Canon of the Council of Carthage under St Cyprian

Direct English translation

While we were assembled in council, beloved brethren, we read the letters sent by you concerning those who appear to have been baptized among heretics or schismatics and who come to the Catholic Church, which is one, in which we are baptized and born again. Concerning them we are confident that you yourselves, acting in the same manner, maintain the firmness of the rule of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, since you are our fellow communicants and wished to inquire about this because of our common love, we do not put forward a recent opinion or one newly established, but share and join with you that which was long ago tested with all exactness and care by our predecessors and has been observed by us. We now also decree that which we have always held firmly and securely: that no one can be baptized outside the Catholic Church, since there is one baptism and it exists only in the Catholic Church. For it is written: “They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water.” And again Holy Scripture forewarns and says: “Keep away from strange water, and do not drink from a strange fountain.” The water must first be cleansed and sanctified by the priest, so that by its baptism it may be able to wash away the sins of the person being baptized. Through Ezekiel the prophet the Lord also says: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you and will cleanse you; and I will give you a new heart and will put a new spirit within you.” How can one who is himself unclean, and in whom the Holy Spirit is not, cleanse and sanctify water, when the Lord says in Numbers: “Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean”? How can one who baptizes give forgiveness of sins to another when he was unable to lay aside his own sins outside the Church? Moreover, the very question asked in baptism is a witness to the truth. For when we say to the person being examined, “Do you believe that you receive eternal life and forgiveness of sins?” we say nothing other than what can be given in the Catholic Church. But among heretics, where the Church is not, it is impossible to receive forgiveness of sins. Therefore the advocates of the heretics must either alter the baptismal question or vindicate the truth, unless indeed they also attribute the Church to those whom they affirm to possess baptism. It is also necessary for the baptized person to be anointed, so that, having received chrism, he may become a partaker of Christ. But a heretic, who possesses neither altar nor Church, cannot sanctify oil. Therefore chrism cannot exist at all among heretics. For it is evident to us that oil can in no way be sanctified among them for the Eucharist. We ought to know and not be ignorant that it is written: “Let not the oil of a sinner anoint my head,” which the Holy Spirit also proclaimed of old in the Psalms, lest anyone, having wandered beyond the track and strayed from the straight way, be anointed among heretics, the adversaries of Christ. How shall not a priest, but a sacrilegious and sinful man, pray over the baptized person, when Scripture says that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone worships God and does His will, He hears him? Through the holy Church we understand forgiveness of sins; but who can give what he himself does not possess? Or how can one who has cast away the Holy Spirit perform spiritual acts? Therefore one who comes to the Church must also be renewed, so that within, through the holy servants, he may be sanctified; for it is written: “You shall be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord.” Thus, in the true and ecclesiastical baptism, he who was led astray by error may himself put off that very error—he who, coming to God and seeking a priest, was found in error and fell upon a sacrilegious man. To approve the baptism of heretics and schismatics is to consent to those baptized by them. For it cannot prevail in part: if he was able to baptize, he also had power to give the Holy Spirit; but if he was not able—because, being outside, he does not have the Holy Spirit—he cannot baptize the one who comes, since there is one baptism, one Holy Spirit, and one Church of Christ our Lord, whose unity was founded from the beginning upon Peter the Apostle as he spoke. Therefore the things done by them, being false and empty, are all invalid. For nothing done by them can be acceptable or pleasing to God, since in the Gospels the Lord calls them His enemies and adversaries: “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” And the blessed Apostle John, keeping the commandments of the Lord, wrote beforehand in his epistle: “You heard that the antichrist is coming, and now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us.” Therefore we also ought to understand and perceive that those who are called enemies of the Lord and antichrists are unable to give the grace of the Lord. And therefore we who are with the Lord, who hold the unity of the Lord and, by His gracious condescension, minister His priesthood in the Church, ought to reject, renounce, cast away, and regard as profane whatever His opponents—that is, His enemies and antichrists—do. And to those coming from error and perversity into the knowledge of the true and ecclesiastical faith, we ought to give wholly the mystery of divine power, of unity, of faith, and of truth.