Against the Letters of Petilian 3.31–3.47

But why do we inquire into these things, why do we both suffer and cause superfluous delays? Are we going to find from this from what source the conscience of a receiver is to be cleansed who does not know the giver's to be stained, and from what source he receives faith who is unknowingly baptized by a faithless man? When Petilian had set this out from my letter as if to answer it, he said whatever else he wanted rather than what the case required. How often he said, “If you did not know,” as if I had said what I never said, that I did not know my baptizer's conscience; and he seemed to do nothing else with his cursing mouth than to appear to convict me of not being ignorant of the evils of those among whom I was baptized and to whose communion I was joined, understanding well enough, surely, that ignorance would not make me guilty! See, then: if I were ignorant, as he so often repeated, I would beyond doubt be innocent of all those evils. From what source, then, would I be cleansed, who, not knowing the conscience of one who did not give in holiness, could not in the least be hindered by his crimes; from what source would I receive faith, unknowingly baptized by a faithless man? For not in vain did he so often repeat, “If you did not know,” except so as not to let me be thought innocent; beyond doubt showing that no one's innocence is violated if he unknowingly receives faith from a faithless man and does not know the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness. So let him say from what source such people are cleansed, from what source they receive faith, not guilt. But do not let him deceive you: let him say it, not say nothing by saying much, or rather say much by saying nothing. Next, what comes to mind and must not be passed over: if I am guilty because I was not ignorant, to speak in his terms, and I was not ignorant because I am an African and already almost an old man, at least let the children of the other churches throughout the world not be guilty, who neither by nation nor by age could know these things you charge, true or false; who nevertheless, if they fall into your hands, are rebaptized without any regard.

But we are not now inquiring into these things. Let him rather answer what, so as not to be compelled to answer it, he departs from so copiously: from what source the receiver's conscience is cleansed who does not know the giver's to be stained, if the conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver; and from what source he receives faith who is unknowingly baptized by a faithless man, if whoever knowingly has received faith from the faithless receives not faith but guilt. So, leaving aside his curses, which he threw at me without any sound consideration, let us still attend, in case he says what we demand in what follows. It is pleasant to see how garrulously he set out my words, as if he would most easily tear them down and overturn them: “But let us return,” he says, “to that argument of your phantasm, by which you seemed to paint for yourself in words some baptizer or other. For it befitted you to imagine likenesses of truth, who do not see the truth.” Petilian spoke these words of his before setting out my words, then added: “‘See,’ you say, ‘a faithless man stands ready to baptize, and the one to be baptized does not know his faithlessness.’” He did not state my whole proposition and question, and at once he himself began to question me, saying: “Who is this man, or where did he spring from, whom you put forward? Why do you seem to yourself to see the one you feign, so as not to see the one you ought to see, examine most carefully, and approve? But since I understand that you are ignorant of the order of the sacrament, I tell you this briefly: you ought both to have examined the baptizer and to have been examined by him.” What were we waiting for? That he should say from what source the receiver's conscience is cleansed who does not know the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness, and from what source he receives faith, not guilt, who has unknowingly received baptism from a faithless man. See, we have heard that the baptizer must be examined most carefully by one who wants to receive faith, not guilt, so that he may find the conscience of one who gives in holiness to cleanse that of the receiver. For one who did not examine, and received unknowingly from a faithless man, by the very fact that he did not examine and did not know the giver's stained conscience, had no source from which to receive faith, but only guilt. What, then, did it help that he added, as a great thing, “knowingly,” which he slanderously said I took away? When he would not have it said, “He who has received faith from the faithless receives not faith but guilt,” he seemed to leave some hope to the one who did not know. But now, when asked from what source one receives faith who is unknowingly baptized by a faithless man, he answers that he ought to have examined the baptizer; so beyond doubt he does not allow the wretch even to be ignorant, finding no source from which he can receive faith unless he has placed his hope in the man who baptizes.

This is what we abhor in you; this is what the divine sentence condemns, crying most truly and plainly, “Cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man.” This is what holy humility and apostolic love most openly forbid, as Paul cries, “Let no one glory in man.” This is why the attack of empty slanders and the sharpest curses grows thick against us, as if, with the man overthrown, no hope remained for those to whom we minister God's word and sacrament according to the stewardship entrusted to us. We answer them: “How long will you pile on against a man?” The venerable Catholic fellowship answers them: “Will not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation; for he is my God, my upholder; I shall not move away.” For what other cause did these men have for moving out of God's house than that they pretended they could not bear the vessels made for dishonour, without which that house will not be until the day of judgment; whereas it is rather apparent from the proceedings and records of that time that they themselves were such and slanderously charged others. Concerning these vessels made for dishonour, so that he may not be disturbed by them and move out of the great house, which is one for the great householder, the servant of God and the good believer, or one about to receive faith in baptism, says what I recalled a little before: “Will not my soul be subject to God?” To God, surely, not to man; “for from him is my salvation,” not from man. But this man, so as not to give the man to God to be washed and cleansed even when the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness is hidden and someone unknowingly receives faith from a faithless man, says, “I tell you this briefly: you ought both to have examined the baptizer and to have been examined by him.”

I beg you, pay attention here: I ask from what source the receiver's conscience is cleansed when he does not know the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness, if the conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver; and from what source he receives faith who is unknowingly baptized by a faithless man, if whoever knowingly has received faith from the faithless receives not faith but guilt; and he answers me that both the baptizer and the one to be baptized must be examined. And to prove this, about which there is no question, he brings the example of John: that those examined him who asked him whom he claimed to be, and that he also examined those to whom he said, “Brood of vipers, who showed you to flee from the wrath to come?” What has this to do with the matter, with the case? God had borne witness to John's surpassing holiness, with a most glorious prophecy going before, both when he was conceived and when he was born. They, already believing him holy, were asking which of the holy ones he claimed to be, or whether he himself was the Holy One of holy ones, which is Christ Jesus. For such grace was held to be in him that whatever he said of himself would at once be believed. But if by this example it is claimed that any baptizer now must be examined, whatever each says of himself will have to be believed. And who is the hypocrite, whom, as it is written, the Holy Spirit certainly flees, who would not want the best to be believed of himself and work for it with whatever words he could? So when he has been asked who he is and has answered that he is God's faithful steward and has a conscience polluted by the stain of no crime, will that be the whole examination; or must his conduct and life also be looked into more carefully? Certainly so. But it is not written that those who questioned John in the desert of the Jordan as to who he was did this.

So this example has nothing at all to do with the matter in hand. Rather, that apostolic sentence urges this care sufficiently, where he says, “Let them first be tested, and then let them minister, having no crime.” Since this is done carefully and customarily on both sides by almost everyone, how is it that so many have been found reprobate after the time of their stewardship, except that human diligence is often deceived, and some who were good at first change for the worse? Since these things happen so often that they let no one ignore or forget them, what does Petilian mean by insultingly teaching us briefly that the baptizer must be examined by the one being baptized, when we ask from what source the receiver's conscience is to be cleansed when the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness is hidden, if the conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver? “Since I understand,” he says, “that you are ignorant of the order of the sacrament, I tell you this briefly: you ought both to have examined the baptizer and to have been examined by him.” O what an answer! Around him in so many places stands so great a multitude of people baptized by men who, though they first seemed righteous and chaste, were afterwards convicted and cast down when their crimes were laid bare; and he thinks he escapes the force of this question, in which we ask from what source the receiver's conscience is cleansed when he does not know the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness, if the conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver, because he says briefly that the baptizer must be examined. Nothing is more unhappy than not to agree with the truth, by which one is so shut in that he cannot find a way out. We ask from whom one receives faith who is unknowingly baptized by a faithless man. The answer is: he ought to have examined his baptizer. So, because he does not examine him and receives faith from a faithless man even unknowingly, does he receive not faith but guilt? Why, then, are those not baptized again who are shown to have been baptized by men exposed and convicted, while these still lay hidden?

“And where,” he says, “is the word I added, ‘knowingly,’ so that I did not say, ‘he who has received faith from the faithless,’ but, ‘he who knowingly has received faith from the faithless receives not faith but guilt’?” Then he who received unknowingly from a faithless man received faith, not guilt; and so I ask from what source he received it. Pressed hard there, he answers: “He ought to have examined.” Granted, he ought to have. He did not, or could not. What do you judge of him: was he cleansed or not? If he was cleansed, I ask from what source; for the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness, of which he was ignorant, could not cleanse him. But if he was not cleansed, order him to be cleansed. You do not order it; so he was cleansed. Say from what source. You at least say what he did not say. For I put forward the same words to which he could not answer: “Look, a faithless man stands ready to baptize, and the one to be baptized does not know his faithlessness. What do you think he will receive, faith or guilt?” What has been put forward so far is enough. Answer, or look carefully at what he answered: you will find his abuse refuted. For he blames me, as if mocking, because I put forward likenesses of truth, not seeing the truth; and, repeating my words and halving my sentence, he says: “‘Look,’ you say, ‘a faithless man stands ready to baptize, and the one to be baptized does not know his faithlessness.’” Then he adds: “Who is this, or where did he spring from?” As if there were one or two, and not everything everywhere full of such men! Why does he ask me who this is, or where he sprang from, and not rather look around and see that there are few churches, in cities or in the countryside, that do not have men detected in crimes and cast out of the clergy? When they lay hidden and wanted to seem good though they were bad, and to be thought chaste though they were adulterers, they were certainly hypocrites; certainly, as it is written, the Holy Spirit fled from them. From the crowd of these, then, while still hiding, sprang that faithless man whom I put forward. Why does he ask me where he sprang from, shutting his eyes to so great a crowd, from which, if only those were considered who could be convicted and cast down, the noise of them is enough for the blind?

What of the fact that he himself put in his letter that Quodvultdeus, convicted among you of two adulteries and cast out, was received by our people? What then? Let me say it without prejudice to him, who has either proved or persuaded that his cause was good: when such men among you, not yet detected, baptize, what is received from them, faith or guilt? Not faith, certainly, because they do not have the conscience of one who gives in holiness to cleanse that of the receiver; but not guilt either, because of that added word: “For he who knowingly has received faith from the faithless receives not faith but guilt”; and the people who were baptized by them certainly did not know what kind of men they were. So, not receiving faith from them, because they did not have the conscience of one who gives in holiness, and not receiving guilt either, because they were baptized not knowing but ignorant of their crimes, they remained without faith and without guilt. They are not, then, in the number of such scandalous men; but neither can they be in the number of the faithful, because, as they could not receive guilt from them, so they could not receive faith either. Yet we see them counted by you among the faithful, and none of you judging that they should be baptized, but holding valid that they have been baptized. So they received faith, and yet not from those who did not have the conscience of one who gives in holiness to cleanse that of the receiver. From what source, then, did they receive it? This is what I am busy with, this I ask urgently, this I most vehemently demand to be answered.

Look now at Petilian, how, so as not to answer this, or so as not to appear caught unable to answer it, he wanders emptily through insults against us, accusing and proving nothing; and wherever he perhaps tries to resist pugnaciously, as it were, for his cause, he is most easily beaten everywhere; and yet to this one thing that we ask he answers nothing at all: if the conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver, from what source is the one who receives baptism to be cleansed, when the giver's conscience is polluted and the one about to receive does not know it? For by citing these words from my letter he put me forward as asking, and showed himself answering nothing. For when he had said what I have already recalled, in which I showed that he did not answer what I asked, and when, hard pressed, he had been compelled to say that the baptizer must be examined by the one to be baptized and the one to be baptized by the baptizer, and had tried to build this up from the example of John, in case he found very careless or very unlearned hearers, he brought in other testimonies of Scripture irrelevant to the matter: that the eunuch said to Philip, “Here is water; what prevents me from being baptized?” (“because he knew,” he says, “that the lost are prevented”), and that Philip did not forbid his being baptized because he had tested him while reading as to how he believed in Christ, as if he had forbidden Simon Magus; and that the prophets feared to be deceived by false baptism, and that therefore Isaiah said, “deceitful water that has no faith,” as if showing that among faithless men water is deceitful; whereas not Isaiah but Jeremiah said this of deceitful men, figuratively calling the people water, which is most plainly shown in the Apocalypse; and that David said, “Let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head,” whereas he said this of the flattery of a fawner deceiving with false praise, so that the head of the one praised swells into pride. This meaning is opened by the words set before it in the same psalm, for he says, “The righteous will correct me in mercy and rebuke me; but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head.” What is clearer, what more evident than this sentence? He would rather be rebuked mercifully by the harsh correction of the righteous so as to be healed, than be anointed by the soft blandishments of a flatterer so as to be puffed up.

Petilian also recalls that the apostle Paul warned that not every spirit should be believed, but that the spirits should be tested whether they are from God; as if this diligence were applied in order that the wheat might now be separated from the chaff before the time, and not rather so that the wheat may not be deceived by the chaff; or as if, when even a lying spirit says something true, it must be denied because a detestable spirit said it. Whoever thinks so is so mad that he might contend that Peter ought not to have said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” because the demons had already said something of the kind. Since, then, the baptism of Christ, whether ministered by the unrighteous or the righteous, is nothing other than the baptism of Christ, a careful man and a good believer must avoid the man's iniquity, not condemn God's sacraments.

In all these things Petilian certainly does not answer, if the conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver, from what source the one who receives baptism is to be cleansed when the giver's conscience is polluted and the one about to receive does not know it. A colleague of his from Thubursicubure, one Cyprian, was caught in a brothel with a most shameful woman, brought before Primian of Carthage, and condemned. When this man baptized, before he was detected and cast out, he certainly did not have the conscience of one who gives in holiness to cleanse that of the receiver. From what source, then, were those cleansed who today, though he is condemned, are certainly not washed again? There was no need for me to name the man, except so that Petilian might not say again, “Who is this, or where did he spring from?” Why did your people not examine this baptizer, as John was examined, on Petilian's view? Or did they examine him, as far as men could examine a man, and for a long time not find him out, hiding in cunning pretence? Was this man's water not deceitful, or is not a fornicator's oil the oil of a sinner? Or, as the Catholic Church says and is true, was that water and that oil not his by whom it was ministered, but his whose name was invoked there? Why did those who were baptized by this hypocrite in hiding not test his spirit, since it was not from God? For the holy Spirit of discipline was fleeing the hypocrite. Or was he fleeing him and yet not deserting his own sacraments, though ministered through him? Finally, since you do not deny that those were cleansed whom, though he is condemned, you do not trouble to cleanse, see whether in all the fogs he has so variously spread Petilian answers anywhere from what source these were cleansed, if the conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver, which a hidden unclean man could not have.

So, answering nothing to what is so insistently asked of him, he next gains himself room to talk: “Since both the prophets and the apostle,” he says, “feared these things cautiously, with what face do you say that the baptism of a sinner is holy to those who believe well?” As if I or any Catholic said that baptism is a sinner's which is given or received with a sinner ministering, and not his in whose name the believer is baptized. From there he now runs off to Judas the traitor and says whatever he can against him, bringing in the prophetic testimonies sent before about him so long before, as if he would drench the church of Christ spread through the whole world, whose case is at issue in this question, with the impiety of Judas the traitor; not considering that he ought to have been warned even by this that it is as little to be doubted that the church of Christ is that which is spread among all nations, since this was truly prophesied so long before, as it is to be doubted that Christ had to be betrayed by one of his disciples, since this too was likewise prophesied.

But plainly, after this, when Petilian came to that objection of ours, that they received the baptism of the Maximianists whom they had condemned (though in stating this question he preferred to use his own words rather than mine; for we do not say that the baptism of sinners ought to profit us, since we say it is not of sinners, nor of any men at all, because we know it to be Christ's; but he put it thus: “But you stubbornly assert,” he says, “that the baptism of sinners ought to profit you, because we too, as you said, preserve the baptism of the guilty whom we justly condemned”), when, I say, he came to this question, even his feigned fight failed him completely. Where to go, how to get out, by what approach, searched out or built, he might either slip away secretly or break out by force, he did not find. “Although,” he says, “I will show in a second book how great the difference is between us and ours and yours whom you call innocent, still, meanwhile, first rescue yourselves from the crimes of your colleagues which you know, and then ask for an account of those whom we cast out.” Who would answer like this? Who among men would answer like this, but one who opposes the truth and finds nothing to answer against it? If we too say the same words, “Meanwhile, first rescue yourselves from the crimes of your colleagues which you know, and then charge us with any crime of those you think wicked among us,” have we both won or both lost? Rather, he wins for his church and in his church who taught us in his Scripture that no one should glory in man and that whoever glories should glory in the Lord. For see, we who say with the voice of truth that the believer is justified not by the man by whom he is baptized but by him of whom it is written, “To one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness,” since we do not glory in man but strive, by his gift, when we glory, to glory in the Lord: how secure we are, whatever error or crime he may be able to prove about some men of our communion! For among us all the wicked, whether they lie wholly hidden, or are known to some but tolerated because of the good to whom they are unknown and before whom they cannot be convicted, for the sake of the bond of unity and peace, so that the wheat may not be rooted up with the tares, carry the load of their own malice in such a way that no one shares it with them except those whom their iniquity pleases. For we do not fear that those they baptize cannot be justified, since they believe in him who justifies the ungodly, so that their faith may be reckoned as righteousness.

So among us neither the man whom he said was cast out by us for the crime of the Sodomites, with another put in his place, and then restored again to our college (not knowing what he is saying), nor the man whom he mentions as having been a penitent among you, however their cases can or cannot be defended, prejudge anything against the church of God, which is spread through all nations and grows in the world until the harvest. In it, if those you accuse are truly wicked, they are no longer in it but in its chaff; but if they are good, when you defame them with unjust accusations, they themselves are tested like gold while you burn like chaff. Yet the church is not stained by others' sins; spread through the whole world, according to most faithful prophecies, it awaits the end of the age as its shore, where, drawn in, it will be rid of the bad fish, with whom, within the same nets of the Lord, as long as it ought not impatiently to be separated from them, the inconvenience of nature could be borne innocently. Nor is church discipline therefore neglected by Christ's steadfast, diligent, and prudent stewards, where crimes are so manifest that they cannot be defended on any plausible ground. There are innumerable examples in those who were bishops or clergy of some other such rank and now, degraded, have either gone off to other lands out of shame, or passed over to you yourselves or to other heresies, or are known in their own regions. Their number, scattered through the lands, is so great that, if Petilian had curbed his reckless cursing a little and considered it, he would never have fallen into so openly false and empty a sentence as to think he could say to us: “None of you is innocent, where no guilty man is condemned.”

For to leave out others living in various lands (for this kind of man is hardly lacking anywhere), so that it may appear that wicked leaders and ministers are usually condemned in the Catholic Church too, he could have looked close by at Honorius of Milevis. And as for Splendonius, whom, condemned as a deacon in the Catholic Church, he rebaptized and made a presbyter, whose condemnation in Gaul was sent to us by the brothers and publicly posted to be read in Constantina itself by our colleague Fortunatus, and whom afterwards the same Petilian cast out after experiencing his horrible plots: why could not this Splendonius remind him how the wicked are degraded in the Catholic Church too? I wonder over what precipice of rashness his heart was, when he dictated these words and dared to say, “None of you is innocent, where no guilty man is condemned.” Therefore the wicked in the Catholic Church, mixed in bodily but separated spiritually, both when they are unknown by the human condition and when they are condemned in consideration of discipline, carry their own loads; and so those are secure, if they do not share their sins by imitation and consent, who are baptized by them with Christ's baptism; because even if they were baptized by the very best, they would be justified only by him who justifies the ungodly. For to those who believe in him who justifies the ungodly, faith is reckoned as righteousness.

But you, when the Maximianists are put to you, condemned by the sentence of a council of three hundred and ten, attacked by that same council presented in so many proconsular and municipal proceedings, driven from the basilicas they held by orders of judges and the aid of cities, and received back by you and honoured, together with those whom they had baptized outside your communion, without any question of baptism, you find nothing to answer. For you are defeated by a sentence, not true but your own, by which you contend that in the same communion of sacraments some perish by the crimes of others, and that each is such as the man by whom he was baptized: if guilty, guilty; if innocent, innocent. If these things are true, then, to leave out countless others, the crimes of the Maximianists, whose wickedness your people, in so numerous a council, exaggerated to the likeness of those whom the earth swallowed alive, have certainly destroyed you. But if the crimes of the Maximianists have not destroyed you, what you think is false, and much less could some unproved crimes of Africans destroy the world. And so, as the apostle writes, each carries his own load, and the baptism of Christ is no one's but Christ's; and in vain does Petilian promise that he will speak in a second book about what we press concerning the Maximianists, thinking too badly of men's hearts, as if they did not understand that he has nothing to say.

For if the baptism which Praetextatus and Felicianus ministered in the communion of Maximian was theirs, why was it accepted by you as Christ's in those they baptized? But if it is truly Christ's, as it is, and could not profit those who had it with the crime of schism, what can you say you conferred on those whom you received with that same baptism, except that, the crime of wicked division having been blotted out through the bond of peace, they were not forced to receive the sacrament of the holy washing as if they did not have it, but what they had, which was harmful before, began now to be useful to them? Or if this was not conferred on them in your communion, because nothing of the kind could be conferred on schismatics among schismatics, still this is conferred on you in the Catholic communion: not that you receive baptism as if you lacked it, but that the baptism you received may profit you. For all the sacraments of Christ are held not to salvation but to judgment without the love of Christ's unity. But since it is not a true but your own opinion that Christ's baptism perished from the world through the baptism of some traitors or other, you rightly find nothing to answer about the baptism of the Maximianists that you accepted.

See, then, and remember most vigilantly, how Petilian has not answered even those very things which he puts to himself in such a way as to seem to say something. But that other matter he dropped long ago altogether and would not tell us, because certainly he could not, nor will he ever tell us, to the end of his volume, what he cited from the first parts of my letter as if to refute it. For even with those two words added, which he boasted of as his strongest defences, as if I had taken them away, he lies no less defenceless, finding nothing to answer when asked: if the conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver, from what source is the conscience of one to be cleansed who does not know the polluted conscience of one not giving in holiness; and if he who knowingly has received faith from the faithless receives not faith but guilt, from what source will he receive faith, not guilt, who is unknowingly baptized by a faithless man? To this, it is clear, he has answered nothing all this while that he has been speaking.