater according to the age of the recipients, whereas the Holy Spirit is offered equally to all not by measure, but by paternal piety and indulgence. For God (Galatians 2:6), as He does not consider the person, so neither does He consider the age, when He offers Himself as a father to all for the attainment of heavenly grace with balanced equality.

IV. Moreover, as for your statement that the footprint of an infant in the first days after its birth is not clean, and that each of us would still shrink from kissing it, we do not think that this ought to be an impediment to the giving of heavenly grace. For it is written (Titus 1:15): "To the pure, all things are pure." Nor should any of us shrink from what God has deigned to make. For even if an infant is newly born, it is not such that anyone ought to shrink from kissing it when giving grace and making peace, since in kissing an infant each of us, according to his piety, ought to think of the still recent hands of God themselves, which we in a way kiss in the man just formed and newly made, when we embrace what God has made. For as for the observance of the eighth day in carnal Jewish circumcision, that is a sacrament prefigured beforehand in shadow and image, but with the coming of Christ it is fulfilled in truth. For the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was to be the day on which the Lord would rise again and give us life and bestow spiritual circumcision upon us; this eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath and the Lord's day, was prefigured in the image. That image ceased when the truth later supervened and spiritual circumcision was given to us.

V. For this reason we think that no one should be prevented from obtaining grace by the law which has already been established, nor should spiritual circumcision be hindered by carnal circumcision, but every single human being should be admitted to the grace of Christ, since Peter in the Acts of the Apostles speaks and says (Acts 10:28): The Lord said to me that no man is to be called common and unclean. Moreover, if anything could prevent men from obtaining grace, the more serious sins of adults, the advanced in age, and the elderly could prevent them. But if even the gravest sinners, who have sinned greatly against God, are given remission of sins when they later believe, and no one is prohibited from baptism and from grace, how much more should an infant not be prohibited, who, newly born, has sinned in nothing except that, born carnally according to Adam, he contracted the contagion of ancient death by his first birth, and who approaches the reception of remission of sins all the more easily because what is remitted to him are not his own sins, but those of another.

VI. And for this reason, dearest brother, this was our judgment in the council: that by us no one ought to be prohibited from Baptism and from the grace of God, who is merciful, kind, and compassionate to all. And since this is to be observed and maintained with respect to everyone, we think it should be observed all the more with respect to infants themselves and the newly born, who, by this very fact, deserve more from our help and from divine mercy because, in the very first moment of their birth, weeping and crying, they do nothing else but implore. We wish you, dearest brother, always to be well.