schismatic communion, although she held the Baptism administered by that communion to be useless while men remained in it. "If they say that sins are not forgiven to one who comes hypocritically[1] to Baptism, I ask, if he afterwards confess his hypocrisy with a contrite heart and true grief, is he to be baptized again? If it be most insane to affirm this, let them confess that a man may be baptized with the Baptism of Christ, and yet his heart, persevering in malice and sacrilege, would not allow his sins to be done away: and thus let them understand that in communions separated from the Church men may be baptized, (when the baptism of Christ is given and received, the Sacrament being administered in the same way); which yet is then first of avail to the remission of sins, when the person being reconciled to the unity of the Church, is freed from the sacrilege of dissent, whereby his sins were retained, and not allowed to be forgiven. For as he who had come hypocritically, is not baptized again; but what without baptism could not be cleansed, is cleansed by that pious correction (of life) and true confession, so that what was before given, then begins to avail to salvation, when that hypocrisy is removed by a true confession; so also the enemy of the love and peace of Christ," &c. St. Augustine frequently repeats this illustration, and speaks confidently as if it were a known fact; as does also another writer[2] of the African Church. It is a little remarkable that the Schoolmen and their commentators, although deeply read in the Fathers, or at least with a considerable traditional knowledge of them, when treating expressly on this subject[3] produce only those two authors, and that out of this same Church. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, on the other hand, speaks of the loss as absolutely irreparable. "If thou feignest," he addresses the Catechumen[4], "now do men baptize thee, but
- ↑ This hypocrisy St. Augustine explains ib. L. 5. c. 18, 19. to be "renouncing the world in words not in deeds, and coming so to baptism."
- ↑ The author of the sermon on the Passion of Christ in the appendix to Cyprian, quoted by Vazquez in 3 Part. Disp. 159. c. 1.
- ↑ "Whether Baptism, which on account of the hypocrisy of the Catechumen had not the effect of justifying, have that effect on the removal of that hypocrisy?" Comp. Vazquez, l.c.
- ↑ Catech. 17. n. 36.
