To Jubaianus, on the Baptism of Heretics

Cyprian to his brother Jubaianus, greeting.

You wrote to me, dearest brother, desiring that I make known to you the movement of our mind, what seems to us concerning the Baptism of heretics, who, placed outside and established beyond the Church, claim for themselves a thing neither of right nor of power. Which we can neither reckon as valid nor as lawful, since it is agreed that this is illicit among them. And since we have already expressed in our letters what we thought on this matter, so as to make a summary, I sent you a copy of those same letters, what we decreed in council when many of us were present, and likewise what I afterwards wrote in reply to Quintus, our colleague, when he inquired about the same matter.

And now too, when the bishops of both the province of Africa and of Numidia had assembled together, seventy-one in number, we confirmed this same thing again by our judgment, determining that there is one baptism which is established in the Catholic Church, and that therefore those who come from adulterous and profane water are not re-baptized but baptized by us, to be cleansed and sanctified by the truth of the saving water. Nor does it move us, dearest brother, that you have included in your letter that the Novatianists re-baptize those whom they solicit away from us, since it does not concern us at all what the enemies of the Church do, provided that we ourselves maintain the honor of our authority and the firmness of reason and truth.

For Novatian, after the manner of apes, who, though they are not human, nevertheless imitate human things, wishes to claim for himself the authority and truth of the Catholic Church, when he himself is not in the Church, nay, has moreover stood forth as a rebel and enemy against the Church. For knowing that baptism is one, he claims this one thing for himself, so as to say that the Church is with him and to make us heretics. But we, who hold the head and root of the one Church, know for certain and trust that nothing is lawful for him outside the Church, and that the baptism which is one is with us, where he himself had previously been baptized, when he held the reason and truth of divine unity.

But if Novatian thinks that those baptized in the Church must be re-baptized outside the Church, he ought to have begun with himself, so that he might first be re-baptized with a foreign and heretical baptism, who after the Church, nay even against the Church, holds that persons must be baptized outside. But what manner of thing is it that, because Novatian dares to do this, we should think it ought not to be done by us? What then? Because Novatian also usurps the honor of the priestly chair, must we therefore renounce the chair? Or because Novatian strives unlawfully to set up an altar and offer sacrifices, must we cease from the altar and sacrifices, lest we seem to celebrate things equal and similar to him? It is altogether vain and foolish that, because Novatian outside the Church claims for himself the image of truth, we should abandon the truth of the Church.

But among us it is not a new or sudden thing that we judge those who come from heretics to the Church must be baptized, since many years have now passed and a long age since, under Agrippinus of blessed memory, very many bishops assembling together decreed this, and from that time until today so many thousands of heretics in our provinces, converted to the Church, have neither scorned nor hesitated, but rather rationally and gladly embraced it, that they might obtain the grace of the life-giving and saving baptism. Nor is it difficult for a teacher to instill true and lawful things in one who, having condemned heretical depravity and discovered ecclesiastical truth, comes for this purpose that he may learn, and learns for this purpose that he may live. We ought not to increase the stubbornness of heretics by the patronage of our consent, since they willingly and promptly obey the truth.

Plainly, since I found written in the letter of which you sent me a copy, that it ought not to be inquired who baptized, since he who was baptized could receive the remission of sins according to what he believed, I thought this passage ought not to be passed over, especially since I noticed in the same letter that mention is also made of Marcion, so as to say that not even those coming from him need be baptized, because they appear to have already been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. We ought therefore to consider the faith of those who believe outside, whether according to that same faith they can obtain any grace. For if the faith is one for us and for heretics, the grace also can be one.

If the Patripassians, Anthropians, Valentinians, Apelletians, Ophites, Marcionites, and the other plagues and swords and poisons of heretics for subverting the truth confess with us the same Father, the same Son, the same Holy Spirit, the same Church, then there can also be one baptism there, if there is also one faith.

And, lest it be a lengthy matter to run through all the heresies and review the follies or madnesses of each one, since it is not pleasing to say what one either shudders or is ashamed to know, let us examine for the present concerning Marcion alone, of whom mention was made in the letter transmitted to us by you, whether the rationale of his baptism can hold. For the Lord after the resurrection, sending forth his disciples, instructed and taught them how they ought to baptize, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He sets forth the Trinity, in whose sacrament the Gentiles were to be baptized. Does Marcion hold this Trinity? Does he assert the same Father the creator as we do?

Does he know the same Son Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, who is the Word made flesh, who bore our sins, who conquered death by dying, who first initiated the resurrection of the flesh through himself, and showed his disciples that he had risen in that same flesh? Far different is the faith among Marcion, but also among the other heretics. Nay, there is nothing among them but faithlessness and blasphemy and contention, the enemy of holiness and truth. How therefore can one who is baptized among them be seen to have obtained the remission of sins and the grace of divine indulgence through his faith, when he has not held the truth of the faith itself? For if, as it seems to some, a person could receive something outside the Church according to his own faith, he surely received what he believed. But believing what is false, he could not receive what is true, but rather received what was adulterous and profane, according to what he believed.

The prophet Jeremiah subtly touches upon this place of profane and adulterous baptism, saying: Why do those who grieve me prevail? My wound is grievous; whence shall I be healed? While it was being made, it became to me as deceitful water that has no faith. The Holy Spirit makes mention through the prophet of deceitful water that has no faith. What is this deceitful and faithless water? Surely that which counterfeits the image of baptism and frustrates the grace of faith with a shadowy pretense. But if someone baptized outside according to a perverse faith could obtain the remission of sins, according to that same faith he could also obtain the Holy Spirit, and it is not necessary for one coming to have a hand laid upon him that he may receive the Holy Spirit and be sealed. For either he could obtain both outside by his own faith, or he who was outside received neither of them. But it is manifest where and through whom the remission of sins can be given, which is given, namely, in baptism.

For the Lord first gave this power to Peter, upon whom he built the Church, and from whom he established and showed the origin of unity, that what he had loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven. And after the resurrection also he speaks to the apostles, saying: As the Father sent me, so I send you. When he had said this, he breathed upon them, and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall remit, they are remitted to them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. Whence we understand that it is lawful to baptize and give the remission of sins only to those set over the Church and grounded in the evangelical law and the Lord's ordinance, but that outside nothing can be either bound or loosed where there is no one who can either bind anything or loose it.

Nor do we set this forth, dearest brother, without the authority of divine Scripture, so as to say that all things have been divinely disposed by a fixed law and proper ordinance, and that no one can usurp for himself against bishops and priests anything that is not of his own right and power. For both Korah and Dathan and Abiram attempted to usurp for themselves the license of sacrificing against Moses and Aaron the priest; nor did they do with impunity what they unlawfully dared. And the sons of Aaron, who placed strange fire upon the altar, were immediately extinguished in the sight of the indignant Lord. This punishment awaits those who bring foreign water to a false baptism, so that divine judgment may punish and avenge the heretics for doing against the Church what is lawful for the Church alone.

But as to what some say concerning those who had been baptized in Samaria, that when the apostles Peter and John came, only a hand was laid upon them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, yet they were not re-baptized, we see that this passage, dearest brother, does not pertain at all to the present case. For those who had believed in Samaria had believed with true faith, and within the Church, which is one, and to which alone it is permitted to give the grace of baptism and to loose sins, they had been baptized by Philip the deacon, whom the same apostles had sent. And therefore, because they had obtained a lawful and ecclesiastical baptism, it was not necessary for them to be baptized again, but only what was lacking was done by Peter and John, that prayer being offered for them and a hand laid upon them, the Holy Spirit might be invoked and poured out upon them.

Which is also done among us now, so that those who are baptized in the Church are brought to the leaders of the Church, and through our prayer and laying on of hands they obtain the Holy Spirit and are completed with the seal of the Lord. There is therefore no reason, dearest brother, why we should think we must yield to heretics so as to think that the baptism, which has been given to the one and only Church, must be surrendered.

It is the part of a good soldier to defend the camp against rebels and enemies of his emperor. It is his glory to keep the standards entrusted to him. It is written: The Lord thy God is a jealous God. We who have received the Spirit of God ought to have zeal for the divine faith. By such zeal Phinehas found favour, and by his merit he appeased the wrath of God when the people were perishing in their indignation. Why do we count as acceptable that adulterous and alien woman, the enemy of divine unity, we who know none but one Christ and one Church of his? The Church, expressing the likeness of paradise, encloses within its walls fruit-bearing trees, of which whatever does not bear good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. These trees you water with four rivers, that is, with the four Gospels, by which the grace of saving baptism is bestowed in a heavenly flood.

Can one who is not wholly within the Church water from the fountains of the Church? Can one who is perverse and condemned by himself and banished from the fountains of paradise, and who has withered and failed through the dryness of eternal thirst, impart to anyone the wholesome and saving draughts of paradise? The Lord cries out that whoever thirsts should come and drink from the rivers of living water that flowed from his belly. Where shall the one who thirsts go? To the heretics, where there is no fountain or river of living water at all, or to the Church, which is one, founded by the voice of the Lord upon the one who also received its keys? This is the one Church which holds and possesses all the power of its Spouse and Lord. In this Church we preside; for its honour and unity we fight; its grace and glory alike we defend with faithful devotion. We, by divine permission, water the thirsting people of God; we guard the boundaries of the life-giving fountains.

If therefore we hold the right of our possession, if we acknowledge the sacrament of unity, why are we reckoned transgressors of the truth, why betrayers of unity? The faithful and saving and holy water of the Church cannot be corrupted and adulterated, just as the Church herself is incorrupt and chaste and pure. If heretics are devoted to the Church and established within the Church, they may also use its baptism and its other saving goods. But if they are not in the Church, nay rather act against the Church, how can they baptize with the baptism of the Church? For no small or trivial thing is conceded to heretics when their baptism is counted as acceptable by us, since therein begins the whole origin of faith, and the saving entrance to the hope of eternal life, and the divine condescension for purifying and quickening the servants of God. For if someone could be baptized among heretics, he could surely also obtain remission of sins.

If he obtained remission of sins, he was also sanctified and made a temple of God; if he was sanctified, if he was made a temple of God, I ask: of which God? If of the Creator, he could not be, because he did not believe in him. If of Christ, neither could he become a temple of him who denies that God is Christ. If of the Holy Spirit, since the three are one, how can the Holy Spirit be appeased toward one who is an enemy either of the Son or of the Father? Therefore they who are overcome by reason strive in vain to oppose custom to us, as though custom were greater than truth, or as though in spiritual matters that which has been revealed for the better by the Holy Spirit ought not to be followed. For one who errs in simplicity can be pardoned, as the blessed apostle Paul says of himself: Who formerly, he says, was a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly.

But after inspiration and revelation have been made, one who persists knowingly and deliberately in that wherein he had erred sins without the pardon of ignorance. For he relies on a kind of presumption and obstinacy, since he is overcome by reason. And let no one say, We follow what we received from the apostles, since the apostles handed down only one Church and one baptism, which is established only in that same Church, and we find no one who, having been baptized among heretics, was admitted in that same baptism and communicated, and it appears that the apostles approved the baptism of heretics.

For as to what some say, as though it pertained to the support of heretics that the apostle Paul said: Nevertheless in every way, whether by occasion or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed; we find that this too can profit nothing for the patronage of those who support and applaud heretics, for Paul was not speaking in his Epistle about heretics or their baptism, so as to be shown to have set down anything pertaining to this matter. He was speaking of brethren who were either walking disorderly and against ecclesiastical discipline, or keeping the evangelical truth out of fear of God.

And he set down that some of them spoke the word of the Lord steadfastly and fearlessly, but that others were engaged in envy and dissension, that some had maintained benevolent charity toward him, while others had shown malevolent dissension, yet that he bore it patiently, provided that whether in truth or by occasion the name of Christ, which Paul preached, might come to the knowledge of the many, and the new and still rough sowing of the word might grow through the preaching of those who spoke. Furthermore, it is one thing for those who are within the Church to speak of the name of Christ, and another for those who are outside and act against the Church to baptize in the name of Christ.

Wherefore let those who take the part of heretics not bring forward what Paul said of the brethren, but let them show whether he thought anything should be conceded to a heretic, or whether he approved their faith and baptism, or whether he established that the faithless and blasphemous could receive remission of sins outside the Church. But if we consider what the apostles thought concerning heretics, we shall find them in all their Epistles execrating and detesting the sacrilegious wickedness of heretics. For when they say that their word creeps like a cancer, how can that word give remission of sins which creeps like a cancer into the ears of those who hear? And when they say there is no participation of justice and iniquity, no communion of light and darkness, how can either darkness illuminate or iniquity justify? And when they say that such persons are not of God but are of the spirit of Antichrist, how do they perform spiritual and divine things who are enemies of God and whose hearts the spirit of Antichrist has possessed?

Wherefore if, setting aside the errors of human contention, we return with sincere and devout faith to the authority of the Gospel and to apostolic tradition, we shall understand that nothing of ecclesiastical and saving grace is lawful for those who, scattering and assailing the Church of Christ, are named adversaries by Christ himself and Antichrists by his apostles.

Nor is there any reason why anyone should oppose the name of Christ to circumvent Christian truth and say that wherever and in whatever manner those baptized in the name of Jesus Christ have obtained the grace of baptism, since Christ himself speaks and says: Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, and again forewarns and instructs that no one should be easily deceived in his name by false prophets and false Christs: Many, he says, will come in my name saying: I am Christ, and will deceive many; and afterward he adds saying: But take heed yourselves. Behold I have foretold you all things. Whence it is plain that those things which are proclaimed in the name of Christ are not immediately to be regarded and received, but those things which are done in the truth of Christ.

For the reason why the name of Jesus Christ is set forth in the Gospels and in the Epistles of the apostles for the remission of sins is not as though the Son alone, without the Father or against the Father, could profit anyone, but in order to show the Jews, who boasted that they had the Father, that the Father would profit them nothing unless they believed in the Son whom he had sent. For those who knew God the Father the Creator ought also to know Christ the Son, lest they flatter and congratulate themselves on the Father alone without acknowledgment of his Son, who also said: No one comes to the Father except through me. Moreover, that the knowledge of both is what saves, he himself makes plain saying: And this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

Since therefore, from the very preaching and testimony of Christ himself, the Father who sent must first be known, and then Christ who was sent, and since there can be no hope of salvation unless both are known together, how are those who are said to have been baptized among heretics in the name of Christ, with God the Father not known but even blasphemed, judged to have obtained remission of sins? For the case of the Jews under the apostles was one thing, and the condition of the Gentiles is another. The Jews, because they had already obtained the most ancient baptism of the law and of Moses, were also to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, according to what Peter says to them in the Acts of the Apostles: Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For to you is this promise and to your children and to all who are hereafter, as many as the Lord our God shall call. Peter makes mention of Jesus Christ, not as though the Father were omitted, but that the Son might also be joined to the Father.

Finally, when after the resurrection the apostles are sent by the Lord to the Gentiles, they are commanded to baptize the Gentiles in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. How then do some say that a Gentile baptized outside the Church, nay even against the Church, merely in the name of Jesus Christ, wherever and in whatever manner, can obtain remission of sins, when Christ himself commands the Gentiles to be baptized in the full and united Trinity? Unless perhaps one who denies Christ is denied by Christ, but one who denies his Father, whom Christ himself confessed, is not denied; and one who blasphemes against him whom Christ called his Lord and God is rewarded by Christ and obtains remission of sins and the sanctification of baptism.

But by what power can one who denies God the Creator, the Father of Christ, obtain remission of sins in baptism, when Christ himself received from that same Father the very power by which we are baptized and sanctified—he whom he called greater, from whom he sought to be glorified, whose will he fulfilled even to the obedience of drinking the cup and undergoing death? What else is it therefore than to become a partaker with blaspheming heretics, to wish to defend and assert that one who gravely blasphemes and sins against the Father and Lord and God of Christ can receive remission of sins in the name of Christ?

What then is the nature of this: that one who denies the Son of God has neither the Father, and one who denies the Father is seen to have the Son, when the Son himself testifies and says, No one can come to me unless it has been given to him by the Father; so that it is manifest that no remission of sins can be received in baptism from the Son which the Father has not given, especially since the same one repeats again and says: Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.

But if the disciples of Christ are unwilling to learn from Christ how much reverence and honor is owed to the Father's name, let them learn and know from earthly and worldly examples, which Christ set forth with the greatest reproach: The children of this world are wiser than the children of light. In this world, if someone insults another man's father, if with a slanderous and insolent mouth he tears at his dignity and honor, the son is indignant and angry, and strives with whatever strength he can to avenge the injury done to his wounded father. Do you think that Christ grants impunity to the impious and sacrilegious and to those who blaspheme against His Father, and remits their sins in baptism, when it is established that those baptized still heap the same curses upon the person of the Father and sin by the unceasing wickedness of a blaspheming tongue? Can a Christian, can a servant of God, either conceive this in his mind, or believe it in faith, or utter it in speech?

And where will be the precepts of the divine law, which say, Honor thy father and thy mother, if the name of father, which is commanded to be honored in a man, is violated with impunity in God? Where will be what Christ Himself sets forth in the Gospel and says: He who curses father or mother, let him die the death, if He who commands that those who curse their carnal parents be punished and put to death, Himself gives life to those who curse the heavenly and spiritual Father and are enemies of the Church their mother? A thing utterly execrable and detestable is asserted by some, that He who threatens that whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit shall be guilty of eternal sin, is said to sanctify by saving baptism those who blaspheme against God the Father.

And now those who think that such persons coming to the Church should be admitted to communion without baptism do not think that they are sharing in the sins of others—nay, in eternal sins—by admitting without baptism those who can lay down the sins of their blasphemies only in baptism.

How vain and perverse it is, moreover, that when heretics themselves, having repudiated and abandoned the error or wickedness in which they previously were, acknowledge the truth of the Church, we should mutilate the rights and sacrament of that same truth, and say to those who come and repent that they have obtained remission of sins, when they themselves confess both that they have sinned and that for this reason they come to the indulgence of the Church? Wherefore we ought, dearest brother, both to hold firmly and to teach the faith and truth of the Catholic Church, and through all the evangelical and apostolic precepts to set forth the reason of the divine dispensation and unity.

Can the power of baptism be greater or mightier than confession, than passion, whereby one confesses Christ before men and is baptized in his own blood? And yet not even this baptism profits a heretic, even though he has confessed Christ and been slain outside the Church; unless the patrons and advocates of heretics proclaim as martyrs heretics slain in a false confession of Christ, and contrary to the testimony of the Apostle, who says that they can profit nothing, even though burned and slain, assign to them the glory and crown of suffering. But if not even the baptism of public confession and blood can profit a heretic unto salvation, because there is no salvation outside the Church, how much less will it profit him if, baptized in some hiding place and den of robbers by the contagion of adulterous water, he has not only not put off his former sins, but has rather heaped up new and greater ones?

Wherefore baptism cannot be common to us and to heretics, with whom we share neither God the Father, nor Christ the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, nor faith, nor the Church itself. And therefore those who come from heresy to the Church ought to be baptized, so that those who are prepared for the kingdom of God by divine regeneration through the lawful and true and sole baptism of the holy Church may be born through both sacraments, because it is written: Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

On this point certain persons, as though they could nullify by human argument the truth of the evangelical proclamation, oppose to us the case of catechumens, asking whether, if any of these is seized and slain in confession of the Name before being baptized in the Church, he loses the hope of salvation and the reward of confession because he was not first reborn of water. Let such persons, therefore, supporters and favorers of heretics, know that those catechumens first hold the complete faith and truth of the Church and go forth to fight the devil from the divine camp with full and sincere knowledge of God the Father and of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, and furthermore that they are not deprived of the sacrament of baptism, inasmuch as they are baptized with the most glorious and greatest baptism of blood, of which the Lord also said that He had another baptism to be baptized with.

Moreover, that those baptized in their own blood and sanctified by their passion are perfected and attain the grace of the divine promise, the same Lord declares in the Gospel, when He speaks to the thief who believed and confessed in the very moment of his passion, and promises that he shall be with Him in paradise. Wherefore we who preside over faith and truth ought not to deceive and mislead those who come to faith and truth and, doing penance, beg that their sins be remitted to them, but, having corrected and reformed them, should instruct them by heavenly disciplines for the kingdom of heaven.

But someone says: What then will become of those who in times past came from heresy to the Church and were admitted without baptism? The Lord is able in His mercy to grant indulgence and not to separate from the gifts of His Church those who, having been admitted to the Church in simplicity, fell asleep in the Church. Nevertheless, because an error was once made, it is not therefore always to be made; since it is more fitting for the wise and God-fearing to yield willingly and without delay to a truth that has been revealed and made clear, than to contend pertinaciously and obstinately against brothers and fellow-priests on behalf of heretics.

Nor let anyone suppose that heretics are deterred from coming to the Church, as though scandalized by the name of a second baptism, because baptism is set against them. On the contrary, by this very thing they are the more compelled by the necessity of coming, through the testimony of the truth shown and proved to them: for if they see that it is decreed and established by our judgment and sentence that the baptism with which they are baptized there is to be counted just and lawful, they will think that they also justly and lawfully possess the Church and the other gifts of the Church; and there will be no reason to come to us, since, having baptism, they will seem to have the rest as well.

But when they learn that there is no baptism outside, and that remission of sins cannot be given outside the Church, they hasten to us more eagerly and more readily, and implore the gifts and graces of the Church their mother, certain that they can by no means attain to the true promise of divine grace unless they first come to the truth of the Church: nor will heretics refuse to be baptized among us with the lawful and true baptism of the Church, when they have learned from us that even those who had already been baptized with the baptism of John were baptized by Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles.

And now among some of our people the baptism of heretics is asserted to have been taken possession of, and out of a certain envy it is held to be wrong to baptize after the enemies of God, as though rebaptizing; when we find that those were baptized whom John had baptized—that John who was held to be the greatest among the prophets, who was filled with divine grace even in his mother's womb, who was supported by the spirit and power of Elijah, who was not an adversary of the Lord but His forerunner and herald, who not only foretold our Lord in words but also pointed Him out with his eyes, who baptized Christ Himself, through whom all others are baptized.

But if a heretic was therefore able to obtain the right of baptism because he baptized first, then baptism will belong not to the one who possesses it but to the one who seized it first; and since baptism and the Church can in no way be separated and divided from each other, whoever was first able to seize baptism has likewise seized the Church, and you begin to appear to him as the heretic who, having been forestalled, began to be the later one, who by yielding and giving way abandoned the right you had received. How dangerous it is in divine matters for anyone to yield his right and power, Holy Scripture declares, when in Genesis Esau lost his birthright thereby, and was afterwards unable to recover what he had once surrendered.

These things we have written back to you briefly, dearest brother, according to our humble capacity, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one as to how each bishop should act according to what he thinks, having free power of his own judgment. We, for our part, do not contend with our colleagues and fellow-bishops on account of heretics, with whom we maintain divine concord and the Lord's peace; especially since the Apostle also says: But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

Charity of spirit, the honor of the college, the bond of faith, and the harmony of the priesthood are patiently and gently preserved by us. For this reason also we have now written a treatise On the Good of Patience, to the best of our humble ability, with the Lord's permission and inspiration, which we have sent to you out of mutual affection. I wish you, dearest brother, always good health.