Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 69.1

Cyprian, Liberalis, Caldonius, Junius, Primus, Caecilius, Polycarpus, Nicomedes, Felix, Marrtius, Successus, Lucianus, Honoratus, Fortunatus, Victor, Donatus, Lucius, Herculanus, Pomponius, Demetrius, Quintus, Saturninus, Marcus, another Saturninus, another Donatus, Rogatianus, Sedatus, Tertullus, Hortensianus, likewise another Saturninus, Sattius, Januarius, Saturninus, Maximus, Victor, another Victor, Cassius, Proculus, Modianus, Cittinus, Gargilius, Eutyctanus, another Gargilius, another Saturninus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, Antonianus, Rogatianus, Honoratus—greetings to the brothers. While we were gathered in council, dearest brothers, we read the letters you sent us concerning those who appear to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics, asking whether they ought to be baptized upon coming to the Catholic Church, which is one and true. Although you yourselves already hold fast to the truth and firmness of the Catholic rule, you thought we should be consulted out of common love; so we set forth our opinion—not a new one, but one long established by our predecessors and observed by us—and join it with yours in full agreement. We judge and hold for certain that no one can be baptized outside the Church, since there is one Baptism constituted in the holy Church. It is written, the Lord saying: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13). And again divine Scripture warns and says: "Keep away from foreign water, and do not drink from a foreign fountain." Therefore the water must first be purified and sanctified by a priest, so that by his Baptism it may wash away the sins of the one being baptized. For the Lord says through the prophet Ezekiel: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you" (Ezekiel 36:25-26). But how can one who is himself unclean, and in whom the Holy Spirit is not, purify and sanctify the water, when the Lord says in Numbers: "Everything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean"? Or how can the one who baptizes give another remission of sins, when he himself cannot put away his own sins outside the Church?