Annotation XVII

”And then Jesus began to preach.” — Matthew 4:17

Whether those baptized by heretics are to be rebaptized.

The author of the Opus imperfectum, in homily 6, not far from the end, judges that those who have been baptized by heretics, or by [persons] not baptized, have not obtained the sacrament of baptism, and therefore need a second baptism. He writes thus: “From then Jesus began to preach — from when [after] he had been baptized in water by John, but in Spirit by the Father, so that of himself he might be able to baptize others (I speak according to [his] humanity): because had he not been baptized, he could not baptize others. For how shall a naked man clothe a naked man, or how shall a beggar make another rich? So too, he who is not baptized — how can he give baptism to another? According to this we say also of heretics: where faith is, there is the Church; where the Church, there a priest; where a priest, there baptism; where baptism, there a Christian. But where faith is not, there neither is the Church; where the Church is not, [there is] no priest; where a priest is not, [there is] no baptism; where baptism is not, [there is] no Christian. Why then does he rebuke, as [needing] a second baptism, one who does not understand what the first is?” — Thus far I have recounted the author’s words: which indeed we can piously interpret, saying that they hold [only] when the Catholic form of baptizing is not preserved. For the 47th canon of the Apostles decreed that such persons were to be rebaptized; and the 19th canon of the Nicene Synod decrees the same concerning those baptized by the Paulianists. For these — stemming from Paul of Samosata — undermined the divinity of Christ; which impiety Arius, and especially Aetius, afterward spread more widely — [Aetius] who, as Epiphanius reports, baptized under this form of words: “In the name of the uncreated God, and in the name of the created Son, and in the name of the sanctifying Spirit — [the Spirit] created by the created Son.” Since, then, by these words the whole faith was overturned, it was necessary that those so baptized be baptized again, as [being] not baptized.