Fragment of the Letter to Pope Sixtus II

For truly, brother, I have need of counsel, and I seek your judgment, lest perhaps I err, concerning a matter which has befallen me of such a kind. A certain one of the brethren who gather at the church, long since held to be among the faithful, and who before my ordination, and unless I am mistaken, even before the episcopate of Heraclas himself, had been a partaker of the assembly of the faithful—when he had been present at the baptism of those who were recently baptized, and had heard the questions and responses, he came to me weeping and lamenting his own condition. And casting himself at my feet, he began to confess and to swear that the baptism by which he had been initiated among the heretics was not of such a kind, nor had anything at all in common with this our own: inasmuch as it had been full of impiety and blasphemy.

And he said that his soul was pierced with a most bitter sense of grief, and that he did not dare even to lift his eyes to God, because he had been initiated with those wicked words and rites. Wherefore he besought that he might be granted the reception and grace of this most pure washing. This indeed I did not dare to do; but I told him that his long communion had been sufficient for this purpose. For one who has heard the giving of thanks, and who has responded Amen together with the rest; who has stood at the holy table, and has stretched forth his hands to receive the holy food, and has received it, and has for a very long time been a partaker of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ—him I would not have dared to renew again from the beginning. But I bade him be of good confidence, and to approach the participation of the saints with firm faith and good conscience.