Then you will ask what you have,
when praising Baptism, said against yourselves. Listen! But first you must
acknowledge something which not one of you will be able to deny. You say that
the Trinity counts for nothing, unless you be present.
If you think little of us, at
least reverence the Lord, who is First in the Trinity, who with His Son and the
Holy Ghost, effects and completes all things, even when no human person is
present.
But, my brother Parmenian, you
have said in praise of the water, of which we read in the Book of Genesis, that
the waters first gave forth living beings. Could they have given them birth of
their own instance? Was not the whole Trinity there as well? Surely God the
Father was there—He who had deigned to command:
‘Let the waters bring forth
swimming things, birds and the rest.’
But If that which was then done
were to be done without any to effect it, God would have said:
‘O waters, bring forth.’
So the Son of God—who effected it—was
there. The Holy Ghost was there, as it has been written:
‘And the Spirit of God was borne
over the waters.’
I see nothing there which is a
fourth—nothing less than the Three. Yet that which the Trinity effected came to
birth, although you were not there. If then it be now allowed to the Trinity to
do anything without you, call back the fisses to their first beginning; if in
you absence the Trinity may not effect anything, drown in the wates the birds
as they fly. (On the Schism of the Donatists Against Parmenian, Book 5,
paragraph 2, 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], 118)
In a note explaining the comment, “unless you [i.e., Donatists] be
present,” we read:
The Donatists held that the
Invocation of the Trinity effected nothing in Baptism unless the Minister of
the Sacrament was pure (mundus). But, as they taught that all the
Catholics were impure (immundi), it followed that they held practically
that the Trinity could do nothing in Baptism unless they were present. (Ibid.,
131 n. 50)
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
