that of all the Churches, not excluding the old African Church itself. 296 Especially, Pope Stephen did not mean any other kind of custom than what was established in the whole Church by an immemorial and illimited tradition. Even Bossuet and many other Gallican theologians were of this opinion.297 Nay, they frankly asserted, not only that St. Cyprian regarded the whole controversy as disciplinary, 298 but also that he was aware of the practice proclaimed by Pope Stephen being the practice of the whole Church.299 On this subject we have the authority of St. Augustine himself, who most explicitly asserts what we say. The holy Doctor not only maintained, with the other Fathers of his age, that the practice of receiving heretics into the Church without a second Baptism was the traditional practice of the Universal Church, but also that St. Cyprian and his colleagues, during the time of their contest with Pope Stephen, were certainly acquainted with this practice. St. Augustine testifies this clearly in many places of his work on Baptism against the Donatists. He says that St. Cyprian did not refuse to admit the fact of the universal practice of the Church, but he believed that it should be changed into a better one, because it was not supported by good reasons, and with all his learning he was unable to find in antiquity any instance against that universal practice, except the Synod of Bishop Agrippinus.300 Again, St. Augustine 296 See Anonymum Auctorem: lib. de Rebaptismate, n. 1 (Migne, PP. LL., t. iii., p. 1184). 297 Defen. Decl. Cleri Gallicani, pt. ii., l. xiv., cap. vii., t. ii., p. 266. 298 See Habert, in Tract. de Sacramentis, quæst. iii., art. i., sec. iv., puncto ii., p. 31. Paris, 1710. 299 See on this subject Dissertatio historico-dogmatica, pt. i., cap. i. (Migne, PP. LL., t. iii., p. 1314, seq.). The author of the dissertation has put together a great number of extracts from Gallican theologians bearing on this subject. 300 See Diss. cit., pt. i., cap. ii., p. 1320, seq. explicitly asserts that not only St. Cyprian, but also the Bishops assembled in Synod at Carthage, knew perfectly what was the universal practice of the Church.301 And he remarks that this important fact is testified by St. Cyprian as well as by his Synod in their own letters.302 Now from all this we must conclude that, if St. Cyprian and the African Bishops were persuaded that the contrary custom of receiving the heretics without a second Baptism was the practice of the Universal Church, including the African province till the age of Agrippinus, they must have regarded the controversy as turning on a question of discipline. For had they believed any doctrine of faith to be involved, their contention would have amounted to a denial of infallibility to the Church itself; they would have been maintaining that the whole Church before Agrippinus had solemnly taught an error concerning the Sacrament of Baptism: and that in their own age the African Church alone was in possession of the truth, while the great majority of the Catholic Bishops, with the Roman Pontiff himself, were still in the darkness of error. Moreover, they would have been upholding the absurdity that Catholic doctrine may change and be improved after two centuries of traditional mistakes and errors, and that the universal tradition is not for the Church the source and the solid foundation of the Catholic doctrine. Unless we would admit such absurdities to have been maintained by St. Cyprian and his colleagues, we must decidedly affirm that they did not believe the controversy to be more than disciplinary the African Church endeavouring to preserve a custom and a discipline which it believed : 301 De Baptismo, l. iv., cap. vi. (l. c., p. 159). 302 De Baptismo, 1. vii., cap. ii. (1. c., p. 226); cap. xxv. (p. 234). 303 Epist. xciii. ad Rogatianum, cap. x., n. 38 (Op., t. ii., p. 340. Edit. Migne). more satisfactory and more conformable even to faith. But if they considered themselves engaged in a disciplinary controversy, as is manifest, all difficulty against Papal Infallibility vanishes away, and the fact of their resistance to the Decree of Pope Stephen does not tend to prove that they did not believe in Papal Infallibility. For even admitting it, they might still resist a Decree which abolished a privilege and a custom of their province. And the Decree of Pope Stephen, as we have said, was certainly not a dogmatic definition. The Pontiff pointed out what was the custom of the whole Church, that those who had been baptised by heretics or schismatics should be received, with no ceremony beyond the imposition of hands in sign of penance. He asserted that this was the custom handed down from the Apostles; and therefore he commanded that no change should be made in this traditional rite.304 Pope Stephen did not impose on St. Cyprian and the others the duty of believing or condemning any doctrine whatever concerning the validity of heretical and schismatical baptism, but only the observance of a point of tra ditional discipline. The Decree doubtless implied the doctrine which later was settled by an Ecumenical Council; because that universal custom of the Church, which owed its origin to the Apostles, could not be understood without the dogma of the validity of the heretical baptism which it contained. Nevertheless, the doctrine was not yet binding on the Faithful, as it was not yet proposed in a definitive manner by the Sovereign Pontiff. St. Cyprian and the other Eastern Bishops resisted, because they regarded it as turning merely on a point of discipline, and they looked on 304 Decretum Stephani Papæ, in Epist. S. Cypriani et Firmiliani. See it in Denzinger, Enchiridion, n. 14, p. 11. Fourth edition. 1865. Pope Stephen's Decree as an attempt to abolish a provincial privilege and custom of the African Church. We do not excuse the fact of the unlawful resistance of St. Cyprian and of the Eastern Bishops, and we willingly admit the force of the excuses made by St. Augustine, concerning the intentions of St. Cyprian; nevertheless, we do not hesitate to declare that the fact of his obstinate opposition to the Pontifical Decree deserved to be punished with ecclesiastical censures. No blame could have justly attached to St. Stephen had he proceeded at once to the excommunication of St. Cyprian and of the Eastern Bishops, instead of adopting the more charitable course which he preferred; he would have been quite justified even in the eyes of the Gallican School.305 St. Cyprian and his adherents were certainly guilty before the Church, if not of heresy, at least of disobedience to an order issued by the Apostolical See, and which was supported by the practice of all the Churches and by Apostolical tradition. But there is no difficulty in understanding how St. Cyprian was led in the course of the controversy to separate the disciplinary practice from the dogmatical doctrine, although the two were in fact necessarily connected. The reason is this: he, in common with all the Rebaptizantes of his age, agreed that the character impressed by Baptism when once duly administered renders it impossible to repeat the ceremony; but they argued that baptism administered by heretics and schismatics was necessarily invalid, for these being cut off from the Church, and from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, could not impart to others a gift of which 305 Delahaye expressly says that if Pope Stephen had inflicted excommunication on St. Cyprian and the other Bishops, the censure would have been most just and well deserved. See De Baptismo, cap. iii., art. ii. they themselves were deprived; and thus, according to the remark of St. Augustine, they confounded the question of the existence of the Sacrament with that of its effect.306 At the same time, St. Cyprian did not condemn the practice of the other Churches; because, first, the doctrine of the validity of the heretical and schismatical baptism had not yet been defined as a doctrine of faith; and, secondly, because he believed that when a heretic was received into the body of the one Church the defect of true Baptism could in some cases be supplied, so that the ceremony of reception obtained for the convert a participation in the Holy Ghost and His gifts, which he had not received in baptism at the hands of heretics. He accounted in the same way for the case of infants who die in the Church with no baptism but that administered by heretics or schismatics. Pope Stephen too, as we remarked above, while ordering that the traditional Apostolic practice should be observed, left untouched the doctrinal controversy. We here see the meaning of St. Augustine when he said that the Decrees of particular Synods concerning heretical baptism were not firm until all doubts were entirely dispelled, and what before had been profitably believed was confirmed by the authority of a Plenary Council of the whole world.307 The holy Doctor spoke there historically, not in the sense which Mgr. Maret erroneously attributes to his words.308 The Bishop of Sura does not admit that St. Cyprian and the others regarded the controversy as one of discipline; he thinks that Pope Stephen did really pronounce a definition of faith, to which St. Cyprian refused to submit because he 306 See St. Augustine, De Baptismo, 1. v., cap. xxiii., n. 33 (p. 193); et l. vi., cap. i., n. i. (p. 197). 307 Op. cit., l. i., cap. vii., n. 9, p. 114. 308 Du Concile Général, 1. ii., ch. ii., t. i., p. 155, seq. |