Against the Letters of Petilian 3.48–3.62

Next he went on, with cursing mouth, to revile monasteries and monks, blaming me too because this kind of life was instituted by me; a kind of life whose nature he does not know at all, or rather, though it is very well known throughout the world, pretends not to know. Then, asserting that I said Christ is the baptizer, he also added some words from my letter, as if I had said this from my own view, when I said it from yours and his; and he inveighed with the most copious ferocity as if against me for saying it, when the view he criticizes is not mine but his and yours, as I will show clearly a little later, as far as I can. Then he tried to teach us, in many superfluous words, that Christ does not baptize, but that baptism is in his name together with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and about the Trinity itself he said what he wished or what he could, that Christ is the middle of the Trinity. From there he heaped on us whatever insults he liked from the names of the magicians Simon and Bar-Jesus; then, cautiously suspending the case of Optatus of Thamugadi, so as not to be drenched in its odium, he said that neither he nor his people could judge him, and in this very thing he accused us of having pressed Optatus by my suggestions.

Finally he ended his letter by exhorting and warning his people not to be deceived by us, and lamenting over ours, that we had made them worse than they had been. When these things have been carefully considered and examined, it appears clearly enough from that very letter he wrote that Petilian did not answer at all what I first put in my letter: if, as he says, the conscience of the giver, or rather (to add what he thinks a great support), 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, if the giver's conscience is polluted, the one about to receive does not know it? So it is not surprising that a man resisting for falsehood, pressed by the straits of the truth coming against him, panted out mad abuse rather than chose to walk with that truth which cannot be conquered.

Now, I beg you, attend a little, so that I may show you clearly what he feared, so as not to answer this, and bring to light what he tried to obscure. He could certainly have answered most easily when we asked 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: “By the Lord God”; and said with complete confidence, “Certainly God cleanses the receiver's conscience when he does not know the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness.” But the man, who had already been forced by the aim of your sect to place the cleansing of the receiver in the giver's conscience, since he had said, “For it is the conscience of the giver,” or “of one who gives in holiness, that is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver,” feared that a man would seem to be better baptized by a hidden bad man than by a manifestly good man; for then he would be cleansed not by the conscience of a man giving in holiness, but by the most excellent holiness of God himself. Fearing this, then, lest so great an absurdity, or rather madness, should follow him that he would not know where to flee, he would not say from what source the receiver's conscience is to be cleansed when he does not know the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness; and, confusing everything with litigious noise, he preferred to hide what was asked of him rather than give the questioner an answer by which he would at once be choked; never thinking that our letters could be read by men of good sense, or his by those who had also read mine, to which he pretended to answer.

For what I have just said is set out most plainly in that very letter of mine against which he said nothing in writing; and see, I beg, what he did there, and, though you favour him and hate us, bear it with an even mind, if you can. For since in his former letter, to whose first parts, which alone had then come into our hands, I had first answered, he had placed the hope of the man to be baptized in the man who baptizes, so as to say, “For everything consists by its origin and root, and if it does not have something as its head, it is nothing”; since, then, Petilian had said this, meaning nothing else to be understood as the origin and root and head of the man to be baptized than the man by whom he was baptized, I added and said: “So we ask, when that faithless baptizer is hidden, if the one he baptizes then receives faith and not guilt, if his baptizer is not then his origin and root and head, who is it from whom he receives faith? Where is the origin from which he springs, where the root from which he grows, where the head from which he begins? Or perhaps, when the one baptized does not know that the baptizer is faithless, is it then Christ who gives faith, then Christ who is the origin, root, and head?” This, then, I say and cry out now too, as I cried out there: “O human rashness and pride! Why do you not rather allow that Christ always gives faith, making a Christian by giving it? Why do you not allow that Christ is always the origin of the Christian, that the Christian fixes his root in Christ, that Christ is the Christian's head? For even when spiritual grace is imparted to believers through a holy and faithful minister, it is not the minister himself who justifies, but that one alone of whom it is said that he justifies the ungodly. Nor was the apostle Paul the head and origin of those he had planted, or Apollos the root of those he had watered, rather than he who had given them the growth; for he himself says, ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth; so neither the one who plants is anything, nor the one who waters, but God who gives the growth.’ Nor was he their root, but rather he who said, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches.’ And how could he be their head, when he says that we who are many are one body in Christ, and in many places proclaims most plainly that Christ himself is the head of the whole body? Therefore, whether someone receives the sacrament of baptism from a faithful or a faithless minister, let all his hope be in Christ, so that he may not be cursed as one who puts his hope in man.”

These things I set down, I think both clearly and truly, in my former letter when I answered Petilian. These I have now recalled too, urging and commending that our hope be not at all in man, and that we believe Christ God to be the cleanser and justifier of men who believe in him who justifies the ungodly, so that their faith may be reckoned as righteousness, whether the man who ministers baptism is holy, or ungodly and a hypocrite whom the Holy Spirit flees. Then I added how great an absurdity would follow if it were otherwise, and said what I say now too: “Otherwise, if each is reborn in spiritual grace such as the one by whom he is baptized, and if, when the man who baptizes is plainly good, he himself gives faith and is himself the origin, root, and head of the one being born, but when the faithless baptizer is hidden, each then receives faith from Christ, then draws his origin from Christ, then is rooted in Christ, then glories in Christ as head, then all who are baptized ought to wish to have faithless baptizers and not to know it. For however good the baptizers they have, Christ is beyond comparison better, and he will be the baptized person's head only if the baptizer is secretly faithless. But if it is utter madness to believe this (for Christ always justifies the ungodly by making a Christian out of the ungodly; faith is always received from Christ; Christ is always the origin of the regenerate and the head of the church), what weight do those words have, whose inner sense empty readers do not attend to, but only how they sound?” This I said then; this is written in that letter of mine.

Then a little later, since he had said, “Since these things are so, brothers, what perversity can it be that one guilty of his own crimes should make another innocent, when the Lord Jesus Christ says, ‘A good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears bad fruit; do they gather grapes from thorns?’ and again, ‘Every good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and every evil man out of the treasure of his heart brings forth evil things’?”, by which words Petilian showed quite plainly that the man who baptizes is to be taken as the tree and the one baptized as the fruit, I had answered this: “If the good tree is the good baptizer, so that his good fruit is the one he has baptized, then whoever has been baptized by a bad man, even one not manifestly bad, cannot be good, since he sprang from a bad tree; for a good tree is one thing, a tree hidden but still bad is another.” What else did I mean to be understood by these words but what I had set down a little earlier: that the tree and its fruit should be taken not as the one who baptizes and the one baptized, but the man as the tree and his work and life as his fruit, which a good man always has good and a bad man bad; so that the absurdity may not follow that a man is bad who has been baptized even by a hidden bad man, as the fruit of a tree, hidden but still bad? To this he answered nothing at all.

But so that neither he nor any of you might say that, when the one who baptizes is secretly bad, the one he baptizes is then not his fruit but Christ's fruit, I at once added what mad error follows even this view, and repeated, though in other words, what I had said a little before: “If, when the bad tree is hidden, whoever has been baptized by it is born not of it but of Christ, then those baptized by hidden bad men are justified in a holier way than those baptized by manifestly good men.” Petilian, then, hemmed in by these very severe straits, was silent about the earlier words on which these depended, and he cited these absurdities, which follow from his error, in his answer as if I had said them from my own view, when they were said precisely so that he might notice how much evil follows his view and be forced to change it. So, practising this fraud on hearers or readers, and wholly despairing that what we wrote could be read, he began to inveigh against me heavily and petulantly, as if I had thought that all who are baptized should wish to have faithless baptizers and not know them, because, however good the baptizers they have, Christ is beyond comparison better, who will be the baptized person's head only if the baptizer is secretly faithless; and likewise as if I had thought that those baptized by hidden bad men are justified in a holier way than those baptized by manifestly good men; whereas this astonishing madness was mentioned by me because it necessarily follows for those who think, with Petilian, that the baptized man is to his baptizer as fruit is to the tree from which it springs, good from good, bad from bad. When we tell them to answer whose fruit they think the baptized man is when he is baptized by a hidden bad man, since they do not dare to rebaptize him, they are forced to answer that he is then not the fruit of that hidden bad man but the fruit of Christ; and so there follows for them what they do not want and what it is madness to think: that if a man is the fruit of his baptizer when he is baptized by a manifestly good man, but when he is baptized by a hidden bad man is then not his fruit but Christ's, then those baptized by hidden bad men are justified in a holier way than those baptized by manifestly good men.

When Petilian attributes this to me, as though I had thought it, and inveighs against me heavily and vehemently enough, he himself surely shows by that very heavy invective of his how wicked it is to think such things; and so whatever he wanted to seem to say against me because of this view is found to be said against himself, who is convicted of thinking such things. For there he shows how great a force of truth has overcome him, where he finds no other way out than to pretend that I thought what he himself thinks. Just as if those whom the apostle rebukes, because they said there is no resurrection of the dead, should want to accuse the same apostle because he said, “Neither has Christ risen,” and that the preaching of the apostles is empty, the faith of believers empty too, and that those are found false witnesses against God who said that he raised Christ: this is what Petilian wanted to do to me, despairing that what I wrote, to which he could not answer, could be read; and he greatly desired to be thought to have answered. But just as, if anyone had done that to the apostle, then, with the whole passage read out from his letter and the earlier words restored, on which anyone who reads understands that these depend, all that slanderous criticism would rebound on the critics' foreheads, so, with the earlier words of my letter restored, while Petilian accuses me, they are turned back with greater force into his face, from which he tried to remove them.

For the apostle, refuting those who denied the resurrection of the dead, corrects them by the absurdity that follows unwillingly for those who think so, so that, shrinking from what is wicked to say, they may correct what they dared to believe. So he says: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ risen; and if Christ has not risen, our preaching is empty, your faith also is vain; we are found also false witnesses of God, because we bore witness against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise”; so that, while they fear to say that Christ has not risen and the other evil and wicked things that follow, they may correct what they foolishly and faithlessly said, that there is no resurrection of the dead. If, then, you take away what is set at the head of this reasoning, “If there is no resurrection of the dead,” the rest is wrongly said and must be attributed to the apostle; but if you restore what it depends on and put at the beginning, “If there is no resurrection of the dead,” then rightly follow, “Neither has Christ risen,” and, “our preaching is empty, your faith also is empty,” and the rest that is connected; and all these things were said well and prudently by the apostle, since whatever evil they contain must be imputed to those who denied the resurrection of the dead. So too in my letter, take away what is set down: “If each is reborn in spiritual grace such as the one by whom he is baptized, and if, when the man who baptizes is plainly good, he himself gives faith and is himself the origin, root, and head of the one being born, but when the faithless baptizer is hidden, each then receives faith from Christ, then draws his origin from Christ, then is rooted in Christ, then glories in Christ as head”: take these away, on which what follows depends, and it is very badly said and must be attributed to me: “All who are baptized ought to wish to have faithless baptizers and not to know it. For however good the baptizers they have, Christ is beyond comparison better, who will be the baptized person's head only if the baptizer is secretly faithless.” But let those things be restored which you say: then what depends on them and follows, tied to them, is found not to be thought by me, and whatever evil it has is turned back on your view. Likewise take away what is set down: “If the good tree is the good baptizer, so that his good fruit is the one he has baptized,” and, “if, when the bad tree is hidden, whoever has been baptized by it is born not of it but of Christ”: take these away, which you are forced to confess both from your sect and from Petilian's letter, and that mad conclusion that follows will be mine and imputable to me: “Those baptized by hidden bad men are justified in a holier way than those baptized by manifestly good men.” But restore the things on which this depends, and you will at once see both that I put it rightly to correct you, and that all that rightly displeases you in this sentence has fallen back on your own face.

So, just as those who denied the resurrection of the dead could in no way defend themselves from the great evils which the apostle linked together to refute them, saying, “Neither has Christ risen,” and the other things likewise wicked, unless they changed their view and confessed that there is a resurrection of the dead; so you too, if you do not want imputed to you what we say to convict and correct you, that those baptized by hidden bad men are justified in a holier way than those baptized by manifestly good men, change your view and do not place the hope of those who are baptized in man. For if you do place it, see what I say (so that no one may again suppress this and say that I thought what I mention to refute and correct you); see what I say, on what what I am about to say depends: if you place the hope of those to be baptized in the man by whom they are baptized; if you make the baptizing man, as Petilian wrote, the origin and root and head of the one baptized; if you take the good tree as the good man baptizing and his good fruit as the one baptized by him; then you prompt us to ask you from what origin he springs, from what root he sprouts, to what head he is attached, from what tree he is born, whom a hidden bad man baptizes. To this inquiry belongs also that question to which I have very often pointed out that Petilian did not answer: from what source is the one cleansed who receives baptism, when he does not know the stained conscience of one not giving in holiness? For he wants this conscience of the giver, or of one who gives in holiness, to be the origin, root, head, seed, tree from which the sanctification of the baptized arises, spreads, begins, sprouts, is born.

So when we ask from what source the person was cleansed whom you do not rebaptize in your communion, even when it is shown that he was baptized by someone who, because of hidden wickedness, no longer had the conscience of one who gives in holiness, what will you answer but, “By Christ,” or, “By God” (though Christ too is God over all, blessed forever), or, “By the Holy Spirit,” since he too is God, because this Trinity is one God? Hence when Peter had said to a man, “You dared to lie to the Holy Spirit,” he went on at once to add what the Holy Spirit is, and said, “You have not lied to men but to God.” Finally, even if you say that he is cleansed and purified by an angel when he does not know the polluted conscience of one not giving in holiness, see that it was said of holy men that, when they rise to eternal life, they will then be equal to the angels of God. So whoever is cleansed even by an angel is cleansed better than if he were cleansed by any man's conscience. Why, then, do you not want it said to you: if a man cleanses when he is manifestly good, but when he is a hidden bad man, since he has not the conscience of one who gives in holiness, then no longer he but God or an angel cleanses, then those baptized by hidden bad men are justified in a holier way than those baptized by manifestly good men? If this sentence displeases you, as truly it ought to displease everyone, remove the things from which it springs, correct the things to which it is tied; for if those do not come first, this does not follow.

So do not say, “The conscience of one who gives in holiness is looked to, to cleanse that of the receiver,” so that it may not be said to you, “When the giver's polluted conscience is hidden, who cleanses the receiver's conscience?” and, when you answer, “Either God or an angel,” since you have nothing else to answer, there may follow what confounds you: “Those baptized by hidden bad men, so as to be cleansed by God or an angel, are justified in a holier way than those baptized by manifestly good men, who are not comparable with God or angels.” But say what the truth and the Catholic Church say: that not only when the minister of baptism is bad, but also when he is holy and good, hope is not to be placed in man, but in him who justifies the ungodly, in whom those who believe have their faith reckoned as righteousness. For when we say, “Christ baptizes,” we do not mean by a visible ministry, as Petilian thinks or wants it thought that we say, but by hidden grace, hidden power in the Holy Spirit, as John the Baptist said of him, “This is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” Nor, as Petilian says, has he now ceased to baptize; he still does it, not by the ministry of the body but by the invisible work of his majesty. For when we say, “He himself baptizes,” we do not say, “He himself holds and dips the bodies of believers in the water,” but, “He himself invisibly cleanses,” and this the whole church without exception. For one must believe the apostle Paul, who said of him, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the word.” See that Christ sanctifies; see that Christ, even in that very washing of water in the word, where ministers are seen to work bodily, himself washes, himself cleanses. So let no one claim for himself what is God's. Thus the hope of men is sure when it is fixed in him who cannot deceive, since “cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man” and “blessed is he whose hope is the Lord God.” For the faithful steward will receive eternal life as reward; but the unfaithful steward, when he distributes the Lord's provisions to his fellow servants, God forbid that by his unfaithfulness he should make the provisions useless. For “do what they say,” he says, “but do not do what they do.” This was commanded about bad stewards precisely so that God's good things might be received through them, and their bad life avoided by being unlike it.

But if it is clear that Petilian did not answer these first words of my letter, and that where he tried to answer he rather showed that he could not answer, what shall I say of those parts of my writings which he did not even try to answer, which he did not touch at all? Yet if anyone who has both my writings and his cares to review them, I think he will understand with what firmness they are strengthened. To show you this briefly, recall or review by reading the very testimonies brought forward from the holy Scriptures which he set down as if against us, and those which I too set down in my answer against you; and see how I showed that those he set down are not against us but rather against you, while he did not touch at all those most necessary ones which I set down; and in that one text of the apostle which he tried to handle as if for himself, you will see how he found no way out.

For the part of the letter which he wrote to his people, from the beginning to the place where he says, “The Lord commands us this: When men persecute you in this city, flee to another; and if they persecute you in that, flee to another,” came into our hands first; to this we answered. When this answer of ours had come into his hands too, he wrote this letter which we are now refuting, and we show that he did not answer ours. In that first part of his writings, then, which we answered first, these are the testimonies of Scripture which he thought were against us: “A good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit; do they gather grapes from thorns?”, and again, “Every good man out of the treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and every evil man out of the treasure of his heart brings forth evil things,” and again, “He who is baptized by a dead man, his washing does not profit him”; by these testimonies wanting to show that the one baptized becomes such as the one by whom he was baptized. I, on the other hand, showed how these testimonies should be taken and that they did not help his purpose at all. As for the other things he set down, said against wicked and criminal men, I showed sufficiently that they are not against the Lord's grain, spread through the whole world as was foretold and promised, and that they could rather be said by us against you. Review it and you will find it.

But what I set down for the assertion of the Catholic Church is this. As regards baptism, so that what we are regenerated, cleansed, and justified by God's grace may not be attributed to the man who gives it: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in man,” and, “Cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man,” and that “salvation belongs to the Lord” and “vain is the salvation of man,” and that “neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth,” and that he in whom one believes “justifies the ungodly, so that his faith is reckoned as righteousness.” For the unity of the church itself, which is spread among all nations, with which you are not in communion, I set down these testimonies foretold of Christ: that “he shall rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth,” and, “I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession”; and that God's testament made to Abraham should be read for our, that is, the Catholic, communion, where it is written, “In your seed all nations will be blessed,” which seed the apostle interprets, saying, “And to your seed, which is Christ.” From this it appears that not only Africans or Africa, but all nations, will have the blessing in Christ, through which the Catholic Church is spread, promised so long before. And that chaff is with the grain until the last winnowing, so that no one may excuse the sacrilege of his separation, by slanders about others' crimes, for having left and deserted the communion of all nations; and so that Christian fellowship may not be divided because of bad stewards, that is, leaders, I also set down that testimony: “Do what they say, but do not do what they do; for they say and do not do.” These testimonies from the holy Scriptures set down by me he neither showed should be taken otherwise, so as to show that they are not for us or against you, nor would he touch them at all; rather he worked, by the tumult of his abuse, that, if possible, these things I said should come to the mind of no one who wished to read his letter after reading mine.