thou preparest for all the churches of the world! What grievous sin thou hast committed in separating thyself from so many flocks! Thou hast killed thyself; do not deceive thyself; for he is truly schismatic who renounces the communion of the unity of the Church! While thou thinkest that all others are separated from thee, it is thou who art separated from all others." Thus Firmilian speaks to the Bishop of Rome, and no one dreamed of taxing him with wrong, even among those who differed with him concerning the baptism of heretics.[1]
St. Dionysius of Alexandria without openly taking part against the Bishop of Rome, endeavored to lead him to the idea of rebaptizing. It is to this end that he displays his doubts in regard to a man whom he had admitted to the communion without rebaptizing him, and who, nevertheless, scarcely dared to participate in the body of the Lord, because he had only received baptism among the heretics, and with guilty words and rites. "Brother,"[2] he wrote to Xystus, "I have need of your counsel, and I ask your opinion on an affair that has presented itself to me, and in which, indeed, I am afraid I may be deceived." It is not to a superior he addresses himself, to ask a decision, but to an equal, to a brother,
- ↑ Some Ultramontanes have contested the authenticity of Firmilian's letter; but the most learned among them agree, with the learned of all the schools, to regard it as authentic. The strongest reason that Barruel alleges to contest its authority, is that Firmilian could not have written such a letter, since, according to St. Dionysius of Alexandria, he was reconciled to the pope before the letter could have been written. If Barruel had been a little more learned, he had known that in the letter of St. Dionysius of Alexandria to Stephen, the letter to which he alludes, he does not say that the whole church was in peace upon the subject of the baptism of heretics, since the discussion was just beginning; but that he only says, Stephen would be wrong to trouble the church by this discussion, when she was in the enjoyment of peace after the troubles created by Novatus. The other pretended proofs of Barruel are still more feeble, and do not deserve discussion. We only say that he has displayed an extraordinary audacity in confronting thus the most illustrious scholars of every school, who admit this letter as authentic, without any dispute.
- ↑ Euseb. Eccl. Hist. Book VII. chap. ix.
