Heretic. See Heresy.
Heretics, Baptism by. When the line between the orthodox and the heretics [see Heresy J was clear- ly drawn in the early Church, the question whether baptism performed by heretics should be regarded as vahd by the orthodox began to be mooted. It after- wards became of great moment, especially with regard to the claims of the Church of Rome.
1. As earlj' as the 3d century heretical baptism was pronounced invalid. Clemens Alexandrinus calls it false and foreign (Stromat. i, 375). Tertullian declared that it was of no value {De Jiaptismo, cap. xv). " Cyprian, whose epistles afford the clearest information on this subject, followed Tertidhan in rejecting baptism by her- etics as an inoperative mock baptism, and demanded that all heretics coming over to the Cathohc Church be baptized (he would not say ?-e-baptized). His position here was due to his High-Church exclusivism and his horror of schism. As the one Catholic Chiu-ch is the sole repository of all grace, there can be no forgiveness of sins, no regeneration or communication of the Spirit, no salvation, therefore no valid sacraments, out of her bosom. So far he had logical consistency on his side. But, on the other hand, he departed from the objective view of the Church, as the Donatists afterwards did, in making the efficiency of the sacrament depend on the i subjective holiness of the priest. 'How can one conse- crate water,' he asks, ' who is himself unholy, and has not the Holy Ghost T He was followed by the North African Church, which, in several councils at Carthage in the years 255-6, rejected heretical baptism ; and by the Church of Asia Minor, which had already acted on this view, and now, in the person of the Cappadocian bishop Firmilian, a disciple and venerator of the great Origen, vigorously defended it against the intolerance of Rome. The Roman bishop Stephen (253-257) ap- peared for the opposite doctrine, on the ground of the an- cient practice of the Church. He offered no argument, but spoke with the consciousness of authority, and fol- i lowed a catholic instinct. He laid chief stress on the i objective nature of the sacrament, ihe virtue of which I depended neither on the officiating priest nor on the
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receiver, but solely on the institution of Clirist. Ilencc he considered heretical baptism vaUcl, provided it had been administered in the right form, to wit, in the name of the Trinity, or even of Christ alone; so that heretics coming into the Chiu-ch needed only contirmation, or the ratification of baptism by the Holy Ghost. 'Her- esy,' says he, ' produees children and exposes them ; and tlie Church takes up the exposed children, and nour- ishes them as her o\\ii, though she herself has not brought them forth.' The doctrine of Cyprian was the more consistent from the churchly point of view, that of Stephen from the sacramental. The one preserved the principle of the exclusiveness of the Church, the other that of the objective force of the sacraments, even to tlie bortlers of the opus-opsratum theorj-. Both were under the direction of the same hierarchical spirit, and the same hatred of heretics ; but the Roman doctrine is, after all, a happy inconsistency of liberality, an inroad upon the principle of absolute exclusiveness, an invol- imtary concession that baptism, and, with it, the remis- sion of sins, and regeneration, therefore salvation, are possible outside of Roman Catholicism. The contro- versy itself was conducted with great warmth. Ste- phen, tliough advocating the liberal view, showed the genuine pajial arrogance and intolerance. He would not even ailniittohls presence the deputies of Cyprian, who brought him tlie decree of the African Synod, and called this bishop, who in every' respect far excelled Stephen, and whom the Roman Church now venerates as one of her greatest saints, a 'pseudo-Christum, pseudo-apos- tolum, et dolosum operarium.' He brolvc off all inter- course with the African Church, as he had already done with the Asiatic. But Cyprian and Finnilian, nothing daunted, vindicated with great boldness, the latter also with hitter veliemence, their different view, and con- tinued in it to their death. The Alexandrian bishop Dionysius endeavored to reconcile the two parties, but with little success. The Valerian persecution, which soon ensued, and the martyrdom of Stephen (257) and of Cyprian (258), suppressed this internal discord. In the course of the 4th centiu-y, howe^-er, the Roman practice gradually gained on the other, was raised to a doctrine of the Church by the Council of Nice in 325, and was afterwards confirmed by the Council of Trent, with an anathema on the opposite view" (Schaff, Histo- ry of the Christian Church, ch. vi, § lO-l).
2. The decree of the Coimcil of Trent as to baptism by heretics is as follows : " If any man shall say that the baptism which is given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of tlie Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the Church doth, is not true baptism, let Jiim be anathema" (sess. vii, can. iv). This, at iirst view, may appear liberal ; but the indirect in- tention of it is to claim all baptized persons as under the jurisdiction of Rome. Canon viii athnns that the bap- tized are bound "by all the jirecepts of the Church, whether written or transmitted." Canon xiv declares that any one who shall say " that those who have been baptized when infants are to be left to their own will when they grow up, and are not meanwhile to be com- pelled to a Christian life by any other penalty save ex- clusion from the Eucharist and the other seven sacra- ments till they repent," is to be anathema.