Writings in Connection with the Donatist ControversyAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Donatists; Donatists -- Controversial literature
9. We do not then "find that any one, after being baptized among
heretics, was afterwards admitted by the apostles with the same
baptism, and communicated;"[208] but neither do we find this, that
any one coming from the society of heretics, who had been baptized
among them, was baptized anew by the apostles. But this custom, which
even then those who looked back to past ages could not find to have
been invented by men of a later time, is rightly believed to have
been handed down from the apostles. And there are many other things
of the same kind, which it would be tedious to recount. Wherefore, if
they had something to say for themselves to whom Cyprian, wishing to
persuade them of the truth of his own view, says, "Let no one say,
What we have received from the apostles, that we follow," with how
much more force we now say, What the custom of the Church has always
held, what this argument has failed to prove false, and what a general
Council has confirmed, this we follow! To this we may add that it may
also be said, after a careful inquiry into the reasoning on both sides
of the discussion, and into the evidence of Scripture, What truth has
declared, that we follow.
* * * * *
CHAP. VII.--10. For in fact, as to what some opposed to the reasoning
of Cyprian, that the apostle says, "Notwithstanding every way, whether
in pretence or in truth, let Christ be preached,"[209] Cyprian rightly
exposed their error, showing that it has nothing to do with the case
of heretics, since the apostle was speaking of those who were acting
within the Church, with malicious envy seeking their own profit. They
announced Christ, indeed, according to the truth whereby we believe in
Christ, but not in the spirit in which He was announced by the good
evangelists to the sons of the dove. "For Paul," he says, "in his
epistle was not speaking of heretics, or of their baptism, so that it
could be shown that he had laid down anything concerning this matter.
He was speaking of brethren, whether as walking disorderly and contrary
to the discipline of the Church, or as keeping the discipline of the
Church in the fear of God. And he declared that some of them spoke the
word of God stedfastly and fearlessly, but that some were acting in
envy and strife; that some had kept themselves encompassed with kindly
Christian love, but that others entertained malice and strife: but yet
that he patiently endured all things, with the view that, whether in
truth or in pretence, the name of Christ, which Paul preached, might
come to the knowledge of the greatest number, and that the sowing of
the word, which was as yet a new and unaccustomed work, might spread
more widely by the preaching of those that spoke. Furthermore, it is
one thing for those who are within the Church to speak in the name of
Christ, another thing for those who are without, acting against the
Church, to baptize in the name of Christ."[210] These words of Cyprian
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