Chapter XVII.—Of the Power of Conferring Baptism.

For concluding our brief subject,165    Materiolam. it remains to put you in mind also of the due observance of giving and receiving baptism. Of giving it, the chief priest166    Summus sacerdos. Compare de Orat. xxviii., “nos…veri sacerdotes,” etc.:  and de Ex. Cast. c. vii., “nonne et laici sacerdotes sumus?” (who is the bishop) has the right: in the next place, the presbyters and deacons, yet not without the bishop’s authority, on account of the honour of the Church, which being preserved, peace is preserved. Beside these, even laymen have the right; for what is equally received can be equally given. Unless bishops, or priests, or deacons, be on the spot, other disciples are called i.e. to the work. The word of the Lord ought not to be hidden by any: in like manner, too, baptism, which is equally God’s property,167    Census. can be administered by all. But how much more is the rule168    Disciplina. of reverence and modesty incumbent on laymen—seeing that these powers169    i.e. the powers of administering baptism and “sowing the word.”  [i.e. “The Keys.” Scorpiace, p. 643.] belong to their superiors—lest they assume to themselves the specific170    Dicatum. function of the bishop! Emulation of the episcopal office is the mother of schisms.  The most holy apostle has said, that “all things are lawful, but not all expedient.”171    1 Cor. x. 23, where μοι in the received text seems interpolated. Let it suffice assuredly, in cases of necessity, to avail yourself (of that rule172    Or, as Oehler explains it, of your power of baptizing, etc., if at any time circumstance either of place, or of time, or of person compels you (so to do); for then the stedfast courage of the succourer, when the situation of the endangered one is urgent, is exceptionally admissible; inasmuch as he will be guilty of a human creature’s loss if he shall refrain from bestowing what he had free liberty to bestow. But the woman of pertness,173    Quintilla. See c. i. who has usurped the power to teach, will of course not give birth for herself likewise to a right of baptizing, unless some new beast shall arise174    Evenerit. Perhaps Tertullian means literally—though that sense of the word is very rare—“shall issue out of her,” alluding to his “pariet” above. like the former; so that, just as the one abolished baptism,175    See c. i. ad fin. so some other should in her own right confer it! But if the writings which wrongly go under Paul’s name, claim Thecla’s example as a licence for women’s teaching and baptizing, let them know that, in Asia, the presbyter who composed that writing,176    The allusion is to a spurious work entitled Acta Pauli et Theclæ. [Of which afterwards. But see Jones, on the Canon, II. p. 353, and Lardner, Credibility, II. p. 305.] as if he were augmenting Paul’s fame from his own store, after being convicted, and confessing that he had done it from love of Paul, was removed177    Decessisse. from his office. For how credible would it seem, that he who has not permitted a woman178    Mulieri. even to learn with over-boldness, should give a female179    Fœminæ. the power of teaching and of baptizing! “Let them be silent,” he says, “and at home consult their own husbands.”180    1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35.

CAPUT 17. Superest ad concludendam materiolam de observatione quoque dandi et accipiendi baptismi commonefacere. dandi quidem summum habet ius summus sacerdos, si qui est episcopus: dehinc presbyteri et diaconi, non tamen sine episcopi auctoritate, propter ecclesiae honorem quo salvo salva pax est. alioquin etiam laicis ius est: 'quod enim ex aequo accipitur ex aequo dari potest; nisi episcopi iam aut presbyteri aut diaconi vocabuntur discentes domini: id est, ut sermo non debet abscondi ab ullo, proinde et baptismus segue dei census ab omnibus exerceri potest'. sed quanto magis laicis disciplina verecundiae et modestiae incumbit cum ea [quae] maioribus competat, ne sibi adsumant [dicatum] episcopi ofFicium. episcopates aemulatio schismatum mater est. omnia licere dixit sanctissimus apostolus sed non omnia expedire. sufficit scilicet in necessitatibus [ut] utaris sicubi aut loci aut temporis aut personae condicio compellit: tunc enim constantia succurrentis excipitur cum urguetur circumstantia periclitantis, quoniam reus erit perditi hominis si supersederit praestare quod libere potuit. petulantia autem mulieris quae usurpavit docere utique non etiam tinguendi ius sibi rapiet, nisi si quae nova bestia venerit similis pristinae, ut quemadmodum illa baptismum auferebat ita aliqua per se [eum] conferat. quod si quae Acta Pauli, quae perperam scripta sunt, exemplum Theclae ad licentiam mulierum docendi tinguendique defendant, sciant in Asia presbyterum qui eam scripturam construxit, quasi titulo Pauli de suo cumulans, convictum atque confessum id se amore Pauli fecisse loco decessisse. quam enim fidei proximum videtur ut is docendi et tinguendi daret feminae potestatem qui ne discere quidem constanter mulieri permisit? Taceant, inquit, et domi viros suos consulant.