Imatges de pàgina
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It was Whether baptism, given by an ill minister, were valid, or must be renewed?- and, Whether the Catholics were so corrupt a church as 'that all baptized by them, whether in infancy. or at age, must be baptized afresh by some such pure men as the Donatists were?

Otherwise, the doctrine and practice of baptism was the same with both the parties.

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This appears plainly by what this author says, in way of persuading them to break off their schism," The ecclesiastical management is one and the same with us and you. Though men's minds are at variance, the sacraments are at none; and we may say, we believe alike, and are sealed with one and the same seal, no otherwise baptized than you, nor otherwise ordained than you are. We read the Scripture alike; we pray to the same God. The Lord's Prayer is the same with us and you,' &c. The same thing is † affirmed by St. Austin. He owns their baptism, ordination, &c. to be rightly performed, he blames nothing in them but their separation; and by Cresconius, the Donatist, who has these words to the Catholics, "There is between us and you one religion, the same sacraments, nothing in the Christian ceremonies different. It is a schism that is between us; not a heresy."

But that which I mean to quote, and is all that he has occasion to say about infant baptism is this:

Lib. Quinto, de Schismate Donatistar um,

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prope finem.

He had been there comparing a Christian's putting on Christ in baptism, to the putting on of a garment; and had called Christ, so put on, Tunicam natantem in aquis, --'a garment swimming in the water; and then says,

"Sed ne quis dicat, temere a me Filium Dei vestem

** Lib. 3, de Schismate Donatist. prope finem.

+ Epist. ad Theodorum Donatist...

Apud Augustinum, lib, 2, contra Cresconium, c. 3.

esse dictum: legat apostolum dicentem; quotquot in nomine Christi baptizati estis, Christum induistis. O tunica semper una, et innumerabilis, quæ decenter vestiat et omnes ætates et formas: nec in infantibus rugatur, nec in juvenibus tenditur, nec in fæminis mutatur."

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But, lest any one should say I speak irreverently, ' in calling Christ a garment, let him read what the apostle says: As many of you as have been baptized in the name of Christ, have put on Christ. Oh! 'what a garment is this, that is always one, and never renewed; that decently fits all ages and all shapes! ⚫ it is neither too big for infants, nor too little for men ; ' and, without any alteration, fits women.'

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He goes on to shew how it may be also compared to the wedding-garment, &c. This needs no note.

CHAPTER X.

A QUOTATION OUT OF ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, CONCERNING ST. BASIL'S BAPTISM IN HIS INFANCY.

[Year after the Apostles 260.]

THIS quotation might have been placed 30 or 40 years sooner (at which time St. Basil must have been born) because it recites a matter of fact done then. But I set it at this year, because this author that mentions it began at this time to be a man of note in the church (a presbyter and a writer of books, &c.) though he preached the sermon that I shall cite about 20 years after.

Some that have gone about to draw up a catalogue of persons not baptized in infancy, though born of Christian parents, have reckoned St. Basil among them: but the evidence they bring is out of spurious and forged authors, as I shall shew in its place*. And in the

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mean time I shall produce the authority of a piece that all acknowledge to be genuine, which, I think, shews that he was baptized in infancy.

St. Gregory Nazianzen was contemporary with St. Basil, and so well acquainted with him, as that it is impossible any one should have been more; and though he seems to have been something the older man, yet he lived to preach a sermon in commendation of him, in the nature of a funeral sermon, though it was some time after his death.

In that sermon he recites several passages of his parentage, birth, life, and death; and among them the passage, which I take to relate to his baptism, is penned in such a rhetorical and figurative periphrasis, that, taking it by itself, one is not sure whether he means baptism by it or something else. But, since the first reading of it, I have observed in another discourse of his, the very same description applied plainly and purposely to baptism; which, together with the probability that it carries in itself, convinces me (and I suppose will the reader when he compares them) that it is so to be applied in that sermon concerning St. Basil.

I shall first give the words by which he describes baptism in his Oratio in Sanctum Baptisma, Orat. 40*.

T

Τρίσσην γένεσιν ἡμῖν οἶδεν ὁ λόγος, τὴν ἐκ σωμάτων, τὴν ἐκ βαπτίσματος, καὶ τὴν ἐξ ἀναστάσεως. Τέτων δὲ ἡ μετὰ νυκτερινή τέ έστι, καὶ δέλη, καὶ ἐμπαθής. Η δὲ ἡμερινὴ, καὶ ἐλευθέρα, καὶ λυτκὴ παθῶν, πᾶν τὸ ἀπὸ γενέσεως καλυμμα περιτέμνεσα, καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἄνω ζωὴν ἐπανάγεσα, ἡ δὲ φοβέρω τέρα, καὶ συντομωτέρα, πᾶν τὸ πλάσμα συνάγεσα ἐν βραχεί τῷ πλάστῃ παραστησόμενον.

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Religion teaches us that there are three sorts of generation or formation: that of our bodies, that of baptism, and that of the resurrection. The first of these is of the night, and is servile, and tainted with lust. The second is of the day, and is free, and pow⚫erful against lust, and takes away all that veil [or

*Propè ab initio.

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darkness] contracted in our birth [or generation] and renews us to the supernal life. The last is more dreadful and sudden, bringing together in a moment all the creation to be set before their Creator.'

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And a little after, among other titles that he gives to baptism, he calls it rλáoμaroç έravópowo, the amendment [or rectifying] of our formation."

All that I produce this here for, is to observe the phrase or description that he gives to baptism. He calls our natural generation Nocturnal, or of the night; but the baptismal generation, Diurnal, or of the day. And Nicetas there observes, that the name is taken from those words of David (Psal. cxxxix. 16.) where the translation of the Septuagint (which was in use with them) reads (much different from our English) ì Tò βιβλίον σε πάντες γραφήσονται, ἡμέρας πλασθήσονται

They shall all be written in thy book; they shall be formed by day.

Now see what he says of St. Basil, Orat. in laudem Basilij. Orat. 20.

He had spoken of his progenitors, many of whom were martyrs for Christ, and of the piety of his father Basil, who, it seems, was a man in holy orders; and of his mother Emmelia: and making an end of that prefatory discourse, he says,

Φέρε τα κατ' αυτόν θεωρήσωμεν. Τὰ μὲν δὴ πρῶτα τῆς ἡλικίας ὑπὸ τῷ μεγάλῳ πατρὶ, ὅν κοινὸν παιδευτὴν ἀρετῆς ὁ Πόντος τηνικαῦτα προεβάλλετο, σπαργανεται καὶ διαπλάττε ται πλάσιν τὴν ἀρίστην τὲ καὶ καθαρωτάτην, ἣν ἡμερινὴν Θεῖος Δαβιδ καλῶς ὀνομάζοι, καὶ της νυκτερινῆς ἀντίθετον.

Now let us contemplate the affairs that relate to him himself. In the beginning then of his age he was by his excellent father, who was at that time a public 'teacher of virtue in the country of Pontus, swaddled, as I may call it, and formed with that best and most pure formation, which divine David rightly names of the Day, and which is opposed to that of the Night.'

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Bilius, in his note on these words, says, He means the formation of baptism, or rather of manners; which David calls of the day, saying, they shall be formed by day; for so it is to be read: which excellent formation is opposite to that of the night, which is by copulation, and is sordid, and a work of darkness.

But I believe Bilius had not animadverted (what I here observe) that it is the very same phrase which he uses in the other sermon for baptism. I also at the first reading thought it uncertain which he meant, baptism, or good education in manners; but the likeness of a phrase so singular seems to determine it. They of that time seem to have understood that verse of the psalm, as speaking before of the Christian baptism.

This formation appears to have been given in infancy, both by the words τὰ πρῶτα τῆς ἡλικίος, “ in the beginning of his age;" and also by the emphasis of the word omapyaveraι, which signifies the binding or first σπαργανεται, fashioning of the body of an infant in swaddling clothes; and also by the orderly method in which he proceeds: for he mentions in the next paragraph to this his childhood, in which he was educated at home, and by the instructions that are first in order and proper for a child fitted for the perfection he was to arrive at afterward; therefore the foregoing paragraph must have referred to his infancy. Then he proceeds to tell, that when he was a boy big enough, he was sent to school to Cæsarea, then to Byzantium, and then to the university of Athens; where it was that Gregory, who knew him before (at Cæsarea I suppose) entered, as he says, into that strict league of friendship with him which lasted during their joint lives, and in which they seemed, as he expresses it, to have both but one soul informing two bodies. After this he relates how he went into orders, and came, in process of time, to be bishop of Cæsarea, and so famous a man as he was.

From this methodical enumerating all the material passages and actions of his life, arises another proof that Le must have been baptized in infancy, and that the

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