Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Letter 70. Cyprian and Liberalis and Caldonius and Junius and Primus and Caecilius and Polycarpus and Nicomedes and Felix and Marrutius and Successus and Lucianus and Honoratus and Fortunatus and Victor and Donatus and Lucius and Herculanus and Pomponius and Demetrius and Quintus and Saturninus and Marcus and another Saturninus and Altus and Donatus and Rogatianus and Sedatus and Tertullus and Hortensianus and likewise another Saturninus and Sattius and Januarius and Saturninus and Maximus and Victor and another Victor and Cassius and Proculus and Modianus and Cittinus and Gargilius and Eutychianus and another Gargilius and another Saturninus and Nemesianus and Nampulo and Antonianus and Rogatianus and Honoratus, to the brothers, greeting. When we were gathered together in council, dearest brothers, we read the letter you sent concerning those who appear to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics, asking whether they ought to be baptized on coming to the catholic Church, which is one. On this matter, although you yourselves there hold the truth and the firmness of the catholic rule, yet since out of common regard you judged it right to consult us, we set forth our opinion — not a new one, but one long since established by our predecessors and kept by us — and join it to yours in equal agreement. We hold it certain and settled that no one can receive baptism apart from the Church, outside its bounds, given that there exists but a single baptism, instituted within the holy Church; and scripture records the Lord's own words: they abandoned me, the spring of living water, and carved out for themselves cracked cisterns unable to hold any water; and elsewhere divine scripture gives this warning: hold yourself back from water that is not your own, and do not drink from another man's spring. Before anything else, though, the priest must cleanse and consecrate the water itself, so that through the baptism performed with it, the sins of the person being baptized can be washed away, for the Lord speaks through Ezekiel in these terms: I will pour clean water over you, and you will be washed clean of every defilement and every idol of yours; I will make you clean, and grant you a renewed heart, and place within you a fresh spirit. Yet how could someone cleanse and consecrate the water who is himself unclean, a man in whom the Holy Spirit does not dwell — since the Lord declares in Numbers that everything an unclean person lays hands on becomes unclean by that very touch? Or how could someone administering baptism grant another the remission of sins, when, being outside the Church, he cannot even set down his own? The baptismal interrogation itself bears witness to this: the candidate is asked whether he believes in eternal life and in sins forgiven through the holy Church, and by that question we intend something specific — outside the Church no sin is ever released, whereas among heretics, lacking any Church at all, forgiveness simply does not happen. So those who speak up for the heretics must either alter that question or else defend the truth of it — unless, that is, they are prepared to grant these people a Church too, given that they insist the people possess baptism. The one baptized must also be anointed, so that, having received the chrism — that is, the anointing — he may become one anointed of God and hold within himself the grace of Christ. And the oil used for this anointing, consecrated upon the altar, comes from the eucharist itself; but a man lacking both altar and Church could never consecrate that created oil. Hence no spiritual anointing can be found among heretics at all, since among them, as is agreed, oil cannot be consecrated nor can the eucharist ever be performed. We should also bear in mind the written warning: may the oil of a sinner never touch my head — words with which the Holy Spirit had already cautioned us beforehand in the psalms, so that no one straying and wandering from the path of truth would be anointed among heretics, the adversaries of Christ. Furthermore, what prayer can a sacrilegious and sinful priest even offer on a baptized person's behalf, given the written word: God pays no heed to a sinner, but listens instead to the one who reveres him and does his will? For who can give what he himself lacks, and how can a man carry out spiritual works once he has lost the Holy Spirit himself? For this reason, whoever comes untaught to the Church must be baptized and remade, so that within it, through those made holy, he too may be made holy, since it stands written: since I myself am holy, you must be holy too, says the Lord — so that one who had been led astray and dipped outside the Church might, through true and ecclesiastical baptism, set aside this very failing: that a man approaching God, while looking for a priest, instead fell by deceit into a sacrilegious fraud. As for the rest, approving heretical and schismatic baptism amounts to endorsing everything else those same people have baptized into. A portion of a thing cannot be empty while another portion holds force. If such baptism truly worked, it would likewise be able to confer the Holy Spirit; but since it cannot confer the Holy Spirit — being set outside, it has none to give — neither can it baptize the one who comes to it, given that there is only a single baptism, only a single Holy Spirit, and only a single Church, founded by Christ our Lord upon Peter as the source and principle of unity. So it follows that, everything among them being void and false, we ought to approve none of what they have carried out. What, after all, could stand ratified and firm before the Lord when it is performed by those the Lord himself, in his own gospel, names his enemies and adversaries, saying: whoever stands apart from me stands against me, and whoever fails to gather alongside me scatters instead. And the blessed apostle John too, holding fast to the Lord's commandments and precepts, wrote in his own letter: you have heard that an antichrist is coming; well, many antichrists have now appeared, and from this we recognize that the last hour has come. They departed from our company, though they never truly belonged to it — had they belonged to us, they would have remained at our side. From this too we ought to draw the conclusion and ask ourselves whether people who stand against the Lord and bear the name of antichrists are capable of granting the grace of Christ. Hence, we who stand with the Lord and keep his unity, administering by his favor his priesthood within the Church, must refuse and cast aside everything that his adversaries and antichrists carry out, treating it as unholy, while granting, to those who leave error and depravity behind to embrace the one Church's genuine faith, the complete sacraments of divine grace — unity and truth of faith in full measure. We wish you, dearest brothers, ever good health.
Letter 71. Cyprian to his brother Quintus, greeting. Our fellow presbyter Lucianus told me, dearest brother, that you wanted to know what we think about those who appear to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics. So that you might learn what most of our fellow bishops, together with the presbyters present, recently decided on this matter in council, a copy of that same letter accompanies this one. I cannot say what presumption leads some of our colleagues to imagine that those tinged among heretics ought not to be baptized once they reach us, on the ground that, as they claim, baptism is one — meaning one within the catholic Church specifically, since the Church is single and no baptism can exist outside it. Yet two baptisms cannot both be genuine, so if the heretics truly baptize, then the baptism belongs to them. And whoever, by his own authority, extends this cover to them yields to them and grants that an enemy and adversary of Christ might hold the power to wash, cleanse, and consecrate a person. We, however, say that those coming from that quarter are not rebaptized among us but baptized for the first time. For they receive nothing in that place, since nothing is to be had there; rather, they come to us so as to receive here what is found here alone — grace together with the whole of truth, since grace and truth form a single thing. Still, some of our colleagues would rather honor heretics than agree with us, and by insisting there is but a single baptism, they refuse to baptize newcomers — thereby either creating two baptisms themselves, since they concede baptism to the heretics as well, or, worse still, arguing that the heretics' filthy, profane dipping deserves to be set above and preferred over the genuine, singular, lawful baptism of the catholic Church. In doing so they overlook the written word: what benefit does washing bring to one baptized by a dead man? Clearly those outside the Church of Christ must be counted among the dead, and a person who is not himself alive cannot impart life to another, given that there is only one Church — the Church that has attained the grace of eternal life and therefore lives forever, granting life in turn to God's people. And they claim to be following old custom here, since back when heresies and schisms were only beginning, there were people who left the Church after having already been baptized within it; when such people returned afterward and did penance, there was then no need to baptize them again. We too keep this same practice today: those known to have been baptized in our fold and to have crossed over to the heretics, if afterward, recognizing their sin and setting their error aside, they come back to the truth and the mother Church, need only have hands laid on them in penance — since, having already been a sheep, the shepherd may take this stray, wandering sheep back into his fold. But if someone coming from the heretics was never baptized in the Church beforehand, and instead arrives entirely a stranger and unconsecrated, that person must be baptized in order to become a sheep at all, since it is the single water within the holy Church that makes sheep of us. And because falsehood and truth, darkness and light, death and immortality, antichrist and Christ can share nothing whatsoever in common, we must in every way preserve the unity of the catholic Church and give no ground on faith or truth to its enemies. Custom, however, is not the thing to appeal to; reason is what must carry the argument. For not even Peter — whom the Lord chose first and on whom he raised his Church — claimed anything for himself with arrogance or presumption when Paul later took issue with him over circumcision, as though to say he held first rank and that newer, later arrivals owed him obedience; nor did he scorn Paul for having once persecuted the Church, but instead accepted the counsel of truth and readily yielded to the sound reasoning Paul was pressing — giving us thereby a model of both harmony and patience, so that we might not cling stubbornly to what is merely our own, but rather treat as our own whatever our brothers and colleagues usefully and soundly propose, provided it is true and lawful. With this very concern in mind, and with faithful regard for harmony and peace, Paul likewise wrote in his letter: let two or three prophets speak, and let the rest weigh what is said; and if something is revealed to another person seated there, let the first fall silent. In this passage he taught and demonstrated that individuals are often shown better things, and that no one ought to fight stubbornly for a position simply because he had once taken it up and held to it, but should instead gladly welcome whatever turns out to be better and more useful. Encountering something better is no defeat for us; rather it teaches us — above all concerning the Church's unity and the truth underlying our hope and faith. As priests set by God's own favor over him and his Church, we ought to recognize this: sins are released only inside the Church, and Christ's enemies can lay claim to nothing at all where his grace is concerned. Agrippinus too, a man of blessed memory, established this very thing together with the other bishops who at that period governed the Lord's Church across the provinces of Africa and Numidia, and confirmed it after the weighed deliberation of shared counsel. We ourselves have likewise followed their verdict, one both devout and lawful, sound and consistent with the faith and with the catholic Church. And so that you might know the letter we composed on this matter, a copy has been forwarded, out of shared regard, for your notice as well as that of our fellow bishops there. I wish you, dearest brother, ever good health.
Letter 72. Cyprian and the others to their brother Stephen, greeting. It became necessary for us, dearest brother, to bring a number of priests together and hold a council, so as to settle certain matters and work them out through shared deliberation; a great many issues were raised and examined there. But one matter above all had to be put before you in writing and weighed together with your own gravity and wisdom, since it touches especially on priestly authority and on the unity and dignity of the catholic Church alike, flowing as it does from the plan of divine ordering: namely, that people dipped outside, apart from the Church, and stained among heretics and schismatics by the defilement of profane water, ought to be baptized once they arrive at our side and at the Church, which is one — since laying a hand on them to receive the Holy Spirit is not enough unless they also receive the Church's own baptism. Only then, in fact, can they be fully consecrated and become children of God, if they are born through both sacraments together, for it stands written: unless someone is born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter God's kingdom. Moreover, this practice is recorded as one the apostles themselves upheld in the Acts of the Apostles, kept as the true expression of saving faith: for when the Holy Spirit came down in the household of the centurion Cornelius upon the gentiles gathered there, who were ablaze with the warmth of faith and trusted in the Lord with their entire heart — so that, filled by that Spirit, they praised God in unfamiliar tongues — even so the blessed apostle Peter, keeping in mind the divine command and the gospel, still directed that these very people, already full of the Holy Spirit, be baptized, so that nothing would appear to have been left out, and the apostolic teaching would preserve in every respect the law set down by the divine command and the gospel. That there is no true baptism in what heretics practice, and that nothing among those hostile to Christ can gain anything through the grace of Christ, was carefully laid out recently in the letter sent on this very subject to our colleague Quintus, settled in Mauretania, and likewise in the letters our colleagues had earlier sent to the bishops presiding over Numidia — copies of both letters are enclosed. We add plainly to this, dearest brother, and join to it by shared consent and authority, that even presbyters or deacons first ordained within the catholic Church, who afterward turned faithless and rebellious against it, or who were advanced among the heretics by pseudo-bishops and antichrists through an ordination that is itself profane and contrary to Christ's design, and who attempted, in opposition to the one true altar, to offer false and sacrilegious sacrifices elsewhere — such men, too, should be received back only on this condition, that when they return they take communion as laymen, and be content simply with admission to peace, they who had themselves been enemies of peace; nor should those returning retain among us the same marks of rank and honor with which they took up arms against us. Wholeness and freedom from blemish are required of priests and ministers serving at the altar and in the sacrifices, as the Lord God states in Leviticus: no man carrying a blemish or defect may draw near to present offerings to God; and Exodus enjoins the same, saying: let the priests who draw near to the Lord God be made holy, lest the Lord abandon them; and again: when they draw near to serve at the holy altar, they must bring no guilt upon themselves, lest they die. And what greater guilt, what more disfiguring blemish, could there be than to have taken a stand against Christ, to have torn asunder the very Church he purchased and established with his own blood, to have forgotten the peace and love of the gospel and, driven by hostile fury and discord, made war on God's united and harmonious people? Even should such men later return to the Church, they still cannot bring back with them those they misled, who died outside the Church, cut off before their time, lacking both communion and peace — whose souls will be demanded on the day of judgment from the very hands of the men who led them into ruin and were its authors. It is therefore enough for pardon to be granted such returning men; faithlessness, however, ought not to be advanced within the household of faith. For what, then, would we be keeping back for the good and blameless, for those who never abandoned the Church, if we honor the very people who left us and turned against the Church? These matters we lay before your conscience, dearest brother, both for the sake of shared honor and out of plain affection, trusting that, given your devotion to religion and the sincerity of your faith, whatever is at once devout and true will please you as well. For the rest, we know that some, once they have taken a stance, are reluctant to abandon it or readily alter their course, yet, while keeping intact the bond of peace and harmony among their fellow bishops, hold on to certain practices they have adopted for themselves alone. In this matter we neither compel anyone nor impose a rule, since every bishop set over the governing of a church retains free judgment of his own will, and must one day render to the Lord an account of how he has acted. We wish you, dearest brother, ever good health.
Cyprian to his brother Jubaianus, greeting. Wishing to be told our thinking and the drift of our reflection on the baptism practiced by heretics, you wrote to me, dearest brother — heretics who, standing outside and set apart from the Church, claim for themselves something that belongs to neither their right nor their authority; a claim we can regard as neither valid nor lawful, since it is agreed that even among themselves the thing is forbidden. And since I had already set out in earlier letters what we think about this matter, to spare you the trouble I have enclosed a copy of those very letters, showing what we resolved in council, with several of us present, and also what I later wrote back to our colleague Quintus when he raised the same question. And now once more, having assembled together, seventy-one bishops from the provinces of both Africa and Numidia, we have confirmed this same conclusion afresh by our own judgment, establishing that there is a single baptism, the one founded within the catholic Church, and that on this basis, whoever comes to us from adulterous and unholy water is not rebaptized but is baptized by us for the first time, to be washed and made holy in the truth of saving water.