On Rebaptism

Therefore, as we approach the discussion of the saving and new, that is, the spiritual and evangelical baptism, there first presents itself to all the most well-known proclamation celebrated and begun by John the Baptist, who departing somewhat from the law, that is from the most ancient baptism of Moses, and preparing the way of the new and true grace, and by the baptism of water and penitence which he meanwhile practiced, was gradually anticipating and occupying the ears of the Jews with the announcement of the future spiritual baptism, exhorting them and saying: He who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandal I am not worthy to unfasten. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. For which reason our beginning of this discourse too must start from here.

For the Lord also, confirming this same word of John after his resurrection in the Acts of the Apostles, commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await that promise of the Father which you heard from me, because John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days hence. Likewise Peter rehearsed the same words of the Lord, rendering an account of himself before the Apostles by saying: But as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as upon us also at the beginning; and I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said: John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If therefore he gave them the equal gift as also to us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could withstand God?

And again: Men and brethren, you know that from early days God chose among us that through my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel and believe: and God who knows hearts bore witness, giving them the Holy Spirit just as also to us. And therefore we ought to consider what is the force and power of this statement. For the Lord says to those who were afterwards to be baptized, because they were to be baptized as believers, not as by him in water unto repentance, but in the Holy Spirit. Since none of us can doubt this proclamation, it is manifest by what means men have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

For indeed they were properly baptized in the Holy Spirit alone who believed, because John distinguished and said, declaring that he indeed baptized in water, but that he who was to come would baptize in the Holy Spirit—by the grace and power of God both secretly bestowing and working this—and none the less also in the baptism of spirit and water, and moreover also in the baptism of the Spirit in the individual's own blood, as the holy Scriptures declare to us, of which we shall bring forward clear proofs for each of the things we shall recount.

To which perhaps you, who introduce something new, may immediately respond with impatience, as is your custom, that the Lord said in the Gospel: Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. From which it plainly appears that baptism alone profits him in whom the Holy Spirit can also dwell: for upon the Lord himself, when he was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended, and his deed and word alike agree, nor can this mystery subsist by any other means. To this response none of us is found so insane or so stubborn as to dare to contradict what is against right or against truth; namely, with all things intact and to be conducted in every way thus in the Church and perpetually observed by us according to the order of discipline.

But if in the same New Testament these things which we find joined together in this matter are sometimes found in some manner divided and separated and so arranged as if they were individual; let us see whether they can sometimes also exist individually and alone, as though not mutilated, but as though whole and perfect. For when the Holy Spirit is given to each believer through the laying on of the hand of the bishop, as the apostles did to the Samaritans after the baptism of Philip by laying hands on them, and in this way conferred the Holy Spirit upon them (that this might be done, they themselves prayed for them; for the Spirit had not yet descended upon any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus), our Lord also after the resurrection, when he had breathed upon his apostles and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit, thus at last bestowed the Holy Spirit upon them.

Since this is how it is found, what seems right to you, brother? If someone baptized not by a bishop, so that even if a hand were laid upon him immediately thereafter, yet before he received the Holy Spirit he had died, do you judge that he received salvation or not: since indeed both the apostles themselves and the disciples, who also baptized others, who were also baptized by the Lord, did not immediately receive the Holy Spirit, who was not yet given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified: but after his Resurrection not even a small interval of time in which this was done intervened.

Just as also when the Samaritans were baptized by Philip, until the apostles, summoned from Jerusalem, came down to them in Samaria to lay hands on them and confer the Holy Spirit upon them through the laying on of hands: since in that interval of time some one of them, not having received the Holy Spirit, could have been cut off by death, and could have died deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Which even today cannot be doubted to be customary and to happen regularly, that very many depart from this world after baptism without the laying on of the hand of the bishop, and yet are held to be perfect believers. Just as the Ethiopian eunuch, when he was returning from Jerusalem and was reading the prophet Isaiah and was perplexed, at the prompting of the Spirit, having heard the truth from Philip the deacon, believed and was baptized: and when he had come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more.

For he went on his way rejoicing, because, as you observe, no hand was laid upon him by a bishop that he might receive the Holy Spirit. But if you admit this and believe it to be saving, and do not contradict the opinion of all the faithful, it is necessary that you confess—and as this proceeds more broadly in the discussion, that other point too can stand more broadly—that is, that through the laying on of the hand of the bishop alone, because baptism in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord has preceded, the Holy Spirit can also be bestowed upon another man who is penitent and believing; since the holy Scripture foretold that those who were to believe in Christ ought to be baptized in the Spirit; so that these also may not seem to have anything less than those who are perfect Christians, lest it be necessary to inquire what sort of baptism it was that they received in the name of Jesus Christ.

Unless perhaps in that earlier discussion also, concerning those who have been baptized only in the name of Christ Jesus, you should determine that they can be saved even without the Holy Spirit, or not by this means alone, but that the Holy Spirit was accustomed to be bestowed through the laying on of the hand of the bishop, or that you should say that it was not the bishop who was accustomed to bestow the Holy Spirit.

But if this is so, and any of these occurrences can happen without snatching away salvation from a man who believes, you yourself also acknowledge that a half-completed mystery of faith—and not, as you contend, a consummated one—cannot, when necessity intervenes, take away salvation from a man who believes and repents. Or if you say that a man of this kind cannot be saved, we take away salvation from all bishops, whom you bind with such very certain dangers that they ought personally to come to the aid of all the people who are under their care and who fall ill scattered here and there throughout their regions; since other men, lesser than the clergy who are in peril, cannot render the same service: lest the blood of those who shall appear to have gone out of the world empty be required at the hands of the bishops.

Moreover, as you are not unaware, the Holy Spirit is found to have been given by the Lord to believers without the baptism of water, as is contained in the Acts of the Apostles in this manner: While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were hearing the word; and those of the circumcision who believed, as many as had come with Peter, were astonished, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles also. For they heard them speaking in their own tongues and magnifying God. Then Peter answered: Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Just as the same Peter also afterwards taught us most fully concerning these same Gentiles, saying: And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

And it will not be in doubt that men can be baptized in the Holy Spirit without water, just as you observe that these were baptized before they were baptized with water, so that satisfaction might be given both to the preachings of John and of the Lord himself: seeing that even without the laying on of the apostles' hands and without the washing which they afterwards received, they had received the grace of the promise; and so, their hearts having been cleansed a little before, God through their faith had at the same time also granted them remission of sins, so that the subsequent baptism alone conferred this upon them: that they might also receive the invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, lest anything should seem to be lacking to them for the fullness of ministry and faith.

Which also from the contrary side of this treatise those very disciples of our Lord attained, upon whom, already long since baptized, the Holy Spirit came on the last day of Pentecost—descending from heaven by the will of God, not of its own accord, but poured out for this very gift and sitting upon each one of them—when they had already, as we said, been baptized with the baptism of the Lord, just as the apostles themselves also had been; who nevertheless are all found to have forsaken the Lord on the night on which he was seized: and that very Peter who boasted that he would persevere in his faith and most stubbornly resisted the Lord's own prediction, in the end denied him; so that by this reasoning it might be shown to us that the sins which they had in some manner contracted in the intervening time were without doubt forgiven in them afterwards through the baptism of the Holy Spirit by means of that sincere faith.

And I think there was no other reason why the apostles urged those to whom they spoke in the Holy Spirit to be baptized in the name of Christ Jesus, except that the power of the name of Jesus, invoked over any man whatsoever in baptism, could confer upon the one being baptized no small advantage for the attainment of salvation, as Peter declares in the Acts of the Apostles, saying: For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Just as the apostle Paul also makes plain, showing that God exalted Jesus our Lord and gave him a name for this purpose, that it should be above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father.

And he in whom, when he was baptized, the name of Jesus had been invoked, even if he should fall into some error, would not on that account be barred from ever thinking rightly and correcting his error and coming to the Church and to the bishop and sincerely confessing our Jesus before men; so that when the bishop then laid hands upon him, he might also receive the Holy Spirit, nor would he lose that former invocation of the name of Jesus, which none of us is permitted to condemn—since this invocation, bare and alone, if it be established in error, could not suffice to bestow salvation; lest by this reasoning we should also believe that Gentiles and heretics who abuse the name of Jesus can attain salvation without the true and complete reality.

Yet it is most useful to believe that this invocation of the name of Jesus, when error is corrected and the faith of truth is acknowledged and all the stain of past conduct is cut away, has by the mystery of God duly accomplished in men of this kind obtained the place which it was not going to have, and in the end does not hinder in right faith and in furnishing the fullness of the seal—when the supplement of what was lacking is added—and to acquiesce with good reason in the authority of so many years and so many churches and likewise of apostles and bishops: since it is the greatest inconvenience and loss to the most holy Mother Church to rise up suddenly and without reason for the first time against ancient decisions after so long a succession of so many ages.

For it was for no other reason that Peter, who had already been baptized, and who had been asked by the Lord himself what he thought of the Lord, and in whom the truth of the revelation of the heavenly Father had been placed—in that he had confessed that our Lord was not only the Christ but also the Son of the living God—was afterwards shown to have opposed the same Christ when he was foretelling his passion, and was therefore shown to be called Satan; except that it was going to come about that certain persons, even though wavering in their own opinion and limping at times in faith and doctrine, when baptized in the name of Jesus, would nevertheless not on that account fall away from salvation if after some interval of time they had been able to correct it, but whenever they came to their senses they would obtain the full hope of salvation by repenting: especially since they had received the Holy Spirit, in whom each man must be baptized, and had signified something of this kind; just as we find in the Gospel that not only Peter suffered this, but also all the disciples, to whom, already baptized, the Lord afterwards said: You will all be scandalized in me; all of whom, as we observe, after correcting their faith following the resurrection of the Lord, were baptized in the Holy Spirit: so that not without reason we may believe today also that men corrected from their former error can be baptized in the Holy Spirit, who when they were baptized with water in the name of the Lord had held a somewhat rough faith; since it matters greatly whether someone has not been baptized at all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or whether he limps in some respect when he is baptized with the baptism of water, which is the lesser, provided that afterwards the faith in the baptism of the Spirit, which is without doubt the greater, is established in sincere truth.

Nor should you think it contrary to this treatise that the Lord said: Go, teach the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For although this is true and right and must be observed in the Church in every way, and has also been customarily observed, yet one must consider that the invocation of the name of Jesus ought not to seem futile to us on account of the reverence and power of that name itself: in which name all powers are accustomed to be wrought, and sometimes certain ones even by men who are strangers.

Otherwise, to what do those words of Christ pertain, who said that he would deny and not know those who on the day of judgment would say to him: Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do great mighty works in your name?—responding to them even with an oath that he never knew them: Depart from me, you who work iniquity; except that it might be shown to us that sometimes even by those who work iniquity these things can be done through the exceeding power of the name of Jesus?

Therefore this invocation of the name of Jesus ought to be received as a kind of beginning of the Lord's mystery, common to us and to all others, which can afterwards be completed by the remaining things; otherwise such an invocation will be of no profit when it has remained alone, because after the death of such a man nothing whatever can be added to him or supplied or be of any benefit on the day of judgment, when those things which we recalled above shall have begun to be reproached to them by our Lord—all of whom today, however, cannot be so harshly and so cruelly forbidden by any man from having recourse to those means by which we have shown above.

But to these things, as is your custom, you will object, opposing to us that the disciples were baptized completely and rightly when they were baptized, and not as these heretics were baptized: which you must take from the persons of the disciples themselves and of him who baptized them. And therefore we do not respond to this proposition of yours as accusers of the disciples of the Lord, but as we are compelled; because it is necessary that we investigate by reasoning where and when and in what manner salvation has been bestowed upon each one of us.

For it seemed not unreasonably credible to his disciples for many reasons that our Lord had been born and was the Christ: that he had been born of the tribe of Judah, of the lineage of David, and in the city of Bethlehem; and that at that very moment it had been announced to the shepherds by angels that a Savior had been born to them; that his star seen in the east had been most diligently sought out by the Magi and he had been adored and honored with illustrious gifts and distinguished offerings; that as a young boy sitting in the temple with the teachers of the law he had disputed wisely and to the admiration of all; that when he was baptized, as had happened to no other, with the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descending and remaining upon him, he had been glorified also by the testimony of his Father and likewise of John the Baptist; that he understood the hearts and thoughts of all men beyond human capacity; that he cured and healed infirmities and ailments and diseases with the greatest power; that he bestowed remissions of sins with evident proof; that he expelled demons by command; that he cleansed lepers by a word; that by turning water into wine he enlarged a wedding feast with wonderful joy; that he restored or granted sight to the blind; that he proclaimed the teaching of the Father with all confidence; that in a desert place he satisfied five thousand men from five loaves; that the remnants and fragments filled more than twelve baskets; that he raised the dead everywhere out of his compassion; that he commanded the winds and the sea to be still; that he walked upon the sea on foot; that he accomplished all powers whatsoever.

By these things and by many other deeds of a similar kind pertaining to his glory, it seemed to follow that, just as the Jews think concerning Christ—though they do not believe this of Jesus Christ our Lord—so even they supposed that one so great and so mighty would persist in eternity without undergoing any death, and would possess the kingdom of Israel and of the whole world in perpetuity without it being taken away. Hence the Jews even dared to seize him and anoint him as king: which he was compelled to flee from: and for this reason his disciples supposed that he would bestow eternal life upon them by no other means than by first having joined this temporal life with that eternal life in himself. Finally, when they were conversing in Galilee, Jesus said to them: The Son of man is beginning to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and after three days he will rise again.

And they were exceedingly sorrowful, because, as we have said, they had previously conceived something far different in their minds and hearts. Indeed this was also the word of contradiction among the Jews against him, when he himself was teaching them and announcing things to come; but they said: We have heard from the law that Christ abides forever: and how do you say that the Son of man must be lifted up? And so this same presumption concerning Christ was held by the disciples, bursting forth into this word of their unbelief with Peter himself, the leader and prince of the apostles, at the fore.

For when he had been asked by the Lord, together with the rest, what he thought of him, that is, whom he considered him to be; and had first confessed the truth, saying that he was Christ the Son of the living God; and had therefore been judged blessed by him because he had attained this not in a carnal manner but through the revelation of the heavenly Father: yet the same man, when Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and priests and scribes, and be killed and rise again on the third day; nonetheless, that true confessor of Christ, a few days later, taking him aside, began to rebuke him saying: Be it far from you, Lord, this shall not be; so that for this reason he deserved to hear from the Lord, Get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me; because he did not savor the things that are of God, but the things that are of men.

This rebuke against Peter shone forth more and more when the Lord was seized, when, terrified by a serving-maid, he said: I know not what you say, neither do I know you. And again when he said the same thing with an oath added, and a third time, cursing and swearing, affirmed that he did not know the man, and had denied him not once but repeatedly: which resolve of his, because it was to persist until the passion of the Lord, was made known openly by the Lord long before, so that we too might not be ignorant of it.

Finally, after the resurrection of the Lord, one of his disciples, Cleopas, being sorrowful according to the error of all his fellow disciples, reporting to the Lord himself as to some stranger what had happened, spoke thus, saying of Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how the priests and our rulers delivered him up to the condemnation of death and crucified him; but we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel.

In accordance with this, all the disciples likewise judged the assertion of the women who had seen the Lord after the resurrection to be idle tales; and some of them, when they saw him, did not believe but doubted; and those who were not then present did not believe at all, unless they had afterwards been rebuked and reproved by the Lord himself in every way: because his death had so offended them that they thought he had not risen, since they had believed he ought not to die; because he had once died contrary to their expectation. And so, as regards the disciples themselves, they are found to have had neither complete nor perfect faith in the ways we have recounted; and what is far more serious, as is written in the Gospel according to John, they were also baptizing others.

Furthermore, what will you say about those who are for the most part baptized by bishops of the worst conduct: who nevertheless, when God wills it, being convicted in their crimes, are deprived even of communion itself or entirely cut off from it? Or what will you determine concerning those who have been baptized by bishops who hold perverse opinions or are rather ignorant? When they have not spoken clearly and fully, or even otherwise than is proper, in the handing on of the sacrament; certainly either they have asked something, or those asking have heard from those answering what ought by no means to be asked or answered in that way; which nevertheless does not greatly injure that right faith of ours, but these simpler men also hand on the mystery of faith not so elegantly and composedly as you do.

For you will certainly say, with your singular diligence, that these too must be baptized again, especially since the thing is lacking to them or stands in the way of their being able to receive that inviolable divine mystery of faith undefiled. But, best of men, let us restore and allow to the heavenly powers their own strength, and let us concede to the condescension of the divine majesty its proper operations, and understanding how great the benefit in it is, let us gladly acquiesce in it.

And therefore, since our salvation is established in the baptism of the Spirit, which is for the most part joined with the baptism of water, if indeed baptism is administered by us, let it be assigned fully and solemnly and in all things as written, and let it be handed on without any separation of any element; or if it has been administered by the lesser clergy out of necessity, let us await the outcome so that it may either be supplied by us or be reserved to be supplied by the Lord; but if it has been administered by strangers, let it be corrected as this matter can be and as it admits: because the Holy Spirit is not outside the Church, and faith also cannot be sound not only among heretics but even among those who are established in schism.

And therefore to those doing penance and corrected through the teaching of truth and through their own faith, which has afterwards been amended with their heart purified, assistance ought to be given by the baptism of the Spirit alone, that is, by the laying on of the hand of the bishop and the ministration of the Holy Spirit; and the complete sign of faith is rightly accustomed to be handed on in the Church in this manner and for this reason; lest the invocation of the name of Jesus, which cannot be abolished, should seem to be held in contempt by us: which certainly ought not to be; although such an invocation, if none of the things we have mentioned has followed, ceases and is void in its operation of salvation.

For since the apostle says there is one baptism, it is necessary, with the invocation of the name of Jesus persisting—because what has once been invoked cannot be taken away by any man—if we shall have dared to double it contrary to the decree of the apostles out of an excess of zeal for bestowing, or rather for adding, baptism: if he who returns to the Church is unwilling to be baptized again, it will come about that we defraud of the baptism of the Spirit him whom we think must not be defrauded of the baptism of water.

But what will you determine in the case of one who, hearing the word, was perhaps seized in the name of Christ, immediately confessed, and before he was permitted to be baptized with water, was put to death; will you declare that he has perished because he was not baptized with water, or will you think that something from without pleads on behalf of his salvation, even though he was not baptized with water? If you think he has perished, the sentence of the Lord will come to meet you, saying: Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven: because it makes no difference whether it is one hearing the word or a believer who confesses the Lord, provided he confesses that very Christ whom it is fitting to confess: because the Lord, confessing in equal measure, will himself adorn his confessor before the Father with the honor of his martyrdom, as he has promised.

Which certainly ought not to be taken more broadly, as though it could be extended everywhere, because even some heretic who nevertheless denies Christ himself can confess the name of Christ; because he believes in another Christ, while confessing Christ in a way that can profit him not at all: since the Lord did not say that he himself must be brought forward in confession by us before men, which cannot be done without him and without his venerable name. And therefore both must stand complete and sincere and undefiled and inviolate for the one confessing, with no distinction made of the confessor himself, whether he be just or a sinner, a perfect Christian, or even now imperfect, who did not fear to confess the Lord at the utmost peril to himself.

Nor is this contrary to the foregoing discussion: because there indeed time remains for correcting the many things that are wrong or perverse, and because certain things have been granted to the very name alone of our Lord, but martyrdom can be consummated only in the Lord himself and through him; and therefore neither can anyone confess Christ without his name, nor can the name of Christ without Christ himself avail anyone for confession.

Wherefore this entire treatise must be carefully distinguished, so that it may be made more clear. For the invocation of the name of Jesus can avail only if it has afterward been duly completed, because both the prophets and the apostles so proclaimed. For James says in the Acts of the Apostles: Men and brethren, hear me. Simon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name: and to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written: After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up again, that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.

And so both the residue of men, that is, certain of the Jews, and all the Gentiles upon whom the name of the Lord is called, are able and are bound to seek the Lord, because the very invocation of the name gives them occasion, or even lays upon them the necessity, of seeking the Lord; with whom the Holy Scriptures, whether all or some, command us to deal in hearing about the truth, rather than with the Gentiles upon whom the name of the Lord Jesus, the Son of the living God, has not been called, just as neither has it been called upon the Jews, who receive only the old Scriptures. And therefore both these kinds of men, that is, Jews and Gentiles, when they believe fully as is fitting, are baptized in like manner.

But heretics who have already been baptized with water in the name of Jesus Christ are to be baptized only in the Holy Spirit: and in Jesus, whose name alone is given under heaven whereby we must be saved, death is rightly despised; for if they so persevere, they cannot be saved, because they have not sought the Lord after the invocation of his name upon them, just as also those who perhaps were unwilling to believe in Christ, of whom the Lord says: Take heed that no man lead you into error. For many shall come in my name saying: I am Christ; and shall lead many into error. And again he says: Then if any man shall say unto you: Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, even the elect shall be led into error. Which mighty works those men will doubtless then perform under the name of Christ.

In which name certain persons seem even now to perform some mighty works, and to prophesy falsely. But it is certain that, because they themselves are not Christ's, they therefore do not belong to Christ; just as also if anyone should fall away from Christ, cleaving to his name alone, he is not much helped thereby, nay rather is even burdened by this name, though he may have been beforehand most faithful or most just, or honored with some rank in the clergy, or endowed with the dignity of confession.

For all these, by denying the true Christ and introducing or following another—since there is absolutely no other—leave themselves no hope or salvation: no differently than those who denied Christ before men, who must needs be denied by Christ, no account being taken of their former manner of life or understanding or dignity; inasmuch as they themselves dared to abrogate Christ, that is, their own salvation, condemned by a clause of this kind, because it has been most plainly said by the Lord: Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven: so that this word, Whosoever, even in the clause of confession, most fully shows us that no condition of the one confessing can be of harm; whether that denier was beforehand either a heretic, or one hearing or beginning to hear, who has not yet been baptized, or one converted from heresy to the truth of the faith, or one who had departed from the Church and afterward returned; and then when returning, before the hand of the bishop had been laid upon him, had been seized and compelled to confess Christ before men—just as again for one denying Christ no former personal dignity can avail unto salvation.

For whatever shall have been found last in a man in this regard, by that each one of us will necessarily be judged, all things which he did before being abolished and blotted out. And therefore, since in martyrdom there is so great a change of circumstances in a moment of time, that in a thing exceedingly swift all things can be changed; let no one flatter himself who has lost the occasion of glorious salvation, if perhaps he has shut himself out from it by his own fault: just as that wife of Lot, who likewise in the straits of circumstances, contrary to the command of the angels, only looked back behind her, and was made a pillar of salt.

By which reasoning also that heretic who, by confessing the name of Christ, is slaughtered, will be able to correct nothing afterward, if he has thought wrongly about God or about Christ, since by believing in another God or in another Christ he has deceived himself, being a confessor not of Christ, but of the name of Christ alone; since the Apostle also says accordingly: And if I deliver my body so as to be burned, but have not love, I profit nothing. Because by this deed he profits nothing who does not have love of that God and Christ, who through the law and the prophets and in the Gospel is proclaimed in this world: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. For on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. As also John the Evangelist says: And everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God; because God is love.

As also God says: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but should have eternal life. So that it might plainly appear that he who does not have within himself this love of loving us and of being loved by us profits nothing by an empty confession and passion, as it is plain and established that he is a heretic who believes in another god or accepts another Christ than whom the Scriptures of the New and Old Testament plainly proclaim, which announce without obscurity the Father almighty, creator of all things, and his Son.

For it will befall them as those who await salvation from another God: then at last, contrary to their expectation, they will be condemned to eternal punishment by Christ, the Son of God the Father almighty the creator, whom they blasphemed, when God shall begin to judge the hidden things of men according to the Gospel through Christ Jesus; because they did not believe in him, although they were washed in his name.

And to such a degree can all that baptism of heretics be corrected by the intervention of some interval of time, if anyone has survived and corrected his faith, that our God in the Gospel according to Luke spoke to his disciples saying: But I have another baptism to be baptized with. Likewise according to Mark he had said in the same manner to the sons of Zebedee: Can you drink the cup that I drink; or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? Because he knew that men are to be baptized not only with water, but also with their own blood: so that those baptized with this baptism alone can also attain an integral faith and a sincere worthiness of the washing and be baptized in both ways, yet equally obtain one baptism of salvation and honor alike and equally.

For what was said by the Lord, I have another baptism to be baptized with, does not in this place signify a second baptism, as if there were two baptisms, but demonstrates that a baptism of another kind also, concurring unto the same salvation, has been granted to us.

Both of which kinds it was fitting that our Lord himself should first initiate and sanctify, so that for us also either or both kinds might furnish this one twofold saving and honorable baptism; and certain ways of one baptism might thus be opened to us, so that sometimes one of them might be absent without harm, just as for martyrs who hear the word the baptism of water is absent without harm, whom we are certain, if they have any respite, were accustomed to be baptized also with water: and likewise for those who have been made lawful believers, the baptism of their own blood is absent without harm; because baptized in the name of Christ, they are redeemed by the most precious blood of the Lord, since both of these streams of the Lord's baptism proceed from one and the same source, so that everyone who thirsts may come and drink, as Scripture says: Rivers of living water flowed from his belly.

Which rivers first appeared in the Lord's passion, from whose side pierced by the soldier's lance blood and water flowed, so as to send forth two streams of different kind, yet from the same and single side, so that whoever believes and drinks from either stream may be filled with the Holy Spirit. For the Lord, speaking of these rivers, was showing this, signifying the Holy Spirit whom those who were to believe in him were to receive. But the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Therefore, saying in what manner that which the Apostle proclaims to be one baptism can be generated, it is certainly manifest by that reasoning, because the kinds are diverse of one and the same baptism flowing from one wound into water and blood; since there are those two baptisms of water of which we have spoken, that is, of one and the same kind, since there ought to be one baptism of each kind, as we have spoken more fully.

And since we seem to have divided all spiritual baptism into three parts, let us also come to the proof of the proposed account, lest we seem to have done this by our own judgment and rashly. For John says of our Lord in his Epistle, teaching us: This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not in water only, but in water and blood. And the Spirit is he who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth; because three bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood. And these three are one. So that from those we may gather that water is accustomed to bestow the Spirit, and that one's own blood is accustomed to bestow the Spirit upon men, and that the Spirit himself also is accustomed to bestow the Spirit alone.

For since water is poured out just as blood also is, and the Spirit also was poured out by the Lord upon all who believed, certainly both by water and no less by their own blood, and then also by the Holy Spirit, men can be baptized. For Peter says: But this is what was spoken by the prophet: It shall come to pass in the last days, says the Lord, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and daughters shall prophesy, and young men shall see visions, and old men shall dream dreams. And indeed upon my servants and upon my handmaidens I will pour out of my Spirit. Which Spirit in the Old Testament, not indeed everywhere nor abundantly, but shared with others, or even spontaneously leaping upon certain men, or clothing them or being upon them, we find, just as we observe it was said by the Lord to Moses concerning the seventy elders: And I will take of the Spirit that is upon thee, and will put it upon them.

On account of which also according to his promise God took from another of the Spirit that had been upon Moses, and put it upon them, and they prophesied in the camp: which Moses, as a spiritual man, rejoiced had come to pass, although he was urged against his will by Joshua the son of Nun to intercede in this matter, and therefore was not moved. Furthermore in the book of Judges, likewise in the books of Kings, we observe that the Spirit of the Lord was upon very many or leaped upon them, as upon Othniel, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, Saul, David and various others. Which is so much the case that the Lord has most plainly taught us the freedom and faculty of the Holy Spirit approaching spontaneously from them, saying: The Spirit blows where it wills, and you hear its voice, and you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes.

So that the same Spirit is sometimes found to be even upon the unworthy: not indeed idly nor without reason, but for the sake of some necessary operation, as it was upon Saul, upon whom the Spirit of God came, and he prophesied. Although in a later time after the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him, and after an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him, since then he had come at last after the messengers whom he had continually sent before to kill David: for what reason therefore they fell into the company of the prophets and prophesied, so that they could not or would not accomplish what they had been commanded. Which we believe the Spirit that was upon all of them accomplished by the admirable design of God's will. Which Spirit also filled John the Baptist even from his mother's womb, and rested upon those who were with the centurion Cornelius before they were baptized with water.

Thus, while it is joined to the baptism of men, the Holy Spirit either goes before or follows, or, when the baptism of water ceases, rests upon those who believe, giving us counsel that we ought either to preserve baptism fully and rightly in its entirety, or perhaps to supplement that baptism given by anyone in the name of Jesus Christ, by the most holy invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, as we have most fully set forth, with the venerable custom and authority of so long a time and so many men moreover preserved for us.

But since the first part of this disputation seems to have been explained, we must also touch upon the following part of it on account of the heretics: because it is exceedingly necessary not to pass over a treatise that has once come to hand; lest perhaps some heretic dare to assail with his cunning those of the brethren who are more simple. For because John said that men were to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire, because he added saying and in fire, therefore certain desperate men have dared to extend their wickedness everywhere, and for this reason most crafty men seek how they may so corrupt and violate the baptism of holiness as even to make it void; who trace their origin from Simon Magus, exercising it through various errors with manifold perversity. To which Simon, Peter said in the Acts of the Apostles: Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God can be possessed with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this word.

For thy heart is not right before God. And these men do all these things while they desire to deceive those who are more simple or more curious: and some of them attempt to handle for themselves alone a complete and perfect, not as we a mutilated and curtailed baptism to hand on, which they are said to administer in such a way that as soon as they have descended into the water, immediately fire appears upon the water.

Which if it can be accomplished by some trick, as many such tricks are said to be those of Anaxilaus, whether it is something natural by which this can come about, or whether they think they behold this, or whether the work of an evil spirit and magical poison can produce fire in water: they nevertheless proclaim such a deception and artifice to be perfect baptism; which if faithful men have been compelled to receive, it will certainly not be doubted that they have lost what they had possessed; just as if someone who has sworn the military oath, having deserted his own camp, should wish to swear a quite different oath in the most hostile enemy camp, by this reasoning it is established that he has been discharged from his former oath.

Likewise, if a man of this sort should return to you again, you will certainly be uncertain whether he has baptism or not; and yet you will be obliged to assist this man also, doing penance, by whatever means you can. Now of this adulterous—nay, deadly—baptism, if there is any other author, there is also a certain book composed by those same heretics on account of this very error, which is entitled The Preaching of Paul.

In that book you will find, contrary to all the Scriptures, Christ confessing a sin of his own—he who alone committed absolutely nothing wrong—and being compelled almost against his will by his mother Mary to receive the baptism of John: likewise, that when he was baptized, fire was seen upon the water; which is written in no Gospel: and that after so long a time Peter and Paul, after the comparison of the Gospel at Jerusalem and the arrangement of the nations, finally came to know one another for the first time, as it were, in the City: and certain other things of this kind absurdly and shamefully fabricated: all of which you will find heaped together in that book. But those who are not ignorant of the nature of the Holy Spirit understand that what was said about fire was said of the Spirit himself.

For in the Acts of the Apostles, according to this same promise of the Lord, on the very day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit had descended upon the disciples so that they might be baptized in him, tongues as of fire were seen resting upon each one of them, so that it was established that they were baptized in the Holy Spirit and in fire—that is, in that Spirit who is either fire or as fire: such as was the fire that burned in the bush and did not consume the bush, and such as is that fire which is the spirit of angels, as Scripture says: Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire. When you have become like unto him, or a companion, or a partaker of him, you will be able to fear no fire, not even that fire which, going before the Lord on the day of judgment, will burn up the whole face of the earth, except for those who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit and in fire.

And indeed the Spirit remains invisible to men today, as the Lord says: The Spirit breatheth where he will, and thou knowest not whence he cometh or whither he goeth. But at the beginning of the mystery of faith and of spiritual baptism, this same Spirit was manifestly seen to have rested upon the disciples as fire: likewise, with the heavens opened, to have descended upon the Lord in the likeness of a dove, because most things—nay, nearly all things that were to come—were made manifest: yet those things which were at that time invisible were nonetheless, even now, shown to the eyes and unbelief of men in part, or at some time, or in figure, to strengthen and confirm our faith. But neither shall I omit what the Gospel rightly proclaims. For our Lord says to the paralytic: Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee, to show that hearts are cleansed by faith for the obtaining of the remission of sins.

Which remission of sins was also obtained by that woman who was a sinner in the city; to whom the Lord said: Thy sins are forgiven thee. And when those who reclined at table together began to say within themselves: Who is this that forgiveth sins?—which the Scribes and Pharisees had also murmured more bitterly concerning the paralytic—the Lord said to the woman: Thy faith hath made thee safe, go in peace. From all these things it is shown that hearts are cleansed by faith, but souls are washed by the Spirit: moreover, bodies are washed by water, and by blood one arrives more swiftly by a shorter way at the rewards of salvation.

I think we have fully set forth the preaching of John the Baptist, from which we began our discourse, who said to the Jews: I indeed baptize you with water unto penance. But he that shall come after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to loose. He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire. I also consider that we have not ineptly set forth the teaching of the apostle John, who says that there are three that give testimony, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are one. And unless I am mistaken, we have also explained what our Lord says: John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, I believe we have given no weak account of the reason for the custom. We defend it nonetheless, even though we do so in a later place, lest anyone think we are raising the present dispute on a single point.

Although this custom alone ought, among men who have the fear of God and are humble, to hold the foremost place.