The Council of Carthage Under Cyprian

A great many bishops from the provinces of Africa, Numidia and Mauretania had met together at Carthage on the Calends of September, with the presbyters and deacons, and the greater part of the people was present as well. The holy letters of Jubaianus to Cyprian had been read, and Cyprian’s answers to Jubaianus, concerning the baptisms of heretics, as well as what the same Jubaianus afterward wrote to Cyprian. [a] Then Cyprian said: “You have heard, my dearly beloved colleagues, what our fellow bishop Jubaianus has written to me, consulting my lowliness about the unlawful and profane baptisms of heretics, and the answer I gave him. I hold the same opinion we have held on earlier occasions: that heretics coming to the church should be baptized and sanctified with the church’s baptism. The other letter of Jubaianus has also been read to you, in which, replying to our letter with sincere and pious devotion, he not only agrees with it but has also given thanks that he was so instructed by it. It only remains, therefore, for each of us, one by one, to say what we think in this matter, without condemning anyone, or removing from the right of communion anyone who does not agree with us. “For none of us has set himself up as a bishop of bishops, or tried by tyrannical terror to force his colleagues into obeying him. For every bishop, by the freedom and authority that are his, has his own will; and as he cannot be judged by another, so neither can he judge another. But we await the judgment of our universal Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has the power both of setting us over the government of his church and of judging what we do there.” [c]

The bishops then gave their opinions one by one, each declaring against the baptism of heretics. Last of all: [d] Cyprian, the confessor and martyr of Carthage, said: “The letter that was written to my colleague Jubaianus set out my opinion very fully: that heretics, who by the witness of the gospel and the apostles are called adversaries of Christ and antichrists, should, when they come to the church, be baptized with the church’s one and only baptism, so that from adversaries they may become friends, and from antichrists, Christians.” [e]