A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

492 A Source Book for Ancient Church History[449]“Can the power of baptism,” says Cyprian, “be greater thanconfession, than martyrdom, that a man should confess Christbefore men, and be baptized in his own blood, and yet,” he says,“neither does this baptism profit the heretic, even though forconfessing Christ he be put to death outside the Church.” Thisis most true; for by being put to death outside the Church, he isproved not to have had that charity of which the Apostle says:“Though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, itprofiteth me nothing” [I Cor. 13:3]. But if martyrdom is of noavail for the reason that charity is lacking, neither does it profitthose who, as Paul says, and Cyprian further sets forth, are livingwithin the Church without charity, in envy and malice; and yetthey can both receive and transmit true baptism. “Salvation,”he says, “is not without the Church.” Who denies this? Andtherefore whatever men have that belongs to the Church, outsidethe Church it profits them nothing toward salvation. But it is onething not to have, another to have it but to no use. He who has itnot must be baptized that he may have it; he who has to no usemust be corrected, that what he has he may have to some use.Nor is the water in baptism “adulterous,” because neither is thecreature itself, which God made, evil, nor is the fault to be foundin 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, eventhough it may receive the adornment of the sacrament from alawful spouse. It therefore can be true that baptism is “commonto us and to the heretics,” since the Gospel can be common tous, although their error differs from our faith; whether they thinkotherwise than the truth about the Father or Son or the HolySpirit; or, being cut away from unity, do not gather with Christ,but scatter abroad, because it is possible that the sacrament ofbaptism can be common to us if we are the wheat of the Lord withthe covetous within the Church and with robbers and drunkardsand other pestilent persons, of whom it is said, “They shall notinherit the kingdom of God,” and yet the vices by which they are