. . . the
claim is sometimes made that baptism by pouring or sprinkling is permitted according
to the following words in The Didache (The Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles):
And
concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things,
baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
(Matthew 28:19), in living water. But if you have not living water, baptize
into other water; and if you cannot in cold, in warm. But if you have not
either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of the Father and Son
and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the
baptized, and whatever others can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one
or two days before. (ANF 7:379)
These words
from The Didache have been understood in the Orthodox Church as
applicable only to emergencies where baptism by immersion is not possible and a
person is at risk of dying without baptism. Then only under such a condition,
and by economy, it is better to baptize by pouring or even in the air, than not
at all. (On the Reception of the Heterodox into the Orthodox Church: The
Patristic Consensus and Criteria [Uncut Mountain Press, 2023], 54-55)
St. Irenaeus of Lyons (+ c. 202) writing some seventy years before the
rise of the Novationists and one hundred and thirty years before the rise of
the Donatists, expressed the primitive Church’s mind on the subject of heresy
and schism with great lucidity. As in St. Ignatus’ epistles, it was taken for
granted that schismatics and heretics, were to be shunned by the faithful, and
they were to “cleave to those who keep the Apostles’ doctrine.” (Against
Heresies, 4:26.2-5) St. Irenaeus would have considered the mysteries
performed by a bishop who had been justly unfrocked and excommunicated on
account of schism or heresy to be inauthentic and void of any spiritual
content. It was inconceivable in the early Church to think of a bishop apart
from his church and flock. As St. Irenaeus held in common with all of the early
Fathers that “the Church was the sole fountain of grace, and that outside it
none can be assured of salvation or of sacramental grace, he would have ruled
out entirely as worthless the sacraments of schismatics.” (Willis, Saint
Augustine and the Donatist Controversy, 145)
As St.
Irenaeus taught, the Holy Spirit acts mysteriologically in the Church
alone:
“For in the
church,” it is said, “God hath set apostles, prophets, teachers,” and all the
other means through which the Spirit works; of which all those are not
partakers who do not join themselves to the church, but defraud themselves of
life through their perverse opinions and infamous behaviour. For where the
church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is
the church, and every kind of grace; but the Spirit is truth. (Against
Heresies, 3.24.1)
St.
Irenaeus taught that those who introduce false teachings and who separate from
the unity of the Church and the succession of the Apostles will not enter the
kingdom of heaven. St. Irenaeus also shows that true apostolic succession
requires both the external succession from the Apostles through the laying on
of hands, and succession of the truth.
Wherefore
it is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the church—those who, as I
have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with
the succession of the episcopate, have received the certain gift of truth,
according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to
hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble
themselves together in any place whatsoever, [looking upon them] either as
heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or
again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory. For all
these have fallen from the truth. And the heretics, indeed, who bring strange
fire to the altar of God—namely, strange doctrines—shall be burned up by the
fire from heaven, as were Nadab and Abiud. But such as rise up in opposition to
the truth, and exhort others against the church of God, [shall] remain among
those in hell (apud inferos), being swallowed up by an earthquake, even as
those who were with Chore, Dathan, and Abiron. But those who cleave asunder,
and separate the unity of the church, [shall] receive from God the same
punishment as Jeroboam did..
St.
Irenaeus writes that only those who are united with the one Church have the
Holy Spirit and those who leave the unity of the Church reject the Holy Spirit:
For this
gift of God has been entrusted to the church, as breath was to the first created
man, for this purpose, that all the members receiving it may be vivified; and
the [means of] communion with Christ has been distributed throughout it, that
is, the Holy Spirit, the earnest of incorruption, the means of confirming our
faith, and the ladder of ascent to God. “For in the church,” it is said, God
hath set apostles, prophets, teachers (1 Corinthians 12:28) and all the other
means through which the Spirit works; of which all those are not partakers who
do not join themselves to the church, but defraud themselves of life through
their perverse opinions and infamous behaviour. For where the church is, there
is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the church, and
every kind of grace; but the Spirit is truth. Those, therefore, who do not
partake of Him, are neither nourished into life from the mother’s breasts, nor
do they enjoy that most limpid fountain which issues from the body of Christ;
but they dig for themselves broken cisterns (Jeremiah 2:13) out of earthly
trenches, and drink putrid water out of the mire, fleeing from the faith of the
church lest they be convicted; and rejecting the Spirit, that they may not be
instructed. Alienated thus from the truth, they do deservedly wallow in all
error, tossed to and fro by it, thinking differently with regard to the same
things at different times, and never attaining to a well-grounded knowledge,
being more anxious to be sophists of words than disciples of the truth. For
they have not been founded upon the one rock, but upon the sand, which has in
itself a multitude of stones. (Against Heresies, 3.24.1-2) (On the
Reception of the Heterodox into the Orthodox Church: The Patristic Consensus
and Criteria [Uncut Mountain Press, 2023], 124-26)
Commenting on “where the Spirit of God is, there
is the Church, and every kind of grace; but the Spirit of truth” (Against
Heresies, 3.24.1, quoted above), the author notes that:
The last
phrase is supposed by some today to mean that the Church is coterminous with
the Holy Spirit, and thus, since the Holy Spirit acts throughout creation,
therefore the boundaries of the Church cannot be determined with any certainty.
That say that “we know where the Church is, but cannot be sure where the Church
is not.” But such an interpretation actually is very opposite of the Saint’s
meaning. It ignores both the context of the phrase and content of the treatise.
Moreover, it stands in contradiction not the mind of the early Church Fathers
on the question, of which St. Irenaeus was both a preserver and bearer and
exceptional expositor. In the passage in question he begins with the Church and
Her identity and location, which is certain, and places the Holy Spirit within
Her. In this, he is following the order of the day of Pentecost, when the
assembly of those being saved, the Church, was gathered together and the Holy
Spirit descended. (Ibid., 124 n. 224)
Tertullian
(+220) was an influential early Christian Latin writer from Roman Carthage who
predated St. Cyprian. Tertullian’s work De baptismo is the only treatise
still in existence from that period. This text does not express the innovative
ideas of one man but rather “the classical doctrine of Christian antiquity”
(Willis, Saint Augustine and the Donatist Controversy, 166), the common
belief of the Church long before Tertullian. His treatise, but also his summary
of the four gifts of baptism in his polemic against Marcion (Against Marcion,
1.28.2. The four gifts were: the remission of sins, deliverance from death,
regeneration, and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit), make it clear “that by the
end of the second century, if not fifty years earlier, the doctrine of baptism
(even without the aid of controversy to give it precision) was so fully
developed that subsequent ages down to our own have found nothing significant
to add to it.” (Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600)
p. 166)
Tertullian
followed the tradition already well established in interpreting Ephesians 4:5.
Those who do not have the one Lord and the one faith, cannot,
therefore, possess the one baptism. Only those in the one Church can
possess the one faith and one baptism. While he was not a saint or Father of
the Church, he summarized the teachings of the Church in his time as follows:
There is to
us one, and but one, baptism; as well as according to the Lord’s gospel as
according to the apostles’ letters, inasmuch as he says, “One God, and
one baptism, and one church in the heavens.” But it must be admitted that the
question, “What rules are to be observed with regard to the heretics?” is
worthy of being treated. For it is to us that that assertion refers.
Heretics, however, have no fellowship in our discipline, whom the mere fact of
their excommunication testifies to be outsiders. I am not bound to recognize in
them a thing which is enjoined on me, because they and we
have not the same God, nor one—that is, the same—Christ. And therefore
their baptism is not one with ours either, because it is not the
same, a baptism which, since they have it not duly, doubtless they have not
at all; nor is that capable of being counted which is not had.
Thus they cannot receive it either, because they have it not. (Tertullian,
On Baptism, Ch. 15 [ANF 3:676])
Tertullian’s
words would in his own lifetime receive conciliar approbation. We learn from St Cyprian that the African
Church issued rulings on the matter in a council under the presidency of Bishop
Agrippinus of Carthage before St. Cyprian. (Cyprian, Letters 71 (70):4.1;
72(72).3.1; cf. 70(69).1.2) This council was attended by about seventy bishops
drawn from the provinces of Africa and Numidia and would have taken place about
AD 213, not long after the repose of St. Irenaeus, toward the end of
Tertullian’s life and when St. Cyprian was a young boy. (Willis, p. 147) (On
the Reception of the Heterodox into the Orthodox Church: The Patristic
Consensus and Criteria [Uncut Mountain Press, 2023], 141-43)
. . .
unsurprisingly, the famous saying attributed to St. Cyprian, “He cannot have
God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother,” actually belongs to
his teacher, Tertullian (and is later repeated by St. Augustine). (See:
Tertullian, De orat. II, St Cyprian, De unit. VI; and St.
Augustine, C. Litt. Pet. III, 10) This is indicative of St. Cyprian’s
fidelity to the witness of the Fathers. His aim was to pass on what he had been
given, namely, the “faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” (Ibid.,
147)
On St. Basil the Great and his canons 1 and 47:
Of the
canons of the Holy Fathers that were adopted by the Ecumenical Councils, St.
Basil’s canons 1 and 47 most directly deal with the boundaries of the Church
and the rites of the heterodox. Canon 1 of St. Basil discusses the distinctions
between heresy and schism, explains that when priests and bishops depart from
the unity of the Church they lose the grace of the Holy Spirit and cannot
bestow the Holy Spirit and others through baptism or ordination, acknowledges
that some bishops in his time received heretics into the church without
baptizing them, and says that it is best to “serve the canons with exactitude” and receive all heterodox by baptism
as St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian taught. The relevant sections of this lengthy
canon are as follows:
Hence [the older authorities] have called some
of them heresies, and others schisms, and others again parasynagogues (i.e.,
unlawful assembles). Heresies is the name applied to those who have broken
entirely and have become alienated from the faith itself. Schisms is the name
applied to those who on account of ecclesiastical causes and remediable
questions have developed a quarrel amongst themselves Parasynagogues is the
name applied to gatherings held by insubordinate presbyters or bishops, and
those held by uneducated laities. As, for instance, when one has been arraigned
for a misdemeanour held aloof from liturgy and refused to submit to the canons,
but laid claim to the presidency and liturgy for himself, and some other
persons departed with him, leaving the catholic Church—that is a parasynaoguge.
. . . Heresies . . . are such as those . . . involving a difference of faith in
God itself. So, it seemed good to the ancient [Fathers] to reject the baptism
of heretics altogether, but to accept [the baptism] of those who have gone into
schism with the understanding that they formerly belonged to the Church; as for
those, on the other hand, who were in parasynagogues, if they have been
improved by considerable repentance and are willing to return, they are to be
admitted again into the Church, so that often even those who departed in orders
with the insubordinates, provided that they manifest regret, may be admitted
again to the same rank. . . . As for Cathari, they too are too be classed as
schismatics. Nevertheless, it seemed best to the ancient authorities—those, I
mean, who form the party of Cyprian and our own Firmilian—to class them all
under one head, including Cathari and Encratites and Aquarians and Apotactites;
because the beginning, true enough, of the separation resulted through a
schism, but those who seceded from the Church had not the grace of the Holy
Spirit upon them; for the impartation thereof ceased with the interruption of
the service. For although the ones who were the first to depart had been ordained
by the Fathers and with the imposition of their hands that they had obtained
became laymen, and had no authority either to baptize or to ordain anyone, nor
could they import the grace of the Spirit to others, after they themselves had
forfeited it. Wherefore they bade that those baptized by them should be
regarded as baptized by laymen, and that when they came to join the Church they
should have to be repurified by the true baptism as prescribed by the Church.
Inasmuch, however, as it has seemed best to some of those in the regions of
Asia, out of economy for the many, to accept their baptism, let it be accepted.
As for the case of the Encratites, however, it behooves us to look upon it as a
crime, since as though to make themselves unacceptable to the Church they have
attempted to anticipate the situation by advocating a baptism of their own; hence
they themselves have run counter to their own custom. I deem, therefore, that
since there is nothing definitely prescribed as regards them, it was fitting
that we should set their baptism aside, and if any of them appears to have left
them, he shall be baptized upon joining the Church. If, however, this is to
become an obstacle in the general economy (of the Church), we must again adopt
the custom and follow the Fathers who economically regulated the affairs of our
Church. For I am inclined to suspect that we may be the severity of the
proposition actually prevents men from being saved because of their being too
indolent in regard to baptism. But if they keep our baptism, let this not deter
us. For we are not obliged to return thanks to them, but to serve the Canons
with exactitude. But let it be formally stated with every reason that those who
join on top of the baptism must at all events be anointed by the faithful, that
is to say, and thus be admitted to the Mysteries. (Agapios and Nicodemus, The
Rudder).
The critical phrase from an ecclesiological
point of view in this excerpt is from the canon is “ως ετι τκ τηκ ‘Εκκλησιας οντων,” which some
interpret as “because they [the schismatics] still belong to the Church.” This
error is nearly universal among English renderings of the canon. Yet the
aforementioned rendering is not only in direct opposition to the general
teaching of St. Basil the Great, who considers the heretics and the
schismatics, and even those who are in unlawful congregations (parasynagogues),
as being outside of the Church, but also to the ancient text itself. Moreover,
this interpretation does not stand from a syntactic point of view either: the
isolation of the phrase “ως ετι εκ της ‘Εκκλησιας οντων” from the verbal
“αποχισαντων,” from which it depends, creates the mistaken
impression that the dependent participial phrase “ως ετι τκ της ‘Εκκλησιας οντων” is in the
present tense. In fact, the main verbal (“αποσχισαντων”) is what determines the tense of the
dependent participial phrase “ως (. . .) οντων.” In other
words, the participle (“ως (. . .) οντων”) is in the past
tense, because the “αποσχισαντων” from which it depends is itself also in the past tense. Consequently,
an acceptable English rendition would be “with the understanding that they
[then] formerly belonged to the Church” (the introductory conjunction “ως” is rendered by the phrase “with the understanding
that” or “that supposedly/purportedly,” since it expresses the subjective
reasoning of the speaker).
With this in mind, the aforementioned passage
from the first canon of St. Basil the Great can be rendered into English with
precision as follows: “So it seemed good to the ancient [Fathers] to reject the
baptism of heretics although, but to accept [the baptism] of those who have
gone into schism with the understanding that they formerly belonged to the
Church.” This hermeneutical approach is in complete agreement with the
immediately following phrase of the canon, according to which even those in
unlawful congregations are outside of the Church and only once they had been
corrected after considerable repentance are they united again with the Church
(“συναπτεσθαι παλιν την ‘Εκκλησια”). This means that before the repentance,
while they are in their state of unlawful assemblage, they were not united with
the Church. If, according to Basil the Great, those in unlawful assemblies are
outside of the Church, how much more so the schismatics! (On the
Reception of the Heterodox into the Orthodox Church: The Patristic Consensus
and Criteria [Uncut Mountain Press, 2023], 83-87)
In Canon
47, St. Basil confirms the teaching that heretics and schismatics should be
baptized despite the fact that they baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity and
despite the fact that Rome had forbidden their reception by baptism. St. Basil
again states that baptizing all heretics follow the akriveia (exactness)
of the canon while Rome’s position was that of oikonomia (economy):
As for
Encratites and Saccophori and Apotactites . . . we rebaptize such persons. If
it be objected that what we are doing is forbidden as regards this practice of
rebaptism, precisely as in the case of present-day Romans, for the sake of
economy, yet we insist that our rule prevail, since, inasmuch and precisely as
it is an offshoot of the Marcionites, the heresy of those who abominate
marriage, and who shun wine, and who call God’s creation tainted. We therefore
do not admit them into the Church unless they get baptized with our baptism.
For let them not say that they are baptized in Father and Son and Holy Spirit
who assume God to be a bad creator, in a manner vying which the Marcionites and
other heresies. So that if this pleases them more Bishops ought to adopt it,
and thus establish as a canon, in order that anyone following shall be in no
danger, and anyone replying by citing it shoal be deemed worthy of credence.
(Agapios and Nicodemus, The Rudder) (Ibid., 90)
If a priest
of the Church who has been given the authority to serve true and saving
Mysteries loses this authority by being suspended, and the Holy Spirit ceases
to work through the Mysteries of the suspended priest, how can a priest serve
true and grace-filled Mysteries who have left the unity of the Church (Latins,
Monophysites, etc.) or who had never received such authority from the Church in
the first place? If a priest or bishop who is recognized as such by the Church
and who remains in the unity of the Church begins to teach heresy, the
Mysteries they serve on behalf of the Church are not affected though they
commune unto condemnation on account of their heresy. Yet, as St. Basil
explains in his Canon 1, when a priest or bishop departs from the unity of the
Church, he loses the Holy Spirit and can no longer bestow the Holy Spirit on
others through baptism or ordination. (Ibid., 171)
The
Apostles and their successors are to whom the Lord gave His commandment to
baptize, to “make disciples of all nations” and to teach their disciples “all
things that I have commanded you.” The Lord did not give the command to the
multitudes that they should go forth and baptize, but to the Apostles. Those
who are not successors to the Apostles by the laying on of hands and by
continuing in the apostolic faith, are not and cannot be disciples of Christ.
Heretics who are cut off from the Church cannot unite their followers to the
Church.
As
demonstrated previously, Apostolic Canons 46 and 47 are the standard for the
reception of heretics into the Church by stating that heretics must be
baptized. When St. Basil in his first canon acknowledges that some bishops do
not receive heretics by baptism, he says this is “out of economy” while he is
obliged “to serve the Canons with exactitude” [akriveia].” Canon 47 of
St. Basil states that the “Encratites and Saccophori and the Apotactites” must
be baptized despite the fact that they practice baptism according to the
apostolic form (three immersions in the name of the Holy Trinity) and despite
the fact that Rome forbade them to be received by baptism. St. Basil
specifically states that Rome’s position is not of economy. By allowing certain
named heretics to be received by economy while declaring that those from “all
the other heresies” should be received into the Church by baptism. Canons 7 of
the Second Ecumenical Council and Canon 95 of the Fifth-Sixth Ecumenical
Council affirm that the reception of heretics by baptism is the standard, the
rule, and exceptions to this rule are by economy. (On the Reception of the
Heterodox into the Orthodox Church: The Patristic Consensus and Criteria [Uncut
Mountain Press, 2023], 194)
Apostolic Canons:
Canon 46:
We ordain
that a bishop, or presbyter, who has admitted the baptism or sacrifice of
heretics, be deposed. For what concord has Christ with Belial, or what part has
a believer with an infidel?
Canon 47:
Let a
bishop or presbyter who shall baptize again one who has rightly received
baptism, or who shall not baptize one who has been polluted by the ungodly, be
deposed, as despising the cross and death of the Lord, and not making a
distinction between the true priests and the false.
Council of Constantinople
(I):
Canon 7:
Those who
from heresy turn to orthodoxy, and to the portion of those who are being saved,
we receive according to the following method and custom: Arians, and
Macedonians, and Sabbatians, and Novatians, who call themselves Cathari or
Aristori, and Quarto-decimans or Tetradites, and Apollinarians, we receive,
upon their giving a written renunciation [of their errors] and anathematize
every heresy which is not in accordance with the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic
Church of God. Thereupon, they are first sealed or anointed with the holy oil
upon the forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ears; and when we seal them, we
say, "The Seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost." But Eunomians, who are
baptized with only one immersion, and Montanists, who are here called
Phrygians, and Sabellians, who teach the identity of Father and Son, and do
sundry other mischievous things, and [the partisans of] all other heresies--for
there are many such here, particularly among those who come from the country of
the Galatians:--all these, when they desire to turn to orthodoxy, we receive as
heathen. On the first day we make them Christians; on the second, catechumens;
on the third, we exorcise them by breathing thrice in their face and ears; and
thus we instruct them and oblige them to spend some time in the Church, and to
hear the Scriptures; and then we baptize them.
Aristeri.
This is probably a false reading for Aristi, i.e. the best. In the letter above
mentioned the expression is Cathari and Catheroteri, i.e. the pure, and the
more pure.
The
Quarto-decimans, or Tetradites, were those persons who persisted in observing
the Easter festival with the Jews, on the fourteenth day of the first month,
whatever day of the week it happened to be.
Montanists.
One of the older sects, so called from Montanus, who embraced Christianity in
the second century. He professed to be inspired in a peculiar way by the Holy
Ghost, and to prophesy. He was supported in his errors by two women, Priscilla
and Maximilla, who also pretended to prophesy. His heresy infected many
persons, amongst others Tertullian, but being condemned by the Church. his
followers formed a sect remarkable for extreme austerity. But although they
asserted that the Holy Ghost had inspired Montanus to introduce a system of
greater perfection than the Church had before known, and condemned those who
would not join them as carnal, they did not at first innovate in any of the
articles of the Creed. This sect lasted a long time, and spread much in Phrygia
and the neighbouring districts, whence they were called Phryges and
Cata-phryges, and latterly adopted the errors of Sabellius respecting the
Trinity.
Council of Trullo:
Canon 95:
Those who
from the heretics come over to orthodoxy, and to the number of those who should
be saved, we receive according to the following order and custom. Arians,
Macedonians, Novatians, who call themselves Cathari, Aristeri, and
Testareskaidecatitae, or Tetraditae, and Apollinarians, we receive on their
presentation of certificates and on their anathematizing every heresy which
does not hold as does the holy Apostolic Church of God: then first of all we
anoint them with the holy chrism on their foreheads, eyes, nostrils, mouth and
ears; and as we seal them we say--"The seal of the gift of the Holy
Ghost."
But
concerning the Paulianists it has been determined by the Catholic Church that
they shall by all means be rebaptized. The Eunomeans also, who baptize with one
immersion; and the Montanists, who here are called Phrygians; and the
Sabellians, who consider the Son to be the same as the Father, and are guilty
in certain other grave matters, and all the other heresies--for there are many
heretics here, especially those who come from the region of the Galatians--all
of their number who are desirous of coming to the Orthodox faith, we receive as
Gentiles. And on the first day we make them Christians, on the second
Catechumens, then on the third day we exorcise them, at the same time also
breathing thrice upon their faces and ears; and thus we initiate them, and we
make them spend time in church and hear the Scriptures; and then we baptize
them.
And the
Manichaeans, and Valentinians and Marcionites and all of similar heresies must
give certificates and anathematize each his own heresy, and also Nestorius,
Eutyches, Dioscorus, Severus, and the other chiefs of such heresies, and those
who think with them, and all the aforesaid heresies; and so they become partakers
of the holy Communion.
