a par in guilt with the consciously covetous time. And seeing that this was not enough man, although the evidence which Cyprian for him, as against the custom of the whole himself has advanced from the apostle does world, he laid hold on these reasons which we not seem to prove this. For what is it that just now, considering them with great care, we abominate in heretics except their blas- and being confirmed by the antiquity of the phemies? But when he wished to show that custom itself, and by the subsequent authority ignorance of the sin may conduce to ease in of a plenary Council, found to be truth-like obtaining pardon, he advanced a proof from rather than true; which, however, seemed to the case of the apostle, when he says, "Who him true, as he toiled in a question of the was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, greatest obscurity, and was in doubt about the and injurious; but I obtained mercy, because remission of sins,--whether it could fail to be I did it ignorantly." But if possible, as I given in the baptism of Christ, and whether said before, let the sins of the two men-the it could be given among heretics. In which blasphemy of the unconscious, and the idol- matter, if an imperfect revelation of the truth atry of the conscious sinner-be esteemed of was given to Cyprian, that the greatness of equal weight; and let them be judged by the his love in not deserting the unity of the same sentence, he who, in seeking for Christ, Church might be made manifest, there is yet falls into a truth-like setting forth of what is not any reason why any one should venture to false, and he who wittingly resists Christ claim superiority over the strong defenses and speaking through His apostle, "seeing that excellence of his virtues, and the abundance. no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor of graces which were found in him, merely covetous man, which is an idolater, hath any because, with the instruction derived from the inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of strength of a general Council, he sees someGod," and then I would ask why baptism thing which Cyprian did not see, because the and the words of the gospel are held as naught Church had not yet held a plenary Council on in the former case, and accounted valid in the matter. Just as no one is so insane as the latter, when each is alike found to be es- to set himself up as surpassing the merits of tranged from the members of the dove. Is the Apostle Peter, because, taught by the it because the former is an open combatant epistles of the Apostle Paul, and confirmed outside, that he should not be admitted, the by the custom of the Church herself, he does latter a cunning assenter within the fold, that not compel the Gentiles to judaize, as Peter he may not be expelled? once had done.+ 10. We do not then "find that any one, after CHAP. 6.-9. But as regards his saying, being baptized among heretics, was afterwards "Nor let any one affirm that what they have admitted by the apostles with the same bapreceived from the apostles, that they follow; tism, and communicated; "s but neither do we for the apostles handed down only one Church find this, that any one coming from the society and one baptism, and that appointed only in of heretics, who had been baptized among the same Church:"3 this does not so much them, was baptized anew by the apostles. move me to venture to condemn the baptism But this custom, which even then those who of Christ when found amongst heretics (just looked back to past ages could not find to have as it is necessary to recognize the gospel itself been invented by men of a later time, is when I find it with them, though I abominate rightly believed to have been handed down their error), as it warns me that there were from the apostles. And there are many other some even in the times of the holy Cyprian things of the same kind, which it would be who traced to the authority of the apostles tedious to recount. Wherefore, if they had that custom against which the African Coun- something to say for themselves to whom cils were held, and in respect of which he Cyprian, wishing to persuade them of the himself said a little above, In vain do those truth of his own view, says, "Let no one say, who are beaten by reason oppose to us the What we have received from the apostles, authority of custom." Nor do I find the that we follow," with how much more force reason why the same Cyprian found this very we now say, What the custom of the Church custom, which after his time was confirmed has always held, what this argument has failed by nothing less than a plenary Council of the to prove false, and what a plenary Council whole world, already so strong before his time, that when with all his learning he sought an authority worth following for changing it, he found nothing but a Council of Agrippinus held in Africa a very few years before his own 11 Tim. i. 13. 2 Eph. v. 5. 3 Cypr. Ep. lxxii. 13. 66 has confirmed, this we follow! To this we may add that it may also be said, after a careful inquiry into the reasoning on both sides of the discussion, and into the evidence 4 Gal. i. 14. 5 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 13. of Scripture, What truth has declared, that amongst those who were within so great an we follow. evil of envy and malicious strife? For these are the words of Cyprian. Can it be that envy and malicious strife are a small evil? How then were those in unity who were not at peace? For it is not my voice, nor that of any man, but of the Lord Himself; nor did the sound go forth from men, but from angels, at the birth of Christ, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will." And this certainly would not have been proclaimed by the voice of angels when Christ was born upon the earth, unless God wished this to be understood, that those are in the unity of the body of Christ who are united in the peace of Christ, and those are in the peace of Christ who are of good will. Furthermore, as good will is shown in kindliness, so is bad will shown in malice. CHAP. 7.-11. For in fact, as to what some opposed to the reasoning of Cyprian, that the apostle says, "Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, let Christ be preached," Cyprian rightly exposed their error, showing that it has nothing to do with the case of heretics, since the apostle was speaking of those who were acting within the Church, with malicious envy seeking their own profit. They announced Christ, indeed, according to the truth whereby we believe in Christ, but not in the spirit in which He was announced by the good evangelists to the sons of the dove. "For Paul," he says, “in his epistle was not speaking of heretics, or of their baptism, so that it could be shown that he had laid down anything concerning this matter. He was speaking of brethren, CHAP. 8-12. In short, we may see how whether as walking disorderly and contrary great an evil in itself is envy, which cannot be to the discipline of the Church, or as keeping other than malicious. Let us not look for the discipline of the Church in the fear of other testimony. Cyprian himself is sufficient God. And he declared that some of them for us, through whose mouth the Lord poured spoke the word of God steadfastly and fear-forth so many thunders in most perfect truth, lessly, but that some were acting in envy and and uttered so many useful precepts about strife; that some had kept themselves encom- envy and malignity. Let us therefore read passed with kindly Christian love, but that the letter of Cyprian about envy and maligothers entertained malice and strife: but yet nity, and see how great an evil it is to envy that he patiently endured all things, with the those better than ourselves,-an evil whose view that, whether in truth or in pretence, origin he shows in memorable words to have the name of Christ, which Paul preached, sprung from the devil himself. "To feel might come to the knowledge of the greatest jealousy," he says, "of what you regard as number, and that the sowing of the word, good, and to envy those who are better than which was as yet a new and unaccustomed yourselves, to some, dearest brethren, seems work, might spread more widely by the a light and minute offense." And again a preaching of those that spoke. Furthermore, little later, when he was inquiring into the it is one thing for those who are within the source and origin of the evil, he says, “From Church to speak in the name of Christ, an- this the devil, in the very beginning of the other thing for those who are without, acting world, perished first himself, and led others against the Church, to baptize in the name to destruction."5 And further on in the of Christ." These words of Cyprian seem same to warn us that we must distinguish between those who are bad outside, and those who are bad within the Church. And those whom he says that the apostle represents as preaching the gospel impurely and of envy, he says truly were within. This much, however, I think I may say without rashness, if no one outside can have anything which is of Christ, when he who envies imitates the devil, as neither can any one within have anything which is of the devil. For if that closed garden can contain the thorns of the devil, why cannot the fountain of Christ equally flow beyond the garden's bounds? But if it cannot contain them, whence, even in the time of the Apostle Paul himself, did there arise 2 1 Phil. i. 18. Hieron. annuntietur." 2 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 14. chapter: "What an evil, dearest brethren, is that by which an angel fell! by which that exalted and illustrious loftiness was able to be deceived and overthrown! by which he was deceived who was the deceiver! From that time envy stalks upon the earth, when man, about to perish through malignity, submits himself to the teacher of perdition, it is written, Through envy of the devil came death into the world, and they that do hold of his side do find it."" How true, how forcible are these words of Cyprian, in an epistle known throughout the world, we cannot fail to recognize. It was truly fitting for 3 Luke ii. 14. "Hominibus bone voluntatis" and so the Vulgate, following the reading ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας. 4 Cypr. de Zel. et Liv. c. 1. 5 lb. c. 4. 6 Wisd. ii. 24, 25. 46 Cyprian to argue and warn most forcibly of an abandoned life, as the apostle says of about envy and malignity, from which most them, "Thou that preachest a man should deadly evil he proved his own heart to be so not steal, dost thou steal?"s For Cyprian far removed by the abundance of his Christian says in his letter of such bishops of his own love; by carefully guarding which he remained time, his own colleagues, and remaining in in the unity of communion with his colleagues, communion with him, "While they had who without ill-feeling entertained different brethren starving in the Church, they tried views about baptism, whilst he himself dif. to amass large sums of money, they took fered in opinion from them, not through any possession of estates by fraudulent proceedcontention of ill will, but through human in- ings, they multiplied their gains by accumufirmity, erring in a point which God, in His lated usuries." For here there is no ob、 own good time, would reveal to him by reason scure question. Scripture declares openly, of his perseverance in love. For he says "Neither covetous nor extortioners shall inopenly, Judging no one, nor depriving any herit the kingdom of God;" and "He that of the right of communion if he differ from putteth out his money to usury,' " and "No us. For no one of us setteth himself up as whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor coveta bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror ous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritforces his colleagues to a necessity of obey- ance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." ing." And in the end of the epistle before He therefore certainly would not, without us he says, "These things I have written to knowledge, have brought accusations of such you briefly, dearest brother, according to my covetousness, that men not only greedily treaspoor ability, prescribing to or prejudging no ured up their own goods, but also fraudulently one, so as to prevent each bishop from doing appropriated the goods of others, or of idolatry what he thinks right in the free exercise of existing in such enormity as he understands his own judgment. We, so far as in us lies, and proves it to exist; nor assuredly would do not strive on behalf of heretics with our he bear false witness against his fellowcolleges and fellow-bishops, with whom we bishops. And yet with the bowels of fatherly hold the harmony that God enjoins, and the and motherly love he endured them, lest that, peace of our Lord, especially as the apostle by rooting out the tares before their time, the says, 'If any man seem to be contentious, we wheat should also have been rooted up," imihave no such custom, neither the churches of tating assuredly the Apostle Paul, who, with God.' Christian love in our souls, the honor the same love towards the Church, endured of our fraternity, the bond of faith, the har- those who were ill-disposed and envious tomony of the priesthood, all these are main- wards him.' tained by us with patience and gentleness. For this cause we have also, so far as our poor ability admitted, by the permission and inspiration of the Lord, written now a treatise on the benefit of patience, which we have sent to you in consideration of our mutual affection." 4 CHAP. 9.-13. By this patience of Christian love he not only endured the difference of opinion manifested in all kindliness by his good colleagues on an obscure point, as he also himself received toleration, till, in process of time, when it so pleased God, what had always been a most wholesome custom was further confirmed by a declaration of the truth in a plenary Council, but he even put up with those who were manifestly bad, as was very well known to himself, who did not entertain a different view in consequence of the obscurity of the question, but acted contrary to their preaching in the evil practices II 12 14. But yet because "by the envy of the devil death entered into the world, and they that do hold of his side do find it," not because they are created by God, but because they go astray of themselves, as Cyprian also says himself, seeing that the devil, before he was a devil, was an angel, and good, how can it be that they who are of the devil's side are in the unity of Christ? Beyond all doubt, as the Lord Himself says, "an enemy hath done this," who "sowed tares among the wheat." 13 As therefore what is of the devil within the fold must be convicted, so what is of Christ without must be recognized. Has the devil what is his within the unity of the Church, and shall Christ not have what is His without? This, perhaps, might be said of individual men, that as the devil has none that are his among the holy angels, so God has none that are His outside the communion of the Church. But though it may be allowed to the devil to mingle tares, that is, wicked men, with this Church which still wears the mortal nature of 2 16. But it will be urged that the bad outside are worse than those within. It is indeed a weighty question, whether Nicolaus, being already severed from the Church, or Simon, who was still within it,3 was the worse,-the one being a heretic, the other a sorcerer. But if the mere fact of division, as being the clearest token of violated charity, is held to be the worse evil, I grant that it is so. Yet many, though they have lost all feelings of charity, yet do not secede from considerations of worldly profit; and as they seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's, what they are unwilling to secede from is not the unity of Christ, but their own temporal advantage. Whence it is said in praise of charity, that she "seeketh not her own." 5 flesh, so long as it is wandering far from with patience, thirty-fold, or sixty-fold, or God, he being allowed this just because of a hundred-fold. Or if those only are to be the pilgrimage of the Church herself, that called tares who remain in perverse error to men may desire more ardently the rest of the end, there are many ears of corn outside, that country which the angels enjoy, yet this and many tares within. cannot be said of the sacraments. For, as the tares within the Church can have and handle them, though not for salvation, but for the destruction to which they are destined in the fire, so also can the tares without, which received them from seceders from within; for they did not lose them by seceding. This, indeed, is made plain from the fact that baptism is not conferred again on their return, when any of the very men who seceded happen to come back again. And let not any one say, Why, what fruit hath the tares? For if this be so, their condition is the same, so far as this goes, both inside and without. For it surely cannot be that grains of corn are found in the tares inside, and not in those without. But when the question is of the sacrament, we do not consider whether the tares bear any fruit, but whether they have any share of heaven; for the tares, both within and without, share the rain with the wheat itself, which rain is in itself heavenly and sweet, even though under its influence the tares grow up in barrenness. And so the sacrament, according to the gospel of Christ, is divine and pleasant; nor is it to be esteemed as naught because of the barrenness of those on whom its dew falls even without. 6 17. Now, therefore, the question is, how could men of the party of the devil belong to the Church, which has no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, of which also it is said, "My dove is one?" But if they cannot, it is clear that she groans among those who are not of her, some treacherously laying wait within, some barking at her gate without. Such men, however, even within, both receive baptism, and possess it, and transmit it holy in itself; nor is it in any way defiled by their wickedness, in which they persevere even to CHAP. 10.-15. But some one may say that the end. Wherefore the same blessed Cyprian the tares within may more easily be converted teaches us that baptism is to be considered into wheat. I grant that it is so; but what as consecrated in itself by the words of the has this to do with the question of repeating gospel, as the Church has received, without baptism? You surely do not maintain that joining to it or mingling with it any consideraif a man converted from heresy, through the tion of waywardness and wickedness on the occasion and opportunity given by his con- part of either minister or recipients; since he version, should bear fruit before another who, himself points out to us both truths,—both being within the Church, is more slow to be that there have been some within the Church washed from his iniquity, and so corrected who did not cherish kindly Christian love, but and changed, the former therefore needs not practised envy and unkind dissension, of to be baptized again, but the churchman to whom the Apostle Paul spoke; and also that be baptized again, who was outstripped by the envious belong to the devil's party, as he him who came from the heretics, because of testifies in the most open way in the epistle the greater slowness of his amendment. It which he wrote about envy and malignity. has nothing, therefore, to do with the ques- Wherefore, since it is clearly possible that in tion now at issue who is later or slower in those who belong to the devil's party, Christ's being converted from his especial waywardness to the straight path of faith, or hope, or charity. For although the bad within the fold are more easily made good yet it will sometimes happen that certain of the number of those outside will outstrip in their conversion certain of those within; and while these remain in barrenness, the former, being restored to unity and communion, will bear fruit sacrament may yet be holy, -not, indeed, to their salvation, but to their condemnation,— and that not only if they are led astray after they have been baptized, but even if they were such in heart when they received the sacrament, renouncing the world (as the same Matt. xiii. 23; Luke viii. 15. 2 Rev. ii. 6. 99 2 66 points, "If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you; " and that some again, though devoid of charity, may teach something wholesome? of whom the Lord says, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say and do not." Whence the apostle also says of those envious and malicious ones who yet preach salvation through Christ, Whether in pretense, or in truth, let Christ be preached." Wherefore, both within and without, the waywardness of man is to be corrected, but the divine sacraments and utterances are not to be attributed to men. He is not, therefore, a “patron of heretics" who refuses to attribute to them what he knows not to belong to them, even though it be found among them. We do not grant baptism to be theirs; but we recognize His baptism of whom it is said, "The same is He which baptizeth," wheresoever we find it. But if "the treacherous and blasphemous man" continue in his treachery and blasphemy, he receives no "remission of sins either without" or within the Church; or if, by the power of the sacrament, he receives it for the moment, the same force operates both without and within, as the power of the name of Christ used to work the expulsion of devils even without the Church. Cyprian shows) in words only and not in deeds; and since even if afterwards they be brought into the right way, the sacrament is not to be again administered which they received when they were astray; so far as I can see, the case is already clear and evident, that in the question of baptism we have to consider, not who gives, but what he gives; not who receives, but what he receives; not who has, but what he has. For if men of the party of the devil, and therefore in no way belonging to the one dove, can yet receive, and have, and give baptism in all its holiness, in no way defiled by their waywardness, as we are taught by the letters of Cyprian himself, how are we ascribing to heretics what does not belong to them? how are we saying that what is really Christ's is theirs, and not rather recognizing in them the signs of our Sovereign, and correcting the deeds of deserters from Him? Wherefore it is one thing, as the holy Cyprian says, "for those within, in the Church, to speak in the name of Christ, another thing for those without, who are acting against the Church, to baptize in His name. But both many who are within act against the Church by evil living, and by enticing weak souls to copy their lives; and some who are without speak in Christ's name, and are not forbidden to work the works of Christ, but only to be without, since for the healing of their souls we grasp at them, or reason with them, or exhort them. For he, too, was without who did not follow Christ CHAP. 12.-19. But he urges that " we find with His disciples, and yet in Christ's name that the apostles, in all their epistles, exewas casting out devils, which the Lord en- crated and abhorred the sacrilegious wickedjoined that he should not be prevented from ness of heretics, so as to say that 'their word doing; although, certainly, in the point does spread as a canker.' What then? where he was imperfect he was to be made Does not Paul also show that those who said, whole, in accordance with the words of the "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we Lord, in which He says, “He that is not with die," were corrupters of good manners by me is against me; and he that gathereth not their evil communications, adding immewith me scattereth abroad." Therefore both diately afterwards, "Evil communications some things are done outside in the name of corrupt good manners; and yet he intimated Christ not against the Church, and some that these were within the Church when he things are done inside on the devil's part says, How say some among you that there which are against the Church. is no resurrection of the dead?"" But when does he fail to express his abhorrence of the covetous? Or could anything be said in stronger terms, than that covetousness should be called idolatry, as the same apostle declared? Nor did Cyprian understand his language otherwise, inserting it when need required in his letters; though he confesses that in his time there were in the Church not covetous men of an ordinary type, but robbers CHAP. 11.-18. What shall we say of what is also wonderful, that he who carefully observes may find that it is possible that certain persons, without violating Christian charity, may yet teach what is useless, as Peter wished to compel the Gentiles to observe Jewish customs,5 as Cyprian himself would force heretics to be baptized anew? whence the apostle says to such good members, who are rooted in charity, and yet walk not rightly in some 2 Cypr. Ep. lxxiii. 14. 4 Matt. xii. 30. 1 Cypr. Ep. xi. 1. 3 Luke ix. 49, 50. 5 Gal. ii. 14. 66 12 7 Matt. xxiii. 2, 3. 12 Eph. v. 5. |