[290] Another reading, of less authority, is, "Aut catechumeno sacramentum baptismi præferendum putamus." This does not suit the sense of the passage, and probably sprung from want of knowledge of the meaning of the "catechumen's sacrament." It is mentioned in the third Council of Carthage as "the sacrament of salt" (Conc. Carth. 3, can. 5). Augustine (_de Peccat. Meritis_, ii. c. 26) says that "what the catechumens receive, though it be not the body of Christ, yet is holy, more holy than the food whereby our bodies are sustained, because it is a sacrament."--Cp. _de Catech. Rudibus_, c. 26. It appears to have been only a taste of salt, given them as the emblem of purity and incorruption. See Bingham, _Orig. Eccles._ Book x. c. ii. 16. [291] Acts x. 44. [292] Acts viii. 13, 18, 19. [293] Matt. v. 20. [294] Acts x. 4, 5. [295] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 19. [296] Luke xxiii. 43. [297] In _Retract._ ii. 18, Augustine expresses a doubt whether the thief may not have been baptized. [298] Rom. x. 10. [299] Matt. iii 6, 13. [300] Rom. iv. 11, 3. [301] Gen. xvii. 9-14. [302] Ex. iv. 24. [303] John ix. 21. [304] Acts xix. 3-5. BOOK FIFTH. HE EXAMINES THE LAST PART OF THE EPISTLE OF CYPRIAN TO JUBAIANUS, TOGETHER WITH HIS EPISTLE TO QUINTUS, THE LETTER OF THE AFRICAN SYNOD TO THE NUMIDIAN BISHOPS, AND CYPRIAN'S EPISTLE TO POMPEIUS. CHAP. I.--1. We have the testimony of the blessed Cyprian, that the custom of the Catholic Church is at present retained, when men coming from the side of heretics or schismatics, if they have received baptism as consecrated in the words of the gospel, are not baptized afresh. For he himself proposed to himself the question, and that as coming from the mouth of brethren either seeking the truth or contending for the truth. For in the course of the arguments by which he wished to show that heretics should be baptized again, which we have sufficiently considered for our present purpose in the former books, he says: "But some will say, What then will become of those who in times past, coming to the Church from heresy, were admitted without baptism?"[305] In this question is involved the shipwreck of the whole cause of the Donatists, with whom our contest is on this point. For if those had not really baptism who were thus received on coming from heretics, and their sins were still upon them, then, when such men were admitted to communion, either by Cyprian himself, or by those who came before him, we must acknowledge that one of two things occurred,--either that the Church perished then and there from the pollution of communion with such men, or that any one abiding in unity is not injured by even the notorious sins of other men. But since they cannot say that the Church then perished through the contamination arising from communion with those who, as Cyprian says, were admitted into it without baptism,--for otherwise they cannot maintain the validity of their own origin if