A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

272 A Source Book for Ancient Church History[247]Ch. 7. It is manifest where and by whom the remission of sinscan be given, i.e., that remission which is given by baptism. Forfirst of all the Lord gave the power to Peter, upon whom He builtthe Church, and whence he appointed and showed the source ofunity, the power, namely, that that should be loosed in heavenwhich he loosed on earth [John 20:21 quoted]. When we perceivethat only they who are set over the Church and established inthe Gospel law and in the ordinance of the Lord are allowed tobaptize and to give remission of sins, we see that outside of theChurch nothing can be bound or loosed, for there there is no onewho can either bind or loose anything.Ch. 21. Can the power of baptism be greater or of more availthan confession, than suffering when one confesses Christ beforemen, and is baptized in his own blood? And yet, even this baptismdoes not benefit a heretic, although he has confessed Christand been put to death outside the Church, unless the patronsand advocates of heretics [i.e., those whom Cyprian is opposing]declare that the heretics who are slain in a false confession ofChrist are martyrs, and assign to them the glory and the crownof martyrdom contrary to the testimony of the Apostle, who saysthat it will profit them nothing although they are burned and slain.But if not even the baptism of a public confession and bloodcan profit a heretic to salvation, because there is no salvationoutside of the Church, how much less shall it benefit him if, in ahiding-place and a cave of robbers stained with the contagion ofadulterous waters, he has not only not put off his old sins, butrather heaped up still newer and greater ones! Wherefore baptismcannot be common to us and to heretics, to whom neither Godthe Father nor Christ the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the faith,nor the Church itself is common. And wherefore they ought to bebaptized who come from heresy to the Church, so that they whoare prepared and receive the lawful and true and only baptism ofthe holy Church, by divine regeneration for the kingdom of Godmay be born of both sacraments, because it is written: “Except