Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Nor should we pass over something we are bound to state here: following the Song of Songs, the church may be described as an enclosed garden, a sealed spring, a paradise bearing orchard fruit. As for those who have never crossed into this garden, nor looked upon the paradise God the creator planted — how could such people ever supply anyone with the living water of saving washing from a spring shut up inside and marked with the divine seal? And since Noah's ark was nothing other than a symbol of the church of Christ, which then, while all outside were perishing, preserved only those who were within the ark, we are plainly taught to recognize the unity of the church, just as Peter also stated, saying: so too baptism now saves us in like manner — showing that just as those who were not with Noah in the ark were not merely left unwashed and unsaved by the water but perished at once in that flood, so now likewise whoever is outside the church, not with Christ, will perish — unless they turn by repentance to the one and saving washing of the church.
Consider the depth of error and blindness in anyone who claims that sin can be forgiven within heretical assemblies while refusing to remain on the one church's foundation, laid once for all upon the rock by Christ himself — a truth made plain by the fact that Christ addressed Peter alone: whatever you bind upon earth will be bound in heaven too, and whatever you loose upon earth will be loosed in heaven too. Likewise in the Gospel, Christ breathed only upon the apostles, saying: receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven them, and if you retain anyone's, they are retained. This authority over the forgiveness of sins passed to the apostles, then to the churches founded by those Christ had commissioned, and finally to the bishops who took their place through an unbroken line of ordination. Yet those hostile to the single catholic church where we stand, our rivals who — though we are the ones descended from the apostles — seize priesthoods forbidden to them and erect unholy altars against us, are nothing but a new Korah, Dathan, and Abiram: sacrilegious men sharing their crime, bound to suffer the very punishments those men suffered, together with everyone who sides with them, exactly as the companions and backers of Korah's band died the same death alongside him.
And in this matter I am justly indignant at such open and manifest folly on Stephen's part, that he, who takes such pride in the rank of his own bishopric and claims to hold Peter's succession — Peter, the one upon whom the church's foundations rest — yet goes on to introduce many other rocks and raise up new church buildings everywhere, defending baptism there purely by his own authority. For those who are baptized undoubtedly fill up the number of the church; and one who approves their baptism thereby confirms that a church, made up of the baptized, exists there too. He does not perceive that by so doing and by deserting unity he darkens, and in a manner abolishes, the truth of the Christian rock. Yet the apostle declares that the Jews, though blinded by ignorance and bound by the gravest crime, have a zeal for God. Stephen, who proclaims that he holds the chair of Peter by succession, is roused by no zeal at all against heretics, granting them not a small but the greatest power of grace, so as to say and assert that through the sacrament of baptism they wash away the old man's filth, blot out the ancient sins of death, turn men into God's sons through a heavenly rebirth, and restore them to life everlasting by the divine washing's consecration. But if he grants and bestows such great and heavenly gifts of the church on heretics, what else is he doing but sharing communion with those to whom he defends such abundance of grace? And it is idle for him now to hesitate to agree with them in everything else too and to share in their fellowship, so as to gather together with them, mingle prayers equally with them, and set up a common altar and sacrifice.
But, he says, the name of Christ avails greatly for faith and for the sanctification of baptism, so that whoever, and wherever, is baptized in the name of Christ at once obtains the grace of Christ. To this point one may briefly reply, and say: if outside the church baptism in the name of Christ was effective to cleanse a man, then in that same name of Christ the laying on of hands could also there have been effective to bestow the Holy Spirit. From there, everything else that heretics practice will start looking legitimate and permissible too, given that it is carried out under Christ's name — quite contrary to what you yourselves argued in your own letter, that the name of Christ can be effective only within the church, to which alone Christ has granted the power of heavenly grace.
As for their appeal to custom, set up against the truth — what kind of fool would rank habit above truth, or, having seen the light plainly, still cling to darkness? Perhaps ancient custom did help the Jews somewhat even as Christ — that is, the truth — arrived, in the sense that they clung to their old ways and forsook the new path of truth. This very point you Africans can turn against Stephen: once truth became known to us, we let go of custom's error. For our part, we bring truth and custom together, and against Roman custom we oppose the custom grounded in truth, keeping from the outset what Christ and the apostles handed down. Nor do we remember this practice starting up among us at some point, for the rule has stood here from the first that we recognize only a single church of God, and regard nothing as valid baptism apart from that of the holy church. Indeed, because some questioned the validity of baptism among people who, though accepting the new prophets, still appear to acknowledge the same Father and Son that we do, a large gathering of us met at Iconium, weighed the matter with the greatest care, and affirmed that any baptism whatsoever conferred outside the church is to be rejected.
As for what they put forward on behalf of the heretics, saying that the apostle said whether by occasion or in truth Christ is proclaimed — to answer this is pointless, since it is plain that the apostle, in the letter in which he said this, made no mention at all of heretics or of their baptism, but was speaking only of brethren, whether those speaking with him in bad faith or those persevering in sincere faith; nor is there need for a lengthy discussion to sift this out — it is enough simply to read the letter itself and to recognize what the apostle said, and of whom.
What, then, they ask, becomes of people who came over from the heretics and were received without the church's baptism? If they have already left this life, they fall among those who, though catechized among us, died before baptism came — still no slight gain in truth and faith, the very thing they had reached by forsaking error, even though death overtook them before they reached grace's completion. But those who are still living ought to receive the church's baptism, so that sins may be remitted to them, lest, through someone else's rash assumption, they persist in their old error and die short of grace's completion. Yet how great a wrong it is, on the part of either those admitted or those admitting them, that — with neither the filth cleansed through the church's washing nor the sins laid open — they dare, in reckless communion, to lay hands on the Lord's body and blood, since scripture says: whoever eats that bread or drinks that cup unworthily incurs guilt for the Lord's body and blood.
We too have judged that anyone baptized by men who once held bishoprics in the catholic church, but who later took upon themselves the authority to ordain clergy, must be treated as not baptized at all. And this is observed among us, that whoever comes to us having been dipped by them, as strangers who have gained nothing from that act, is baptized among us with the one true baptism of the catholic church, so that they may obtain the regeneration of the life-giving washing. Still, great is the distance between someone who gave way only because the strain of persecution left him no choice, and someone who, moved by a sacrilegious will, boldly takes up arms against the church, or turns an impious tongue against the Father, against the God of Christ, against the very maker of all things. Yet here is Stephen, without a trace of shame, claiming that sins can be forgiven through the hands of men steeped in every crime themselves — as if a house of death could somehow yield up a bath of salvation.
Where, then, does that leave what scripture commands: keep away from water not your own, and do not drink from another's spring — if you forsake the church's own sealed spring, seize foreign water as though it were yours, and defile the church with unclean springs? For in sharing the baptism of heretics, are you not simply drinking from their filth and slime, and, though the church's holiness has made you clean, letting yourself be soiled by contact with someone else's dirt? Do you feel no fear of God's judgment, testifying on behalf of heretics against the church, when scripture says a lying witness shall not escape punishment? No — you are worse than any heretic. For when a good number of them, recognizing their mistake, turn to you to reach the church's genuine light, you lend support to the very errors of those approaching, and, having dimmed the light of the church's truth, you pile up the gloom of heretical night. And when these very people admit they are living in sin and possess no grace, and say that is exactly why they seek the church, you deny them the forgiveness of sins granted in baptism, claiming they were already baptized and gained the church's grace while standing outside it. You fail to grasp that on judgment day their souls will be demanded from your hand — you, who refused a drink to those thirsting for the church and brought about the death of those who wanted to live, and on top of it all you take offense.
Notice the ignorance behind your daring to find fault with people contending for truth against lies. Really, who has the better claim to indignation toward the other side — someone who champions the cause of God's enemies, or someone who instead opposes those enemies in defense of the church's truth? Except, of course, ignorant men are notoriously quick to quarrel and lose their temper, since a lack of judgment and of measured speech pushes them readily into rage — so much so that scripture's words apply to no one better than to you: a hot-headed man kindles disputes, and a quick-tempered man multiplies wrongdoing. Just think how many quarrels and splits you have set loose across the churches of the entire world. And think how much wrongdoing you have piled onto yourself by tearing yourself away from so many flocks. You did the tearing, make no mistake about that — for the real schismatic is the man who has turned himself into a deserter from the shared unity of the church. While you imagine that everyone else can be shut out from you, in truth you alone have shut yourself out from everyone. Not even the apostle's teaching could shape you toward the standard of truth and peace, where he urges and states: I, then, a prisoner for the Lord's sake, appeal to you to conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the calling you received, with complete lowliness and mildness of spirit, enduring one another patiently out of love, making every effort to guard the Spirit's oneness through the tie of peace — a single body and a single Spirit, just as you were summoned to a single hope belonging to your calling; a single Lord, a single trust, a single washing, a single God and Father of everyone, who reigns over all, works through all, and dwells within all of us.
How carefully did Stephen live out these beneficial commands and warnings from the apostle, beginning with lowliness of mind and mildness! What could be more lowly or mild than breaking with so many bishops across the entire world, shattering peace with one group after another through discord of every kind — at one point with the Eastern bishops, a fact we assume is already known to you, at another point with you southern brothers, whose delegated bishops he received with such patience and mildness that he would not even grant them a moment of ordinary conversation, and, ever mindful above all of love and charity, directed the entire brotherhood that not a single person was to take them into his house, so that those who arrived would be denied not only peace and communion but even a roof over their heads and lodging. This is what he calls preserving the Spirit's oneness through peace's bond: severing himself from love's unity, turning himself into an outsider to the brethren in every respect, and rebelling in a storm of discord against the very sacrament and tie of peace. Can one body and one spirit exist in such a man, whose own solitary soul is, perhaps, nothing but slippery, shifting, and unsteady? As for him, though, let it rest there. Let us turn instead to the point on which the whole question truly hangs. Those who insist that people baptized by heretics should be accepted as having received the grace of a lawful washing claim that our baptism and theirs is one identical thing, with no difference at all. Yet what does the apostle Paul actually say? A single Lord, a single faith, a single washing, a single God. If the heretics' baptism is truly identical to ours, then their faith must, without question, be identical too. And if the faith is a single thing, then the Lord must likewise be a single thing. If the Lord is single, it follows that the church, too, is single. But if this oneness — which admits no splitting or dividing whatsoever — belongs to the heretics as well, what further point is there in disputing? Why, then, do we even call them heretics rather than Christians? Moreover, since God is not a single thing shared between us and the heretics, nor the Lord, nor the church, nor the faith — not even the spirit or the body is single between us — it follows plainly that baptism, too, cannot be something we hold in common with them, given that nothing whatsoever is common between us. Even so, Stephen feels no shame in lending his backing to such claims against the church, and, to defend the heretics, in splitting the brotherhood apart — and, worse still, in branding Cyprian a false Christ, a false apostle, and a deceitful laborer: a man who, knowing full well that every one of these charges fits himself, rushes to pin on someone else, falsely, exactly what he himself deserves — and rightly — to be called. We wish good health to all of you, together with every bishop across Africa, all the clergy, and the whole brotherhood, so that we may remain forever of a single mind and single accord with you, joined to us even across the distance.