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Against the Donatists

St Optatus of Milevis, tr. Vassall-Phillips, 1917

Book 5, 3. That Baptism is Not to Be Repeated

Since then you have said that there was only one Deluge and that Circumcision could not be repeated, whilst we have taught that the heavenly gift is bestowed upon every believer by the Trinity, not by man----why have you thought it right to repeat¹ Baptism not after us, but after the Trinity?

Concerning this Sacrament, no small contention has been engendered, and the question is discussed² whether it be lawful to do this a second time after the Trinity, in the Name of the same Trinity. You say:
‘It is lawful,’
whilst we say:
‘It is not lawful.’

Between your
‘It is lawful,’
and our
‘It is not lawful,’
the souls of the multitude hesitate and sway backwards and forwards.³ Let no one believe either you or us. We are all like litigants in a suit.⁴ Judges must be sought for. If they are to be Christians, they cannot be provided by either side, because truth is impeded by party spirit.⁵ A judge must be sought for from outside. If he is to be a Pagan, he cannot know the Christian secrets.⁶ If he is to be a Jew, he is an enemy of Christian Baptism. Therefore, concerning this matter no judgement can be found on earth; we have to seek a Judge from heaven. But why need we knock at heaven’s gate, when we have at hand in the Gospel a testament?

Here earthly things may with reason be compared with heavenly.⁷ For example, in the case of any man who has many⁸ sons, so long as the father is present, he himself gives his orders to each, nor is any testament necessary. Thus Christ, so long as He was present on earth (although even now He is not absent), gave His orders to the Apostles with regard to whatever was necessary for the time. But just as an earthly father, who feels himself to be on the borderland of death, and fears lest his sons may break peace after his death, and go to law, calls in witnesses and transfers his will from his breast, so soon to pass away, to a record which will last for a long time⁹ ----and should any dispute arise amongst the brothers, they do not go to the grave, but the testament is looked for, and he who rests in the grave silently speaks from the record; in the same manner He, to whom the testament belongs, is in heaven----therefore let His Will be sought in the Gospel as in His testament.¹⁰

For through His foreknowledge Christ had foreseen the things which you do now, but which were then yet to come. Accordingly, when the Son of God washed the feet of His disciples, He spoke thus to Peter:
‘That which I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know afterwards.’¹¹

By saying ‘thou shalt know afterwards’ He pointed out these present times. In this way amongst other prescriptions of His testament,¹² He gave this prescription¹³ concerning the Water. If, when He washed the feet of His disciples, and the others were silent, Peter had also been silent, He would have set the example of humility only,¹⁴ and would have made no declaration respecting the Sacrament of Baptism. But when Peter refuses, and does not allow his feet to be washed, Christ refuses him the Kingdom, unless he should accept this service.¹⁵ But so soon as there is mention of the heavenly Kingdom----whereas part of his body was demanded to have service rendered unto it----he offered his whole body to be cleansed.¹⁶

Now come, be present, ye crowds and all Christian peoples,¹⁷ and learn what is lawful. When Peter makes his appeal,¹⁸ Christ teaches. Let him who doubts learn. For it is the Voice of Christ:
‘He, who has once been washed, has no need of being washed again, for he is altogether clean.’¹⁹

And thus did He make His declaration concerning that washing²⁰ which he had commanded to be done through the Trinity²¹----not concerning that of Jews or heretics, who, whilst they wash, defile,²² but concerning the holy water which flows from the fountains of the Three Names.²³

For thus the Lord Himself commanded, when He said:
‘Go, baptise all nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’²⁴

This was the washing²⁵ of which He said:
‘He that has been washed once has no need of being washed a second time.’

In saying once He forbade it to be done again, and spoke of the thing, not of the person.²⁶ For if there had been a difference²⁷ [to be considered between persons], He would have said:
‘He that has been rightly²⁸ washed once,’
but by not adding the word rightly, He points out that whatever has been done in the [Name of the] Trinity is done rightly. This is the reason why we receive without rebaptising²⁹ those who come [to us] from you. When Christ says:
‘He has no need of being washed a second time,’
this is a general, not a particular declaration,³⁰ for if these things had been said to Peter [only], Christ would have said:
‘Because thou hast been once washed, thou hast no need of being washed a second time.’

Wherefore, whenever anyone who has been baptised by you wishes to pass over to us, we, taught by this command and example, receive him with all simplicity.³¹ For far be it from us³² ever to exorcise one of the Faithful who has been made whole³³; far be it from us to bring back to the font one who has been already washed,³⁴ far from us to sin against the Holy Ghost----an offence for which forgiveness is denied in this world and in the world to come³⁵; far from us to repeat³⁶ that which is [to be done] only once,³⁷ or to make twofold³⁸ that which is one. For thus has it been written by the Apostle:
‘One God, one Christ, one Faith, one Baptism.³⁹’

Do you then, who seem to take delight⁴⁰ in striving to make Baptism twofold, if you give a second Baptism, give a second Faith; if you give a second Faith, give also a second Christ; if you give a second Christ, give a second God?

You cannot deny that God is one----unless indeed you would fall into the traps of Marcion.⁴¹ God then is one. Of one God there is one Christ.⁴² He who is rebaptised had before been made a Christian. How can he be said to become a Christian a second time?⁴³

The one Faith is thus separated from the errors of the heretics, and the one only Faith from their varying faith.⁴⁴ It has also a prescriptive right over against you,⁴⁵ who reject that which is for once only, attributing everything to the [external] Endowments, nothing to the [hidden] Sacraments⁴⁶; though this quality of Faith⁴⁷ belongs to the. believer, not to the ‘Minister.’⁴⁸ For he who has believed in God at the interrogation of any person whomsoever,⁴⁹ has believed. Yet after his one Credo thou dost exact a second Credo.⁵⁰

It follows then that Baptism is one, and, as, through the very fact that it is one, it is holy, so also, through the very fact that it is one, not only that it should be separated from the profane and sacrilegious baptisms of heretics, but also that what is one should not be made twofold, and that what is for once only should not be repeated.

Notes

geminare (cf. vi. 2: inmane facinus a vobis geminatum est; vi. 8: geminata fraude; vii. 6: salutatione geminata).
non leve certamen innatum est et dubitatur, an . . .
nutant et remigant animae populorum.
omnes contentiosi homines sumus.
studiis veritas impeditur. Cf. i, 26: ‘de studio partium strepitus cotidiani sunt habiti.’
non potest Christiana nosse secreta.
Obviously this comparison cannot be unduly pressed. The Gospels cannot strictly be called Christ’s Will, since not one word of them had been written at the time of His Death. St. Optatus, and St. Augustine after him (see note 2, p. 212), took advantage, for the purpose of their argument, of the word Testamentum (διαθήκη), which was already in use, though in a quite different sense, for the Sacred Books of the New Covenant. Dean Swift in his Tale of a Tub (Section II) is thought by some to have had this passage in his mind.
numerosos.
de pectore morituro transfert in tabulas diu duraturas.
Catholics have always appealed in domestic dissensions amongst themselves on theological questions, concerning which the Church has not spoken authoritatively, to the testimony of (1) Holy Scripture, (2) Apostolic Tradition. In dissensions with heretics they have appealed to the testimony of Scripture, which heretics profess at least to accept. So St. Augustine in controversy with the Donatists makes the same appeal, and indeed uses the same words as St. Optatus: ‘Fratres sumus; quare litigamus? Non intestatus mortuus est Pater; fecit testamentum et sic mortuus est . . . Sedet Christus in caelo, et contradicitur Eius testamento’ (in Ps. xxi). But St. Augustine makes this appeal with greater caution than did St. Optatus. St. Optatus in the text appeals to John xiii, 7, in order to prove that Baptism may not be repeated; whereas St. Augustine, who no doubt felt that this was a forced application (cf. con. Petil. ii, 22) of the text, prefers to press the appeal to Scripture in order to prove thereby that the Catholic Church is the one Church of Christ. This he does without ceasing, urging the authority of the Catholic Church as decisive. When the discussion concerns any particular question (e.g. the repetition of Baptism) St. Augustine prefers to appeal to Apostolic Tradition rather than to Holy Scripture (cf. De Unit. xix; De Bapt. ii, 7, iv, 6, v, 23).
John xiii, 8.
inter ceteros Testamenti titulos.
hunc titulum.
solam formam humilitatis.
obsequium.
quo pars corporis petebatur ad obsequium, totum corpus obtulit ad lavacrum.
nunc adestote, omnes turbae et singuli Christiani populi.
dum provocat Petrus.
mundus totus, John xiii, 10.
de eo lavacro.
de Trinitate.
qui dum lavant, sordidant.
quo de Trium Nominum fontibus inundat. Cf. note 3, p. 88,
Matt. xxviii, 19.
de hoc lavacro dixit
de re locutus est non de persona (sc. the Minister of the Sacrament).
distantia. (Cf. v, 4 infra: ‘vos vultis eiusdem personae esse distantiam.’)
bene.
simpliciter.
haec sententia generalis est non specialis.
venientem hoc magisterio et exemplo tota simplicitate suscipimus.
absit.
sanum fidelem.
ut iam lotum revocemus ad fontem. It may be noted that in the Catholic Church to-day, whenever a convert has to be conditionally baptised, in consequence of some doubt as to the ‘Matter’ and ‘Form’ of his Baptism outside the Church (e.g. as to whether it was in Trinitate), this ceremony does not take place at the font, but elsewhere in privacy.
Cf. Matt. xii, 31-32; Mark iii, 28-29; Luke xii, 10.
iteremus.
quod semel est.
duplicemus.
una tinctio (cf. Eph. iv, 5).
quasi libenter duplicare contenditis.
in Marcionis foveas (cf. iv, 5; i, 9).
De uno Deo unus est Christus.
A man who has been born once, either in the natural or supernatural order, cannot be born again in the same order of things.
una fides ab haereticorum erroribus, et ab eorum varia fide fides unica separatur.
etiam vobis praescribitur, i.e. the first Baptism is ‘in possession.’ Cf. infra: quod praescribat praesumptionibus vestris.
totum ponendo in dotibus, nihil in Sacramentis (cf. ii, 10, where the thought is more fully developed: ‘Cur de solis ecclesiae dotibus loqui voluisti et iam illud respondeas et de sanctis eius membris ac visceribus tacuisti, quae sunt procul dubio in Sacramentis et in Nominibus Trinitatis?’).
hoc nomen fidei. St. Optatus writes of Nomen Christianum (iii, 8); Catholicum (iii, 1); Ecclesiae (i, 21; iii, 5); Baptismatis (v, 4); Traditorum (i, 28); Legis (vii, 1); fraternitatis (i, 3); pietatis (iii, 10); communionis (vii, 6).
pertineat ad credentem, non ad operantem (i.e. minister of the Sacrament).
quocumque enim interrogante, qui credidit Deo, credidit.
post illius unum ‘Credo,’ tu exigis alterum ‘Credo.’ The reference is to the baptismal interrogatories.