[XXVI.] Sanctification is not of merely one measure; for even catechumens, I take it, are sanctified in their own measure by the sign of Christ, and the prayer of imposition of hands; and what they receive is holy, although it is not the body of Christ,—holier than any food which constitutes our ordinary nourishment, because it is a sacrament.400    Catechumens received the sacramentum salis—salt placed in the mouth—with other rites, such as exorcism and the sign of the cross; the Lord’s Prayer and other invocations concluding the ceremony. See Canon 5 of the third Council of Carthage; also Augustin’s De Catechiz. Rud. 50; and his Confessions, i. 11, where (speaking of his own catechumenical course) he says: “I was now signed with the sign of His cross, and was seasoned with His salt.” However, that very meat and drink, wherewithal the necessities of our present life are sustained, are, according to the same apostle, “sanctified by the word of God and prayer,”401    1 Tim. iv. 5. even the prayer with which we beg that our bodies may be refreshed. Just as therefore this sanctification of our ordinary food does not hinder what enters the mouth from descending into the belly, and being ejected into the draught,402    Mark vii. 19. and partaking of the corruption into which everything earthly is resolved, whence the Lord exhorts us to labour for the other food which never perishes:403    John vi. 27. so the sanctification of the catechumen, if he is not baptized, does not avail for his entrance into the kingdom of heaven, nor for the remission of his sins. And, by parity of reasoning, that sanctification likewise, of whatever measure it be, which, according to the apostle, is in the children of believers, has nothing whatever to do with the question of baptism and of the origin or the remission of sin.404    See below, Book iii. ch. 21; and his Sermons, xxix. 4. The apostle, in this very passage which has occupied our attention, says that the unbeliever of a married couple is sanctified by a believing partner: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy.”405    1 Cor. vii. 14. Now, I should say, there is not a man whose mind is so warped by unbelief, as to suppose that, whatever sense he gives to these words, they can possibly mean that a husband who is not a Christian should not be baptized, because his wife is a Christian, and that he has already obtained remission of his sins, with the certain prospect of entering the kingdom of heaven, because he is described as being sanctified by his wife.

CAPUT XXVI.

Sanctificatio multiplex Sacramentum catechumenorum. Non unius modi est sanctificatio: nam et catechumenos secundum quemdam modum suum per signum Christi et orationem manus impositionis puto sanctificari: et quod accipiunt, quamvis non sit corpus Christi, sanctum est tamen, et sanctius quam cibi quibus alimur, qnoniam sacramentum est . Verum et ipsos cibos, quibus ad necessitatem sustentandae hujus vitae alimur, sanctificari idem apostolus dixit, per verbum Dei et orationem (I Tim. IV, 5), qua oramus, utique nostra corpuscula refecturi. Sicut ergo ista ciborum sanctificatio non efficit ut quod in os intraverit, non in ventrem vadat et in secessum emittatur per corruptionem, qua omnia terrena solvuntur, unde et ad aliam escam quae non corrumpitur, nos Dominus exhortatur (Joan. VI, 27): ita sanctificatio catechumeni, si non fuerit baptizatus, non ei valet ad intrandum in regnum coelorum, aut ad peccatorum remissionem. Ac per hoc et illa sanctificatio, cujuscumque modi sit, quam in filiis fidelium esse dixit Apostolus, ad istam de Baptismo et de peccati origine vel remissione quaestionem omnino non pertinet. Nam et conjuges infideles in conjugibus fidelibus sanctificari dicit eo ipso loco ita loquens: 0177 Sanctificatur enim vir infidelis in uxore, et sanctificatur mulier infidelis in fratre. Alioquin filii vestri immundi essent, nunc autem sancti sunt (I Cor. VII, 14). Non, opinor, quisquam tam infideliter intelligit, quodlibet in his verbis intelligat, ut ob hoc existimet etiam maritum non christianum, quia christiana fuerit uxor ejus, neque jam baptizari oportere, et ad peccatorum remissionem jam pervenisse, et in regnum coelorum esse intraturum, quia sanctificatus dictus est in uxore.