On Baptism, against the Donatists 4.20–4.33

There are, then, even within, enemies of God, men whose breasts the spirit of antichrist has occupied; and yet they perform spiritual and divine acts, which cannot profit them for salvation as long as they are such, nor can they stain them with their uncleanness. So his saying, that “nothing pertaining to the church’s saving grace is lawful for those who, scattering and attacking the church of Christ, are called adversaries by Christ himself and antichrists by his apostles,” is to be understood thus: that such men are found both outside and within; yet the separation of those within from the perfection and unity of that dove is known not only to God in some cases but to men in some cases too. Seeing openly their most wicked life and confirmed wickedness, and comparing it with the rules of the divine commandments, they understand to how many tares and how much chaff, whether placed outside or within, but to be separated most plainly at the end, the Lord will say, “Depart from me, you who work iniquity,” and, “Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.”

But no one’s conversion is to be despaired of, whether he is placed outside or within, as long as the patience of God leads him to repentance and visits their misdeeds with the rod and their sins with scourges. For in this way he does not scatter his mercy from them, if they too at some time have pity on their own soul, pleasing God. For just as the good man “who perseveres to the end will be saved,” so the wicked man, whether outside or within, who perseveres to the end will not be saved. Nor do we say that those baptized anywhere and in any way “obtain the grace of baptism,” if the grace of baptism is understood as that salvation which is conferred through the celebration of the sacrament; but many even within do not obtain this salvation, though it is plain that they have the sacrament, which is holy in itself. So the Lord rightly warns us in the gospel not to consent to those who persuade us to evil and walk under the name of Christ; but these are found both within and outside, since they do not go outside unless they were first wicked within. And certainly the apostle was speaking of the vessels placed in the great house when he said, “If anyone, then, cleanses himself from such things, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified, useful to the Lord, always prepared for every good work.” And how each one ought to cleanse himself from such things he showed a little above, saying, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity,” so that he may not hear at the end, with the chaff, whether that which flew from the threshing floor beforehand or that which is to be separated at the last, “Depart from me, you who work iniquity.” Hence it appears indeed, as Cyprian says, that “not whatever is flaunted in Christ’s name is at once to be accepted and taken up, but what is done in Christ’s truth.” But certainly “to seize estates by treacherous frauds, to increase their gains by multiplying interest,” to renounce the world “in words only,” is not done in Christ’s truth. And he himself, a fully competent witness, declares that all these things are done even within.

Now as for his arguing at length that those who blaspheme the Father of Christ cannot be baptized in Christ, since it is plain that they blaspheme through error (for one who comes to Christ’s baptism does not openly blaspheme the Father of Christ, but is convicted of blasphemy by thinking about the Father of Christ otherwise than the truth teaches), we have already shown enough that the error of anyone, whether giver or receiver, does not affect baptism consecrated with the words of the gospel, whether he thinks about the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit otherwise than heavenly teaching instils. For many carnal and natural men are baptized even within, since the apostle says plainly, “But the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God,” and says they are still natural after they have received baptism. And by carnal sense a soul given over to the bodily senses can only think carnally about God. Hence many, advancing after baptism, and especially those baptized as infants or children, the more their understanding is cleared and enlightened while the inner man is renewed day by day, laugh at, detest, and with confession reject their former opinions about God, which they held while deluded by their phantasms; yet they are not therefore thought not to have received baptism, nor are they said to have received a baptism such as their error was; but in them both the integrity of the sacrament is honoured and the vanity of the mind is corrected, even if it had grown hardened, confirmed and perhaps defended in many disputes. Therefore even the heretic who is clearly outside received the gospel baptism there; he did not, surely, receive a baptism like the error by which he is blinded. And so if, coming to his senses, he sees that what he held wrongly must be left behind, he need not at the same time leave behind the good he had received; nor, because his error must be disapproved, must Christ’s baptism in him be blown away. For from those who happen to be baptized within while holding false opinions about God it is already clear enough that the truth of the sacrament is to be distinguished from the error of one who believes wrongly, though both can be found in one man. And so when someone placed outside in some error has nevertheless been baptized with the true sacrament, when he is restored to the unity of the church, as true faith succeeds false, true baptism cannot in the same way succeed true baptism; for the same thing cannot succeed itself, since it cannot depart either. So heretics come to the Catholic Church in order that what is their evil may be corrected, not that what is God’s good may be repeated.

Someone says: “Then is there no difference if two men set in equal error and malice, without change of life and heart, are baptized, one outside and the other within?” I admit there is a difference. For the one baptized outside is worse, not in that he is baptized but in that he is outside (for division itself is an evil, neither none nor small); provided, however, that the one baptized within wished to be within not for some earthly or temporal advantage but because he preferred the unity of the church spread through the whole world to the cuttings of schisms; otherwise he too is to be counted among those outside. Let us then suppose two men in this way: one of them, for example, thinks about Christ what Photinus held and is baptized in his heresy outside the communion of the Catholic Church; the other thinks the same but is baptized in the Catholic Church, supposing it to be the Catholic faith. This man I do not yet call a heretic, unless, when the teaching of the Catholic faith is made plain to him, he prefers to resist and chooses what he held. Before this happens, it is plain that the one outside is worse. So in this man only the false opinion, but in that one also the division itself, must be corrected; but in neither is the truth of the sacrament to be repeated. But if someone thinks the same as they, and knows it to be a heresy separated from Catholic unity where this is taught and learned, yet for the sake of some worldly advantage wishes to be baptized in Catholic unity, or, baptized in it, will not leave it for this reason, he is not only to be held as separated, but as all the more wicked, the more he adds the deceit of pretence to the error of heresy and the division of unity. Therefore the more dangerous and crooked anyone’s depravity, the more urgently and laboriously it is to be corrected. Yet if he has anything entire, especially what is not his but God’s, it is not therefore, because of his depravity, to be thought nothing, or blamed in the same way, or attributed to his depravity and not to the generosity of him who gave even to the soul that committed fornication against him and went after her lovers his bread and his wine and his oil and other things, whether food or adornments, which she had neither from herself nor from her lovers, but from him who, having pity on her, wished everywhere to remind her to whom she should return.

“Can the power of baptism,” he says, “be greater or stronger than confession, than suffering, when one confesses Christ before men and is baptized in his own blood? And yet,” he says, “not even this baptism profits a heretic, even though, having confessed Christ, he was killed outside the church.” This is most true. For one killed outside the church is proved not to have had love, of which the apostle says, “And if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” But if suffering profits nothing because love is lacking, neither does it profit those whom Paul says, and Cyprian explains, live within in envy and malice without love; and yet they can both receive and hand on true baptism. “There is no salvation outside the church.” Who denies it? And therefore whatever things of the church itself are possessed outside the church do not avail for salvation. But it is one thing not to have, another not to have profitably. He who does not have must be baptized so that he may have; he who does not have profitably must be corrected so that he may have profitably. Nor is the water in the baptism of heretics adulterous, because neither is the creature itself which God made evil, nor are the words of the gospel to be blamed in any who err; but their error is to blame, in which the soul is adulterous, even if it has the adornment of the sacrament from its lawful husband. So baptism can be common to us and heretics, with whom the gospel too can be common, though their error is far from our faith, whether they think about the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit otherwise than the truth has it, or, cut off from unity, do not gather with Christ but scatter; because, if we are the Lord’s wheat, even within, with the greedy, with robbers, with drunkards and other such plagues, of whom it is said, “They will not possess the kingdom of God,” the sacrament of baptism can be common to us, and yet the vices by which they are separated from the kingdom of God are not common.

For the apostle does not say of heresies alone, “that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God.” Let it not be tiresome to note for a moment what he lists along with them. “The works of the flesh,” he says, “are manifest, which are fornications, uncleanness, debauchery, service of idols, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. Of these I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God.” Let us then suppose a heretic who is chaste, continent, not greedy, not serving idols, hospitable, ministering to the needy, no one’s enemy, not contentious, patient, quiet, jealous of no one, envying no one, sober, frugal: no one doubts that, for this alone, that he is a heretic, he will not possess the kingdom of God. Let us suppose another, a Catholic, who is a fornicator, unclean, debauched, greedy, or even more openly given to idols, a sorcerer, quarrelsome, contentious, jealous, hot-tempered, seditious, envious, a drunkard, a carouser: will he possess the kingdom of God for this alone, that he is a Catholic, while doing such things, of which the apostle concludes, “Of these I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God”? If we say this, we deceive ourselves; for God’s word does not deceive us, which is neither silent nor sparing nor misleads us with any flattery. That is why he says elsewhere too: “For know this, understanding that every fornicator or unclean or greedy person, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words.” So there is no reason to complain of God’s word. It says altogether, and openly and freely, that those who live wickedly do not belong to the kingdom of God.

So let us not flatter a Catholic hedged about with all these vices, nor dare to promise him, because he is a Catholic Christian, the impunity that divine Scripture does not promise. Nor, if he has any one of the things mentioned, ought we to promise him fellowship in that heavenly homeland. For to the Corinthians he lists them one by one, and with each one it is understood that they will not possess the kingdom of God. “Do not be deceived,” he says. “Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor the effeminate nor men who lie with males nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor robbers will possess the kingdom of God.” He does not say, “Those who have all these vices together will not possess the kingdom of God,” but “neither these nor those,” so that with each you understand that none of them will possess the kingdom of God. So just as heretics will not possess the kingdom of God, so the greedy will not possess the kingdom of God. Nor is it to be doubted that the very penalties with which those who will not possess the kingdom of God are tormented differ according to the difference of crimes, some sharper than others, so that in the eternal fire itself there are unequal torments of punishment according to the unequal weights of sins. For not in vain did the Lord himself say, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom than for you on the day of judgment.” But for not possessing the kingdom of God, whichever of those vices you choose as milder is worth as much as several, or as one that you see to be graver. And since those will possess the kingdom of God whom that judge will set at his right hand, nothing will remain for those who do not deserve to be set at the right hand but to be at the left. No word remains for them to hear, like goats, from the shepherd’s mouth, except, “Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels,” though from that fire, as I said, different punishments may be allotted according to the difference of crimes.

But whether we ought to rank a Catholic of the worst morals above some heretic in whose life, apart from his being a heretic, men find nothing to blame, I do not dare to rush to judgment. But if anyone says, “Because he is a heretic, this cannot be all, without other things following; for he is carnal and natural, and so he must also be jealous and hot-tempered and envious and an enemy of the truth itself and in disagreement with it,” let him understand that of those other evils too, the one he has chosen as milder cannot be alone in anyone, for the same reason: because he is carnal and natural. Take drunkenness, which peoples have now grown used not only to name without horror but even to praise with merriment: can it be alone in anyone in whom it is found? For what drunkard is not also contentious and hot-tempered and envious and at odds with the soundness of the commandments and a bitter enemy of those who rebuke him? And it is hard for him not to be also a fornicator and adulterer. He can, however, not be a heretic; just as a heretic can be neither a drunkard nor an adulterer or fornicator nor debauched or a lover of money or a sorcerer, and can be none of all these at once. For not all the other vices follow on any one vice. So given two men, one a Catholic with all these vices, the other a heretic without those that can be absent in a heretic, though not both argue against the faith, yet both live against the faith, both are deceived by vain hope, both are at odds with spiritual love, and for this reason both are strangers to the body of that only dove: why do we recognize Christ’s sacrament in one of them and refuse to in the other, as if it were this man’s or that man’s, when it is the same in both, and belongs to none but God, and is good even in the worst men? And if of the men who have it one is worse than another, what they have is not therefore worse in the one than in the other; for neither, of two wicked Catholics, if one is worse than the other, does he bear a worse baptism; nor, if one of them is good and the other wicked, is baptism wicked in the wicked and good in the good, but good in both; just as the light of the sun or even of a lamp is certainly not worse in worse eyes than in better, but the same in both, though it either gladdens or pains them differently according to their difference.

As for the objection raised against Cyprian about catechumens, that if arrested in martyrdom and killed for Christ’s name they were crowned even without baptism, I do not well understand what it has to do with the matter, unless perhaps they were saying that heretics with Christ’s baptism could be admitted to his kingdom far more readily than catechumens were admitted, since he himself said, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” In this matter I do not hesitate to rank a Catholic catechumen burning with divine love above a baptized heretic. But even within the Catholic Church itself we rank a good catechumen above a wicked baptized man, and yet we do no injury to the sacrament of baptism, with which the one is not yet and the other is already imbued, nor do we think the catechumen’s sacrament is to be preferred to the sacrament of baptism, when we know some catechumen to be more faithful and better than some baptized man. For the centurion Cornelius, not yet baptized, was better than Simon, baptized. For the one was filled with the Holy Spirit even before baptism; the other was puffed up with an unclean spirit even after baptism. Yet if Cornelius, having already received the Holy Spirit, had refused to be baptized, he would have become guilty of despising so great a sacrament. But when he was baptized, he certainly did not receive a better sacrament than Simon; but the different merits of the men were distinguished under the equal holiness of the same sacrament. So the good or bad merit of a man neither increases nor diminishes the holiness of baptism. And just as a good catechumen lacks baptism for gaining the kingdom of heaven, so a wicked baptized man lacks true conversion. For he who said, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven,” also said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” For lest the righteousness of the catechumen be secure, it was said, “Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven”; again, lest iniquity be secure once baptism is received, it was said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” The one without the other is not enough; both together make one heir of that possession. So just as we ought not to disapprove a man’s righteousness that began before he was joined to the church, as Cornelius’s righteousness had begun before he was among the Christian people (for if it had been disapproved, the angel would not have said to him, “Your alms have been accepted and your prayers heard,” nor, if it had been enough for gaining the kingdom of heaven, would he have been told to send to Peter), so the gospel sacrament of baptism is not to be disapproved even if it was received outside the church. But since it does not profit for salvation unless the one who has the integrity of baptism is incorporated into the church with his own depravity corrected too, let us correct the error of heretics in such a way that we recognize what in them is not theirs but Christ’s.

That suffering sometimes fills the place of baptism, the same blessed Cyprian takes as no slight proof from that thief, to whom, though unbaptized, it was said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Considering this again and again, I find that not only suffering for Christ’s name can supply what was lacking from baptism, but also faith and conversion of heart, if perhaps help cannot be given to celebrate the mystery of baptism in a strait of time. For that thief was not crucified for Christ’s name but for the deserts of his crimes; nor did he suffer because he believed, but believed while he suffered. How much, then, even without the visible sacrament of baptism, what the apostle says avails, “With the heart one believes unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation,” was declared in that thief. But it is fulfilled invisibly when it is not contempt of religion but the moment of necessity that excludes the ministry of baptism. For it might seem far more superfluous in Cornelius and his friends than in that thief that they should also be dipped in water, since in them the gift of the Holy Spirit, which holy Scripture testifies others received only after baptism, had already shone out with a sure sign as well, suited to those times, when they spoke in tongues. Yet they were baptized, and in this deed the apostolic authority stands. To this extent no one, whatever the progress of the inner man, if perhaps before baptism he has advanced with devout heart to spiritual understanding, ought to despise the sacrament, which is applied bodily by the work of ministers, but through which God works the consecration of man spiritually. Nor do I think that the office of baptizing was given to John for any other reason, so that it was called John’s baptism, than that the Lord himself, who had given it, by not disdaining to receive the baptism of a servant, might dedicate the way of humility and declare most plainly by such a deed how highly his own baptism, with which he was to baptize, was to be valued. For as the most powerful physician of eternal salvation he saw that some would not lack the swelling of pride who, having so advanced in understanding of the truth and in commendable morals that they would not hesitate to put themselves above many baptized in life and teaching, would believe it superfluous for them to be baptized, since they felt they had reached that disposition of mind to which many baptized were still trying to climb.

What the sanctification of the sacrament, applied bodily, avails and does in a man is hard to say; yet that thief was not without it, since the will to receive it was not lacking, but the necessity of not receiving it was present. Yet unless it availed very much, the Lord would not have received a servant’s baptism. But since it is to be considered in itself, apart from the salvation of the man for whose perfecting it is applied, it shows well enough that it is entire even in the wicked and in those who renounce the world in words, not in deeds, though they cannot have salvation unless they are corrected. And just as in the thief, since it was lacking bodily through necessity, salvation was complete, because it was present spiritually through devotion, so too when the sacrament is present, if what was present in the thief is lacking through necessity, salvation is completed. This the whole church holds as handed down, when little infants are baptized, who certainly cannot yet believe with the heart unto righteousness and confess with the mouth unto salvation, as the thief could; indeed, crying and wailing while the mystery is celebrated over them, they drown out the mystical words themselves; and yet no Christian would say that they are baptized in vain.

And if anyone seeks divine authority in this matter, though what the whole church holds, and was not instituted by councils but has always been retained, is most rightly believed to have been handed down only by apostolic authority, yet we can truly judge what the sacrament of baptism avails in infants from the circumcision of the flesh which the former people received, which Abraham was justified before he received, just as Cornelius was enriched with the gift of the Holy Spirit before he was baptized. Yet the apostle says of Abraham himself, “He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith,” since he had already believed with the heart and it had been counted to him as righteousness. Why then was he commanded to circumcise every male infant thereafter on the eighth day, which could not yet believe with the heart so that it might be counted to it as righteousness, unless because the sacrament itself, in itself, availed much? This was shown by an angel in the case of Moses’ son: when he was being carried by his mother still uncircumcised, it was required, by a present and evident danger, that he be circumcised, and when it was done, destruction was averted. So just as in Abraham the righteousness of faith went before and circumcision, the seal of the righteousness of faith, was added, so in Cornelius spiritual sanctification in the gift of the Holy Spirit went before and the sacrament of regeneration in the washing of baptism was added. And just as in Isaac, who was circumcised on the eighth day of his birth, the seal of the righteousness of faith went before, and, since he imitated his father’s faith, the righteousness itself, whose seal had gone before in the infant, followed as he grew, so in baptized infants the sacrament of regeneration goes before, and if they hold Christian piety, conversion in the heart will also follow, whose mystery went before in the body. And just as in that thief the kindness of the Almighty completed what had been lacking from the sacrament of baptism, because it had been lacking not through pride or contempt but through necessity, so in infants who die baptized it is to be believed that the same grace of the Almighty completes what is lacking, since not from an impious will but from the deficiency of age they can neither believe with the heart unto righteousness nor confess with the mouth unto salvation. Therefore when others answer for them, so that the celebration of the sacrament may be completed for them, it certainly avails for their consecration, since they themselves cannot answer. But if another answers for one who can answer, it does not avail in the same way. By this rule it is said in the gospel, which moves everyone naturally when it is read: “He is of age, let him speak for himself.”

By all these things it is shown that the sacrament of baptism is one thing and conversion of heart another, but that a man’s salvation is completed by both. Nor, if one of these is lacking, ought we to think it follows that the other is lacking, since the one can be without the other in an infant, and the other could be without the one in the thief, God completing in either case what was lacking not by the will; but that when either of these is lacking by the will, a man is involved in guilt. And baptism can indeed be present where conversion of heart is lacking; conversion of heart can indeed be present when baptism has not been received, but not when baptism is despised. For in no way is it to be called conversion of heart to God when God’s sacrament is despised. Rightly, then, we rebuke, anathematize, detest, and abhor the perversity of heart of heretics; yet they do not therefore lack the gospel sacrament because they lack that through which it is profitable. Therefore, when they come to faith and truth and, doing penance, ask that their sins be forgiven them, we do not deceive and mislead them, when, corrected and reformed by us in that in which they are depraved and perverse, we train them for the kingdom of heaven by heavenly disciplines in such a way that we in no way violate what is entire in them, nor say, because of the man’s fault, that whatever of God is in the man is either nothing or faulty.

Only a few points now remain from the letter to Jubaianus. But since they speak both of the past custom of the church and of John’s baptism (which commonly raises no small question for people who pay too little attention to a plain matter, because those who had received John’s baptism were ordered by the apostle to be baptized in Christ), they must not be treated carelessly, and are to be put off to another volume, so that this one may not be of immoderate length.