and others, with greater probability, suggest that some of the brethren from Joppa were likely to have been clergy.1 Therefore, this, like the other passages in the Acts, proves nothing at all decisively.

Passing from the Bible to ecclesiastical history, we find that the early Church laid stress upon the fact that the administration of baptism belonged by right to the episcopate alone. So strictly was the office sometimes reserved to the bishop, that the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, record a letter from the people of Edessa to their bishop, begging him to return from the council before Easter, that he might attend to the teaching and baptizing of the catechumens; but this, of course, concerned adult baptism.2 In the same century, in the diocese of Milan, many are said to have died without baptism, because the bishop had been absent for several years; and, most of his suffragans having died, there was no one to administer it.3

The teaching of the Fathers, and the decrees of councils, were in accord with the spirit of these limitations. It is not lawful,' writes St. Ignatius, 'to baptize without the bishop.' 'The chief priest, who is the bishop,' says Tertullian, 'has the right of giving it: then presbyters and deacons, yet not without the authority of the bishop, for the honour of the Church.' 5 'Without the command of the bishop,' says St. Jerome, 'neither priest nor deacon has the right to baptize.' There is a continuous and consentient voice as to this, from the early days down to the present time, when the Church of England restricts the administration of sacraments to those who are 'lawfully called and sent to execute the same.' The apostolic commission extends only to those to whom it is delegated by the Apostles, through their successors.

For lay baptism itself there is no positive evidence for nearly two centuries. Tertullian, about the year 200, is the first writer who speaks of it. He accepted its validity. After asserting, as above, that the right to give baptism belongs to the bishop and his clergy, he continues by saying that it is lawful for the laity also to bestow it in cases of necessity.

1 Forbes, X. xiii. 15; Taylor, Clerus Domini, iv. 9; Bennet, Rights of the Clergy, p. 235; Waterland, p. 182.

2 Dict. Christ. Ant. ' Baptism,' § 78.

4 Ign. Ad Smyrn. viii.

3 Martene, I. i. 3.

5 Tert. De Bapt. xvii.; comp. Const. Apost. III. i. 11.

6 Jer. Dial. adv. Lucif. iv.

7 Article 23; comp. Preface to Ordinal. See Lay Baptism In valid p. 32, and Dissenters' Baptism, p. 179.

8 Tert. De Bapt. xvii.

But he apparently altogether excludes women from this permission; and he regarded baptism by heretics, by whom he means Gnostics, as entirely void.2 The baptism which he recognized was, therefore, that by laymen in communion with the Church.

Tertullian seems to have fairly represented the mind of the early Church as to the invalidity of heretical baptism; and, although this is not necessarily at all the same thing as lay baptism, the two have become so inextricably involved in later controversies, that it is impossible to discuss one without following the history of the other. The Apostolical Constitutions, which indicate the discipline of about the third century, say that those who are baptized by heretics are not initiated, but polluted; and the Apostolical Canons lay down that a bishop or priest is to be deposed if he fails to baptize again those who have received heretical baptism. St. Clement of Alexandria also rejects it.5 A council at Iconium, in Phrygia, in about the year 231, did the same; and Firmilian, bishop of Cæsarea, who records the decree, says that this view had come down by tradition from Christ and the Apostles. Firmilian himself, while admitting the difference between the great heresies and the schisms of lapsed priests, thought that the baptism of both should be repeated. Another Phrygian council, at Synnada, in the first half of the century, and an African council, under Agrippinus, at Carthage, in about 215,8 also decided against heretical baptism. Africa, however, had not been so uniformly strict in the matter as the East. Both Firmilian and Cyprian imply that heretics had sometimes been received by the African Church without re-baptism. But this was a lax custom, apparently unsanctioned by any recognized canon.9

Heretical baptism was first formally received as valid, at Rome, under the pontificate of Stephen, in the middle of the third century. Stephen appears to have attempted to dictate to some Asiatic bishops that they were not to re-baptize those who had been baptized by heretics; but they rejected his

1 Tert. De Bapt. xvii.; comp. De Virg. Vel. ix.

2 Ibid. xv.; comp. De Præscript. adv. Hær. xii. See Burton, Lect. on Ecc. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 265, 266.

3 Const. Apost. VI. iii. 15.

5 Clem. Alex. Stromata, I. xix.

4 Can. Apost. 46, 47, 68.

6 Firm. ap. Cyprian, Ep. lxxv. 7, 19, 22. 7 Dion. Alex. ap. Euseb. vii. other' councils to the same effect.

8 Cyprian, Ep. lxxi. 4; lxxiii. 3.

He speaks of the decrees of 'many

9 Ep. lxxv. 19; lxxiii. 19; comp. Aug. De Bapt. III. v. 7 ; V. i. 1.

advice. Soon after, in 254, some Numidian bishops, and Quintus, a bishop in Mauritania, consulted St. Cyprian on the subject. He laid it before a small council then sitting at Carthage, and they decided that heretical baptism was invalid. A second Carthaginian council passed a similar decree in 256, and Cyprian sent a report of it to Stephen,3 who immediately broke off communion with the African Church. Thereupon Cyprian wrote on the matter to some of the Eastern bishops, and Firmilian replied entirely in accord with the Carthaginian doctrine, which was further endorsed by a larger council at Carthage in September of the same year.5 Stephen died soon after, and Dionysius of Alexandria had some amicable correspondence on the question with Pope Xystus, his successor, but nothing seems to have come of it. St. Jerome says that the African bishops afterwards rescinded their decrees; but, as Dr. Pusey points out, this is evidently a mistake, for St. Augustine would certainly have known of the change if it had occurred, and would have mentioned it, if he could, in support of his own contentions."

6

The argument of St. Cyprian and his colleagues was briefly this. There is but one baptism, and that baptism is in the one faith. This one faith is to be found only in the Church, and therefore there only is the one baptism. Heresy cannot generate sons of God; the unclean cannot cleanse; the enemies of God cannot be entrusted with the administration of His grace. To allow baptism to be usurped by those who are not of the apostolic ministry would logically be followed by allowing the same as to other sacraments. Heretical baptism is therefore no baptism at all; and those who have received it must be, not re-baptized, but baptized, on coming over to the Church. Cyprian says that thousands were so baptized in Africa. He admitted that God might extend His indulgence to those who wrongly imagined themselves to have been duly baptized, but this gave no warrant to the Church to recognize heretical baptism. At the same time, in spite of his own very strong opinion, backed as it was by the general agreement of the African and Eastern bishops, he allowed the possibility of others arriving at a different conclusion.8

1 Cyprian, Ep. lxxiv. 1; lxxv.; Euseb. vii. 3. Ep. lxx. lxxi.

2

3

Ep. lxxii.

5 Aug. De Bapt. III. iii.-ix. ; VI.; VII.

4

Ep. lxxv.

He records briefly the argu

ments of the several bishops, and replies to them seriatim.

6 Euseb. vii. 5, 9.

7

Jerome, Adv. Lucif. 23; Pusey, Note on Tertullian, Lib. of Fathers,
See Epp. lxxi.-lxxv. lxxix. lxxx.

p. 294.

The reasoning of St. Cyprian might be applied in a measure to lay and dissenting baptism. But the heresies of the time were either led by bishops and priests who had lapsed, or else were almost heathen heresies outside the Church altogether. They were in no case parallel to modern dissent, and lay baptism, as such, did not come into the dispute at all. St. Basil, Firmilian's successor in the bishopric of Cæsarea, does indeed say that both he and Cyprian argued that those who separated from the Church lost the power to baptize, because they had 'become laymen.'1 But, since neither bishop makes such a statement in any of the several epistles which are extant, it must be doubted whether St. Basil rightly expresses their views.2 St. Cyprian in one place says that lapsed priests ought only to be received back to lay communion;3 but this is a very different thing from saying that they became laymen when they fell away. The real contention of the Eastern and African bishops was that the acts of heretics were null and void, because heresy put them entirely without the Church. Stephen's position can only be gathered imperfectly from the letters of his opponents; but he was probably at issue with them simply on the question of the effect of heresy. His point most likely was that it did not sever completely from Church communion, and therefore could not invalidate the ministrations of heretical priests. Firmilian, no doubt, represents him as holding that all baptism, in due form, was of avail by virtue of the invocation of the Name of the Blessed Trinity. But, as the dispute was entirely about baptism by clergy who had fallen into heresy, it is unlikely that when he wrote this he was seriously contemplating lay baptism. The controversy throughout turned upon heresy and not upon orders. Its bearing upon lay baptism is, therefore, strongest in its silence; for, if lay baptism had been practised in those days, it is incredible that neither side should have illustrated their arguments by reference to it.

At the Council of Arles, in 314, heretical baptism was discussed, and was decided to be valid, against the opinion of the Carthaginian Councils. On the other hand, the Council of Nicæa, in 325, decreed that the Paulianists and Samosatians were to be re-baptized, in confirmation of an earlier decree, supposed to be the 46th Apostolical Canon. St. Augustine and Pope Innocent say that these heretics did not baptize in

4

Ap. Cyprian, Ep. lxxv. 9, 18; comp. Ep. lxxiv. 1.

the Name of the Trinity,' while St. Athanasius distinctly asserts that they did; 2 and, though the former seems most probable, the discrepancy of testimony leaves the motives which guided the council too uncertain for the canon to be used as any proof of the views of the council upon an irregular minister of baptism. But, anyhow, neither here nor at Arles was lay baptism under consideration, unless on the theory that heresy annulled orders, which Bingham persistently maintained, but never succeeded in proving.

So far as is known, then, Tertullian had been the solitary champion of lay baptism up to the beginning of the fourth -century. A second definite acknowledgment of it is found in the canons of a Council at Elvira, in Spain, in 305,3 which decreed that a layman who was in full communion with the Church might baptize in cases of necessity.

To about the same period belongs the story of the young Athanasius baptizing his comrades at Alexandria, while playing at religious ceremonies on the seashore. The bishop, Alexander, is said to have taken counsel with his clergy, and then, having found that the proper form had been used, to have decided that the boys were validly baptized. The circumstance is narrated by Ruffinus, and is repeated from him by Sozomen. But Ruffinus, who was himself an inaccurate and credulous historian, only says that Alexander was 'reported' to have so determined the matter; and Socrates, who relates the mimic games of the children, omits all mention whatever of the baptism. Moreover, the decision attributed to the bishop runs counter to the general tone of the discipline of the time, and it is not easy to make a very youthful age of Athanasius synchronize at all with the episcopate of Alexander. So much of the story as supports lay baptism is probably apocryphal.

5

Baptism controversies were rife in the later half of the fourth century, but they followed a somewhat different course in East and West, and the history from this point is best traced separately.

In the East the main question was about the baptism of heretics. St. Athanasius regarded baptism as 'unprofitable,' when the Divine Name was repeated without a right intention and salutary faith. St. Cyril of Jerusalem says, more clearly,

1

Aug. De Hares. xliv. ; Inn. Ep. xxii. Ad Episc. Maced. 5. Comp. Conc. Arelat. II. can. 17.

2 Ath. Orat. adv. Arian. ii. 43.

3 The date given on some manuscripts of the Acts themselves, viz. A.D. 324, is rejected as erroneous by Hefele and Dale.

4 Ruff. Hist. I. xiv. ; Soz. Hist. II. xvii.

5 Soc. Hist. I. xv.