HOLMES Baptism: Patristic Resources 263
Cathari, whom Basil taught were schismatics. What is interesting about
this letter, however, is the flexibility Basil was prepared to show on such
questions: 'it is right to follow the custom obtaining in each region, because
those, who at the time gave decision on these points, held different opin-
ions concerning their baptism'; 'since it has seemed to some of those of
Asia that, for the sake of the management of the majority, their baptism
should be accepted, let it be accepted'; 'in the case of any one who has
received baptism from [the Encratites], we should, on his coming to the
church, baptize him. If, however, there is any likelyhood of this being
detrimental to general discipline, we must fall back upon custom...'
Now, these pronouncements are not the realpolitik of some ecclesiasti-
cal manager who was uninterested in the theological rights and wrongs;
Basil was one of the greatest theologians of the eastern Church, and in
large part was responsible for the settlement of the trinitarian controversies
that was achieved at Constantinople in 381. In the interests of charity and
the unity of the Church, however, he was prepared to take a fairly ad hoc
line on questions of irregular baptisms, leading inevitably to situations
where some within the Church would have been baptized twice, if strictlyjudged, and others not baptized at all.
Perhaps the fullest single treatment of heretical baptism in patristic lit-
erature is Augustine's work On Baptism, Against the Donatists}^2 Augus-
tine is (in)famous amongst baptist Christians, at least, for championing the
practice of infant baptism, which he did, although mostly in order to
emphasize the necessity of God's grace in salvation—a noble end, however
unhappy some may feel the route.^13 In this book Augustine bears regular
witness to the practice of clinical baptism (1.21), and does not pause to
condemn it. The omission is explicable when we note that his interest is
only in using the limiting case of emergency baptism to explore precisely
what is necessary for baptism, and what is achieved by it. The witness, how-
ever, only confirms the variety of practice found within the early Church,
and when writing this work, before the Pelagians had questioned the
reality of original sin and so the need for God's gracious salvation, Augus-
tine, like John Chrysostom, accepts infant baptism without recommending- Quotations are from J.R. King's translation, published in Marcus Dodds (ed.),
The Works ofAurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. III. Writings in Connection with
the Donatist Controversy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1872). - See his Answer to Julian for many of the arguments he advances.