Saturday, December 18, 2021

Baptismal Regeneration in the Anti-Donatist Writings of St. Optatus, Bishop of Milevis (d. 397)

  

We must now in this place speak of Baptism. In the matter at present to be considered the whole question consists in this, that you have dared to do violence to Baptism—that you have repeated what Christ has commanded to be done but once.

 

And this, my brother Parmenian, you do not deny, since at the beginning of your treatise you have said many things which are on our side, and tell for us, but against you. Thus with reference to Baptism, you have mentioned that there was only one Flood, and only one Circumcision for the people of the Jews. But although you dealt with these subjects at the beginning of your oration, as the sermon was developed you soon forgot all about them, and introduced two waters; so you made a silly commencement to your argument, for you knew that you were going on to discuss the true water and the false.

 

You strengthen the oneness of Holy Baptism, when trying to weaken it; for you have wished to lay as it were a foundation, with regard to the Jewish circumcision, that the Baptism of Christians had been foreshadowed in the Circumcision of the Hebrews. In this way you have defended, whilst attacking, the Catholic Church. As your treatise progressed, you claimed to empty of value one kind of Baptism, that you might fill the other to the full. By saying that (apart from the Baptism of heretic), there is one Baptism and yet a second, you could not deny—although you have tried to show that they are different—that they are two; when you endeavoured to remove one of these, you laboured to treat the second as though it were the first. But before the coming of Baptism, Circumcision was sent forward in advance in a figure. Yet you have maintained that there are amongst Christians two waters. Show then that there are also two Circumcisions amongst the Jews—of which one was the better, the other the worse. If you search for this, you will not be able to find it. The family of Abraham—by descent from whom men are judged to be Jews—glory in being marked with this seal. Therefore the truth ought afterwards to follow, like in character to its figure, which was sent on before. For God, too, who wished to show that the reality to come (when the truth should follow the type) must be something unique, willed not that anything should be removed from the ear, nor from the finger; but that part of the body was chosen where what had been once cut away should leave them with a sign that is to our point, because it cannot be removed a second time. For when this is done once it preserves health; if done again, it may do harm. Similarly, Christian Baptism, effected by the Trinity, confers grace; if it be repeated it causes loss of life.

 

What then has come over you, my brother Parmenian, to bring forward a thing which is one, and over against it to compare two Baptisms (even though you allege that they are different)—the one true, the other false? For in this way you have proceeded to argue that there are two waters, and claiming one as true for yourselves, wished to ascribe the other to us as false.

 

After this you have made mention also of the Flood. This was indeed a figure of Baptism, inasmuch as the whole sin-stained world, after the sinners had been drowned, was, through the intervention of washing, restored—cleansed—to its former appearance. But since you were going to say that (besides the muddy foundations of the heretics) there was another water—that is a lying water in opposition to the true—to what purpose have you thought well to refer to the Flood, which happened but once? But as you will have it so, show first two Arks unlike one another, and two dissimilar doves, bearing different branches in their mouth—that is, if you are to prove that there is a true water and another which is false.

 

That water alone is true which has been sanctified not from any place, nor by any [human] person, but by the Trinity. And, as you have said that there is a water which is lying, learn where you may find such—with Praxeas, the Patripassian, who totally denies the Son, and maintains that the Father has suffered. (On the Schism of the Donatists Against Parmenian, Book 5, paragraph 1, in The Works of St. Optatus: A Catholic Church History, Wherein a Saint and Early Church Father Condemns the Donatist Schism After the Persecution of Christians by Roman Emperor Diocletian [trans. Oliver Rode Vassall-Phillips; Adansonia Press, 2018], 117-18)

 

It is clear that in the celebration of this Sacrament of Baptism there are three elements, which you will not be able either to decrease or diminish, or put on one side. The first is in the Trinity, the second in the believer, the third in him who operates. But they must not all be weighted by the same measure. For I perceive that two are necessary, and that one is quasi-necessary. The Trinity holds the chief place, without whom the work itself cannot be done. The faith of the believer follows next. Then comes the office of the ‘Minister,’ which cannot be of equal authority. . . . understand that it is God who cleanses each man, whoever he may be; for no one can wash away the defilement and stains of the mind, but God alone, who is also the Maker of the mind. Of, if you think that it is your washing [that cleanses], tell us what is the nature of this mind, which is washed through the body, or what ‘form’ it has, or in what part of a man it dwells. To know this has not been granted to any. How, then, do you think that it is you who cleanses, when you do not know the nature of that which you cleanse? It belongs not to man, but to God to cleanse, for He has Himself promised that He will cleanse through the Prophet Isaiah, when He said:

 

‘Even though your sins are like scarlet, I will make you white as snow.’

 

He said:

 

‘I will make you white,’

 

and not:

 

‘I will cause you to be made white.’

 

If this has been promised by God, why do you wish to give that which is not permitted to you either to promise, or to give, or to have? Behold by Isaiah God has promised Himself to wash those stained by sin, not through a man. (Book 5, paragraph 4, in ibid., 121, 122-23)

 

Note to the above:

 

As St. Optatus has said already, man is by God’s appointment, the necessary (or rather the quasi-necessary) minister of the Sacrament. But God gives His Grace in Baptism directly to the baptised. He does not give it through a man—that is to say, He does not give it first to the ‘Minister,’ making him holy, so that this ‘Minister,’ by his own holiness, gives grace—though this would follow logically from Donatist principles. (Ibid., 134 n. 141)

 

For a book-length discussion of the topic of baptismal regeneration, see:


"Born of Water and of the Spirit": The Biblical Evidence for Baptismal Regeneration 


[*] for those who want a PDF copy of the book, drop me an email at ScripturalMormonismATgmailDOTcom

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