264 Dimensions of Baptism
it, and sees it as a legitimate extrapolation from true baptism, rather than a
self-evident practice.^14
In discussion with the Donatists, however, the question was only of the
rebaptism of schismatics. Following similar traditions to those to which
Basil bears testimony, the North African churches had not insisted on
rebaptizing Donatists who came out of schism and into the fellowship of
the Church; the Donatists, however, insisted that there was no true baptism
other than their own, and so would rebaptize Catholic Christians who
sought to join them. Augustine goes further than Basil or the earlier tra-
ditions, and refuses to differentiate between heretical baptism and schis-
matic baptism.^15 A number of reasons are offered for this opinion, which
essentially reduce to Augustine's belief that God cannot be prevented from
doing the good he desires to do in baptism by the vain prattlings of heretics.
So, for instance, Augustine regards the attempt of the Donatists to separate
themselves from the Catholic Church as a serious sin, but refuses to accept
that they succeed in the attempt ('their party... is severed from the bond of
peace and charity, but it is joined in one baptism. And so there is one
Church which alone is called Catholic; and whenever it has anything of its
own in these communions...which are separate from itself, it is most
certainly in virtue of this which is its own. ..',1.14). Again, he insists that
baptism belongs to Christ, and that 'evil men' cannot seize it from him
(7.5).
What, however, of the earlier practice of the Church, to which Basil
bears witness? The Donatists had, it seems, appealed to this practice, as
upheld by the saint and martyr Cyprian. If, after all, this was the appro-
priate practice, and the Church refused to rebaptize Donatists, then the
Church was acknowledging that the Donatists were not heretics. Augustine
offers a long and detailed discussion of Cyprian's writings on the subject,
beginning with an appeal to the same variety of practice that Basil noted,
- Augustine does offer the standard argument from circumcision in 4.31, but the
argument that follows—where he claims that both faith and baptism are necessary, but
that God in his goodness makes up the lack of baptism in the case of the penitent thief,
and the lack of faith in the case of baptized infants—demonstrates that at this point at
least, Augustine does not regard infant baptism as normative. It is interesting to notice,
in this connection, that in his Retractions, Augustine wondered whether the thief might
not in fact have been baptized at some earlier point (2.18). - He insists only that baptism is performed in the triune name, and explicitly
states that he would accept a baptism so performed by Marcion, Valentinus, Arius or
Eunomius (3.20).