Chapter 12 [IX.]—His Sixth Error. (See Above in Book I. 10-12 [IX., X.], and in Book II. 13, 14 [IX., X.].)

If you wish to be a catholic, refrain from believing, or saying, or teaching that “infants which are forestalled by death before they are baptized may yet attain to forgiveness of their original sins.” For the examples by which you are misled—that of the thief who confessed the Lord upon the cross, or that of Dinocrates the brother of St. Perpetua—contribute no help to you in defence of this erroneous opinion. As for the thief, although in God’s judgment he might be reckoned among those who are purified by the confession of martyrdom, yet you cannot tell whether he was not baptized. For, to say nothing of the opinion that he might have been sprinkled with the water which gushed at the same time with the blood out of the Lord’s side,103    John xix. 34. as he hung on the cross next to Him, and thus have been washed with a baptism of the most sacred kind, what if he had been baptized in prison, as in after times some under persecution were enabled privately to obtain? or what if he had been baptized previous to his imprisonment? If, indeed, he had been, the remission of his sins which he would have received in that case from God would not have protected him from the sentence of public law, so far as appertained to the death of the body. What if, being already baptized, he had committed the crime and incurred the punishment of robbery and lawlessness, but yet received, by virtue of repentance added to his baptism, forgiveness of the sins which, though baptized, he had committed? For beyond doubt his faith and piety appeared to the Lord clearly in his heart, as they do to us in his words. If, indeed, we were to conclude that all those who have quitted life without a record of their baptism died unbaptized, we should calumniate the very apostles themselves; for we are ignorant when they were, any of them, baptized, except the Apostle Paul.104    Acts ix. 18. If, however, we could regard as an evidence that they were really baptized the circumstance of the Lord’s saying to St. Peter, “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet,”105    John xiii. 10. what are we to think of the others, of whom we do not read even so much as this,—Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Silas, Philemon, the very evangelists Mark and Luke, and innumerable others, about whose baptism God forbid that we should entertain any doubt, although we read no record of it? As for Dinocrates, he was a child of seven years of age; and as children who are baptized so old as that can now recite the creed and answer for themselves in the usual examination, I know not why he may not be supposed after his baptism to have been recalled by his unbelieving father to the sacrilege and profanity of heathen worship, and for this reason to have been condemned to the pains from which he was liberated at his sister’s intercession. For in the account of him you have never read, either that he was never a Christian, or died a catechumen. But for the matter of that, the account itself that we have of him does not occur in that canon of Holy Scripture whence in all questions of this kind our proofs ought always to be drawn.

CAPUT IX.

12. Noli credere, nec dicere, nec docere, «Infantes antequam baptizentur morte praeventos, pervenire posse ad originalium indulgentiam peccatorum» (Supra, lib. 1, n. 10-12, et lib. 2, nn. 13, 14), si vis esse catholicus. Exempla enim quae te fallunt, vel de latrone qui Dominum est confessus in cruce (Luc. XXIII, 43), vel de fratre sanctae Perpetuae Dinocrate, nihil tibi ad hujus erroris sententiam suffragantur. Latro quippe ille, quamvis potuerit judicio divino inter eos deputari, qui martyrii confessione purgantur, tamen etiam utrum non fuerit baptizatus, ignoras. Nam ut omittam quod creditur, aqua simul cum sanguine exsiliente de latere Domini, juxta confixus 0517 potuisse perfundi, atque hujusmodi sanctissimo baptismate dilui: quid, si in carcere fuerat baptizatus, quod et postea persecutionis tempore nonnulli clanculo impetrare potuerunt? Quid, si et antequam teneretur? Neque enim propterea illi publicae leges parcere poterant, quantum attinet ad corporis mortem, quoniam divinitus remissionem acceperat peccatorum. Quid, si jam baptizatus in latrocimi facinus et crimen incurrerat, et non expers Baptismatis, sed tanquam poenitens accepit scelerum veniam quae baptizatus admisit? quandoquidem pietas tam fidelis, et Domino in animo ejus, et nobis in verbis ejus apparuit. Nam si eos, de quibus non scriptum est utrum fuerint baptizati, sine Baptismo de hac vita recessisse contendimus; ipsis calumniamur Apostolis, qui, praeter apostolum Paulum (Act. IX, 18), quando baptizati fuerint ignoramus. Sed si ipsos baptizatos esse per hoc nobis innotescere potuit, quod beato Petro Dominus ait; Qui lotus est, non indiget nisi ut pedes lavet (Joan. XIII, 10): quid de aliis, de quibus vel tale nihil legimus dictum, de Barnaba, de Timotheo, de Tito, de Sila, de Philemone, de ipsis evangelistis Marco et Luca, de innumerabilibus caeteris; quos absit ut baptizatos esse dubitemus, quamvis non legamus? Dinocrates autem septennis puer, in quibus annis pueri cum baptizantur, jam Symbolum reddunt, et pro se ipsi ad interrogata respondent, cur non tibi visus fuerit baptizatus potuisse ab impio patre ad Gentilium sacrilegia revocari, et ob hoc fuisse in poenis, de quibus sorore orante liberatus est, nescio. Neque enim et ipsum vel nunquam fuisse christianum, vel catechumenum defunctum fuisse legisti? Quanquam ipsa lectio non sit in eo canone Scripturarum, unde in hujusmodi quaestionibus testimonia proferenda sunt.