Part 52 (1/2)
As Cyprian was the great teacher of North Africa, and in the highest place in the esteem of all, Augustine was forced to make distinctions. This he did in his theory as to the validity of baptism as in the following pa.s.sage. The Sixth Book of the same treatise is composed of a statement of the bishops at the Council of Carthage, and Augustines answer to each statement.
Can the power of baptism, says Cyprian, be greater than confession, than martyrdom, that a man should confess Christ before men, and be baptized in his own blood, and yet, he says, neither does this baptism profit the heretic, even though for confessing Christ he be put to death outside the Church. This is most true; for by being put to death outside the Church, he is proved not to have had that charity of which the Apostle says: Though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing [I Cor. 13:3]. But if martyrdom is of no avail for the reason that charity is lacking, neither does it profit those who, as Paul says, and Cyprian further sets forth, are living within the Church without charity, in envy and malice; and yet they can both receive and transmit true baptism. Salvation, he says, is not without the Church.
Who denies this? And therefore whatever men have that belongs to the Church, outside the Church it profits them nothing toward salvation. But it is one thing not to have, another to have it but to no use. He who has it not must be baptized that he may have it; he who has to no use must be corrected, that what he has he may have to some use. Nor is the water in baptism adulterous, because neither is the creature itself, which G.o.d made, evil, nor is the fault to be found in the words of the Gospel in the mouths of any who are astray; but the fault is theirs in whom there is an adulterous spirit, even though it may receive the adornment of the sacrament from a lawful spouse. It therefore can be true that baptism is common to us and to the heretics, since the Gospel can be common to us, although their error differs from our faith; whether they think otherwise than the truth about the Father or Son or the Holy Spirit; or, being cut away from unity, do not gather with Christ, but scatter abroad, because it is possible that the sacrament of baptism can be common to us if we are the wheat of the Lord with the covetous within the Church and with robbers and drunkards and other pestilent persons, of whom it is said, They shall not inherit the kingdom of G.o.d, and yet the vices by which they are separated from the kingdom of G.o.d are not shared by us.
(_d_) Augustine, _Ep. 98, ad Bonifatium_. (MSL, 33:363.)
Relation of the sacrament to that of which it is the sign.
Sacraments are effective if no hinderance is placed to their working.
On Easter Sunday we say, This day the Lord rose from the dead, although so many years have pa.s.sed since His resurrection. The event itself being said to take place on that day, because, although it really took place long before, it is on that day sacramentally celebrated. Was not Christ once for all offered up in His own person as a sacrifice? And yet, is He not likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice, not only in the special solemnities of Easter, but also daily among our congregations; so that when a man is questioned and answers that He is offered as a sacrifice in that ordinance, does he not declare what is strictly true?
For if sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all.
[Augustines general definition of a sacrament is that it is a sign of a sacred thing.] In most cases, moreover, they do, in virtue of this likeness, bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As therefore in a certain manner the sacrament of the body of Christ is the body of Christ, the sacrament of the blood of Christ is the blood of Christ, so the sacrament of faith is faith. Now, believing is nothing else than having faith; and accordingly, when on behalf of an infant as yet incapable of exercising faith, the answer is given that he believes, this answer means that he has faith because of the sacrament of faith, and in like manner the answer is made that he turns himself toward G.o.d because of the sacrament of conversion, since the answer itself belongs to the celebration of the sacrament. Thus the Apostle says, in regard to this sacrament of baptism: We are buried with Christ by baptism into death.
He does not say, We have signified our being buried with Him, but: We have been buried with Him. He has therefore given to the sacrament pertaining to so great a transaction no other name than the word describing the transaction itself.
10. Therefore an infant, although he is not yet a believer in the sense of having that faith which includes the consenting will of those who exercise it, nevertheless becomes a believer through the sacrament of that faith.
The infant, though not yet possessing a faith helped by the understanding, is not obstructing(173) faith by an antagonism of the understanding, and therefore receives with profit the sacrament of faith.
(_e_) Augustine, _De Correctione Donatistarum_, 22 _ff._ (MSL, 33:802.)
The argument in favor of using force to compel the Donatists to return to the Church.
Augustine in the early part of the Donatist controversy was not in favor of using force. Like the others, _e.g._, Optatus, he denied that force had been employed by the Church. About 404 the situation changed, and his opinion did likewise. This work, known also as Epistle CLx.x.xV, was written circa 417. Compare Augustines position with the statement of Jerome, Piety for G.o.d is not cruelty, _cf._ Hagenbach, _History of Christian Doctrines_, 135:7. The Donatists had much injured their position by their treatment of a party which had produced a schism in their own body, the Maximianists.
22. Who can love us more than Christ who laid down His life for the sheep? And yet, after calling Peter and the other Apostles by His word alone, in the case of Paul, formerly Saul, the great builder of His Church, but previously its cruel persecutor, He not only constrained him with His voice, but even dashed him to the earth with His power. Where is what they [the Donatists] are accustomed to cry: To believe or not to believe is a matter that is free? Toward whom did Christ use violence?
Whom did He compel? Here they have the Apostle Paul. Let them recognize in his case Christs first compelling and afterward teaching; first striking and afterward consoling. For it is wonderful how he who had been compelled by bodily punishment entered into the Gospel and afterward labored more in the Gospel than all they who were called by word only; and the greater fear compelled him toward love, that perfect love which casts out fear.
23. Why, therefore, should not the Church compel her lost sons to return if the lost sons compelled others to perish? Although even men whom they have not compelled but only led astray, their loving mother embraces with more affection if they are recalled to her bosom through the enforcement of terrible but salutary laws, and are the objects of far more deep congratulation than those whom she has never lost. Is it not a part of the care of the shepherd, when any sheep have left the flock, even though not violently forced away, but led astray by soft words and by coaxings, and they have begun to be possessed by strangers, to bring them back to the fold of his master when he has found them, by the terrors or even the pains of the whip, if they wish to resist; especially since, if they multiply abundantly among the fugitive slaves and robbers, he has the more right in that the mark of the master is recognized on them, which is not outraged in those whom we receive but do not baptize?(174) So indeed is the error of the sheep to be corrected that the sign of the Redeemer shall not be marred. For if any one is marked with the royal stamp by a deserter, who has himself been marked with it, and they receive forgiveness, and the one returns to his service, and the other begins to be in the service in which he had not yet been, that mark is not effaced in either of them, but rather it is recognized in both, and approved with due honor because it is the kings. Since they cannot show that that is bad to which they are compelled,(175) they maintained that they ought not to be compelled to the good. But we have shown that Paul was compelled by Christ; therefore the Church in compelling the Donatists is following the example of her Lord, though in the first instance she waited in hopes of not having to compel any, that the prediction might be fulfilled concerning the faith of kings and peoples.
24. For in this sense also we may interpret without absurdity the apostolic declaration when the blessed Apostle Paul says: Being ready to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled [II Cor.
10:6]. Whence also the Lord himself bids the guests to be brought first to His great supper, and afterward compelled; for when His servants answered Him, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room, He said to them: Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in [Luke 14:22, 23]. In those, therefore, who were first brought in with gentleness the former obedience is fulfilled, but in those who were compelled the disobedience is avenged. For what else is the meaning of Compel them to come in, after it had previously been said, Bring in, and the answer was: Lord, it is done as Thou commandest, and yet there is room? Wherefore if by the power which the Church has received by divine appointment in its due season, through the religious character and faith of kings, those who are found in the highways and hedgesthat is, in heresies and schismsare compelled to come in, then let them not find fault because they are compelled, but consider to what they are so compelled. The supper of the Lord, the unity, is of the body of Christ, not only in the sacrament of the altar but also in the bond of peace.
(_f_) Augustine, _Contra epistulam Parmeniani_, II, 13 (29). (MSL, 43:71.)
Indelibility of baptism.
Parmenia.n.u.s was the Donatist bishop who succeeded Donatus in the see of Carthage. The letter here answered was written to Tychonius, a leading Donatist. In it Parmenia.n.u.s calls the Church defiled because it contained unworthy members. The answer of Augustine was written in 400, many years later.