Letters 75.10–75.25

I want also to set out for you a story of something that happened among us, bearing on this very point. About twenty-two years ago, in the times after the emperor Alexander, many conflicts and afflictions befell here, whether on all people in common or on Christians in particular. There were also very many and frequent earthquakes, so that many buildings throughout Cappadocia and Pontus collapsed, and some cities too were swallowed into the depths by the gaping of the torn ground; so that from this a severe persecution also arose against us for the name, which, breaking out suddenly after a long period of peace, was made the more terrible for troubling our people by the unexpected and unaccustomed evil. Serenianus was then governor in our province, a harsh and dreadful persecutor. While the faithful were in this turmoil, fleeing here and there for fear of persecution, leaving their homelands and crossing into other parts of the region (for it was possible to cross over, because that persecution was local and not throughout the whole world), there suddenly appeared here a certain woman who, in a state of ecstasy, presented herself as a prophetess and acted as though filled with the Holy Spirit. She was so carried away by the onset of the chief demons that for a long time she troubled and deceived the brotherhood, performing certain astonishing and portentous things, and promising that she would make the earth quake: not that a demon had such power that it could move the earth or shake an element by its own strength, but because sometimes a wicked spirit, foreknowing and perceiving that an earthquake was coming, pretended that it would do what it saw was going to happen. By these lies and boasts it had so subdued the minds of individuals that they obeyed her and followed wherever she commanded and led; it also made that woman walk barefoot in the raw winter through rough snow without being troubled or hurt in any way by that running about; and she said she was hurrying to Judea and Jerusalem, pretending that she had come from there. Here she also deceived one of the presbyters, Rusticus, and also another, a deacon, so that they had intercourse with that same woman; this was discovered a little later. For suddenly there appeared before her one of the exorcists, a man of proven character who had always lived well in religious discipline; roused also by the exhortation of very many brothers who were present, themselves brave and praiseworthy in faith, he rose up to refute that wicked spirit. With subtle deceit it had even predicted a little before that a certain hostile and faithless tempter would come. Yet that exorcist, inspired by God's grace, resisted bravely and showed that it was a most wicked spirit which before had been thought holy. Now that woman, who before had worked many demonic wonders through tricks and deceits to deceive the faithful, among the other things by which she had deceived very many, often dared even this: to pretend with an invocation not to be despised that she sanctified bread and made the Eucharist, and to offer the sacrifice to the Lord without the sacred form of the customary proclamation; she also baptized many, using the customary and lawful words of the questions, so that she seemed to differ in nothing from the church's rule.

What then shall we say of the baptism of this woman, by which a most wicked demon baptized through a woman? Do Stephen and those who agree with him approve this too, especially since neither the creed of the Trinity nor the lawful questions of the church were lacking to it? Can it be believed that remission of sins was given, or that the regeneration of the saving washing was duly accomplished, where everything, though in the image of the truth, was done through a demon? Unless those who champion the baptisms of heretics contend that even a demon gave the grace of baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; for among the heretics there is doubtless the same error and the very same deceit of demons, since among them there is no Holy Spirit at all.

And what sort of thing is it that Stephen wants, that the presence and holiness of Christ is with those who are baptized among heretics? For if the apostle does not lie when he says, “As many of you as have been dipped in Christ have put on Christ,” then surely one who has been baptized there in Christ has put on Christ. But if he has put on Christ, he could also receive the Holy Spirit, who was sent by Christ, and it is in vain that a hand is laid on him when he comes to receive the Spirit; unless they divide the Spirit from Christ, so that among heretics Christ indeed is present, but the Holy Spirit is not there.

Let us run through briefly the other points too that you made copiously and very fully, especially as Rogatianus, our dearest deacon, is hurrying back to you. For it follows that those who defend heretics must be asked by us whether their baptism is fleshly or spiritual. If it is fleshly, they differ in nothing from the baptism of the Jews, which they use as a common and ordinary bath, merely to wash off dirt. But if it is spiritual, how can there be spiritual baptism among those among whom the Holy Spirit is not? And therefore the water in which they are dipped is for them only a fleshly bath, not the sacrament of baptism.

But if the baptism of heretics can have the regeneration of the second birth, those who are baptized among them must be counted not heretics but sons of God. For the second birth, which is in baptism, begets sons of God. But if the bride of Christ is one, which is the catholic church, she it is who alone begets sons to God. For there are not many brides of Christ, since the apostle says: “I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a holy virgin to Christ”; and: “Hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people, for the king has desired your beauty”; and: “Come, bride, from Lebanon; you shall come and pass on from the beginning of faith”; and: “I have entered my garden, my sister, my bride.” We see that one person is set forth everywhere, because the bride too is one. But the synagogue of the heretics is not one with us, because the adulteress and harlot is not the bride either. Hence she cannot bear sons to God either. Unless, as Stephen thinks, heresy indeed bears children and exposes them, and the church takes up the exposed and nurses as her own those whom she did not bear, though she cannot be the mother of others' children. And therefore Christ our Lord, making plain that his bride is one and declaring the sacrament of her unity, says: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” For if Christ is with us, and the heretics are not with us, then certainly the heretics are against Christ; and if we gather with Christ, and the heretics do not gather with us, without doubt they scatter.

Nor must we pass over what you rightly said, that according to the Song of Songs the church is a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed, a paradise with fruit of apples. How will those who have never entered this garden nor seen the paradise planted by God the Creator be able to give anyone the living water of the saving washing from the fountain that is enclosed within and sealed with the divine seal? And since the ark of Noah too was nothing other than a sacrament of the church of Christ, which then, while all outside perished, saved only those who were within the ark, we are plainly instructed to recognize the unity of the church, as Peter too set down, saying: “So baptism will likewise save us also”; showing that, as those who were not with Noah in the ark were not only not cleansed and saved through water but perished at once in that flood, so now whoever are not with Christ in the church will perish outside, unless they are converted through penance to the one saving washing of the church.

How great an error it is, and how great the blindness, of one who says that remission of sins can be given in the synagogues of heretics and does not remain on the foundation of the one church, which was once established by Christ upon the rock, can be understood from this: that Christ said to Peter alone: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven”; and again in the gospel Christ breathed on the apostles alone, saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you remit anyone's sins, they will be remitted to him; and if you retain anyone's, they will be retained.” The power of remitting sins, therefore, was given to the apostles and to the churches which they, sent by Christ, established, and to the bishops who succeeded them by vicarious ordination. But the enemies of the one catholic church in which we are, and the adversaries of us who have succeeded the apostles, claiming unlawful priesthoods against us and setting up profane altars, what else are they than Korah and Dathan and Abiram, sacrilegious with equal crime, and about to pay the same penalties as they, together with those who agree with them? Just as then too their partners and supporters perished with them by the same death.

And here I am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of Stephen: that he who boasts so of the place of his episcopate and contends that he holds the succession of Peter, on whom the foundations of the church were laid, should bring in many other rocks and set up new buildings of many churches, while he maintains by his authority that there is baptism there. For those who are baptized doubtless make up the number of the church; and whoever approves their baptism affirms, from the fact of the baptized, that there is a church there too. Nor does he understand that one who thus betrays and deserts unity obscures and in a way abolishes the truth of the Christian rock. The apostle acknowledges that the Jews, though blind with ignorance and bound by a most grievous crime, have a zeal for God. Stephen, who proclaims that he holds the chair of Peter by succession, is stirred by no zeal against heretics, granting them no small but the very greatest power of grace, so as to say and insist that through the sacrament of baptism they wash away the filth of the old man, pardon the ancient sins of death, make sons of God by heavenly regeneration, and restore to eternal life by the sanctification of the divine washing. If he thus concedes and grants to heretics the great and heavenly gifts of the church, what else does he do than hold communion with those for whom he defends and claims so much grace? And it is in vain that he now hesitates to agree with them and be their partner in other things too, so as to meet together with them, mingle his prayers with theirs, and set up a common altar and sacrifice.

“But,” he says, “the name of Christ is of great profit for faith and the sanctification of baptism, so that whoever has been baptized anywhere in the name of Christ at once obtains the grace of Christ.” This point can be met briefly and it can be said: if baptism outside availed to cleanse a person in the name of Christ, the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit could also avail there in the name of the same Christ. And the other things done among heretics will begin to seem just and lawful too, since they are done in the name of Christ; whereas, as you have set out in your letter, the name of Christ can avail only in the church alone, to which alone Christ has granted the power of heavenly grace.

As for refuting custom, which they seem to set against the truth, who is so empty-headed as to prefer custom to truth, or who, having seen the light, would not abandon darkness? Unless perhaps most ancient custom helps the Jews in any way, now that Christ, that is, the truth, has come, because they remained in antiquity and abandoned the new way of truth. This indeed you Africans can say against Stephen: that on knowing the truth you abandoned the error of custom. But we join custom to truth, and to the custom of the Romans we oppose custom, but the custom of truth, holding from the beginning what was handed down by Christ and the apostles. Nor do we remember that this ever began among us, since it has always been observed here that we knew only one church of God and counted holy baptism as belonging only to the holy church. To be sure, since some were in doubt about the baptism of those who, though they receive the new prophets, seem to know the same Father and Son as we do, very many of us met together at Iconium and most carefully discussed and confirmed that absolutely all baptism established outside the church is to be rejected.

As for what they put forward for the heretics, saying that the apostle said, “Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed,” it is pointless for us to answer, since it is clear that the apostle, in the letter in which he said this, mentioned neither heretics nor their baptism, but spoke only of brothers, whether speaking faithlessly with him or persevering in sincere faith; nor is there need to go into this in a long treatise; it is enough to read the letter itself and learn from the apostle himself what the apostle said.

“What then,” they say, “will become of those who, coming from heretics, have been admitted without the church's baptism?” If they have departed this world, they are counted among those who have been instructed as catechumens among us but died before they were baptized, having no small benefit from the truth and faith to which they had come, leaving error behind, even if, overtaken by death, they did not obtain the completion of grace. But those who are still in this world should be baptized with the church's baptism, so that they may obtain remission of sins, lest, remaining in their former error through another's presumption, they die without the completion of grace. For what an offense it is, either of those who are admitted or of those who admit them, that, with their filth not washed away by the church's washing nor their sins put off, they should rashly usurp communion and touch the body and blood of the Lord, since it is written: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”

We have also judged that those whom men baptized who had formerly been bishops in the catholic church and afterwards assumed to themselves the power of clerical ordination are to be held as unbaptized. And this is observed among us: whoever come to us dipped by them are baptized among us, as strangers who have obtained nothing, with the one and true baptism of the catholic church, so that they may obtain the regeneration of the life-giving washing. And yet there is a great difference between one who gave way unwillingly, compelled by the necessity of persecution, and one who, bold with sacrilegious will, rebels against the church or blasphemes with impious voice against the Father and God of Christ and Creator of the whole world. And Stephen is not ashamed to assert that remission of sins can be given through those who are themselves set in all sins, as though there could be a washing of salvation in the house of death.

Where then will be what is written, “Keep yourself from strange water, and do not drink from a strange fountain,” if, leaving the church's sealed fountain, you take strange water as your own and pollute the church with profane fountains? For when you share in communion with the baptism of heretics, what else do you do than drink from their whirlpool and mire, and, though cleansed yourself by the sanctification of the church, become defiled by contact with others' filth? And do you not fear the judgment of God, bearing witness for heretics against the church, since it is written: “A false witness shall not go unpunished”? Indeed, you are worse than all the heretics. For when many of them, having recognized their error, come from there to you to receive the true light of the church, you help the errors of those who come, and, darkening the light of the church's truth, you heap up the shadows of heretical night; and when they confess that they are in sins and have no grace, and are therefore coming to the church, you take away from them the remission of sins which is given in baptism, by saying that they are already baptized and have obtained the church's grace outside the church. Nor do you understand that their souls will be required at your hand when the day of judgment comes, since you denied the church's drink to the thirsty and became a cause of death to those who wished to live. And on top of this you are indignant!

See with what ignorance you dare to rebuke those who strive for truth against falsehood! For who ought more justly to be indignant against the other: he who champions the enemies of God, or he who stands against the enemies of God for the truth of the church? Except that it is plain that the ignorant are also hot-tempered and wrathful, since through lack of counsel and speech they are easily turned to anger, so that divine Scripture speaks of no one more than you: “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, and a wrathful man heaps up sins.” For what strife and dissensions have you stirred up throughout the churches of the whole world? And how great a sin have you heaped up for yourself, when you cut yourself off from so many flocks? For you have cut off yourself; do not deceive yourself, since he is truly a schismatic who has made himself an apostate from the communion of the church's unity. For while you think that all can be excluded from communion by you, you have excluded yourself alone from all. Nor could even the precepts of the apostle shape you to the rule of truth and peace, when he warns and says: “I, therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, with all humility of mind and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all.”

How diligently Stephen has fulfilled these commands and wholesome warnings of the apostle, keeping humility of mind and gentleness in the first place! For what is humbler or gentler than to have disagreed with so many bishops throughout the whole world, breaking peace with each by various kinds of discord, now with the easterners, as we are sure you are aware, now with you who are in the south, from whom he received the envoys, bishops, so patiently and gently that he would not admit them even to the speech of common conversation; and, still more mindful of love and charity, commanded the whole brotherhood that no one should receive them into his house, so that when they came not only peace and communion but even roof and hospitality were denied them! This is to have kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: to cut oneself off from the unity of love, to make oneself a stranger to the brothers in everything, and to rebel against the sacrament and bond of peace with the fury of discord. Can there be one body and one Spirit with such a man, in whom perhaps the soul itself is not one, so slippery and changeable and uncertain is it? But as far as he is concerned, let us leave him. Let us rather examine the point on which the chief question turns. Those who contend that those baptized by heretics should be received as if they had obtained the grace of lawful baptism say that there is one baptism for us and for them, differing in nothing. But what does the apostle Paul say? “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.” If the baptism of heretics is one and the same as ours, doubtless the faith too is one. But if the faith is one, surely the Lord too is one. If the Lord is one, it follows to say that God is one. But if this unity, which cannot be separated or divided at all, is the same among heretics too, why do we contend any further? Why do we call them heretics and not Christians? But since for us and the heretics there is neither one God nor one Lord nor one church nor one faith, nor indeed one Spirit or one body, it is plain that neither can baptism be common to us and the heretics, with whom we have nothing whatever in common. And yet Stephen is not ashamed to give patronage to such people against the church, and for the sake of championing heretics to split the brotherhood, and besides to call Cyprian a false christ and a false apostle and a deceitful worker; conscious that all these things are in himself, he got in first so as to charge another falsely with what he himself deserved to hear. We all wish you well, together with all the bishops who are in Africa and all the clergy and the whole brotherhood, so that, always of one heart and one mind, we may have you united with us even from afar.