Pope Stephen and Repeated Baptism

Great, then, is the example of these same blessed men, an example plainly divine, worthy to be recalled and meditated on continually by every true catholic. Like the seven-branched lampstand, shining with the sevenfold light of the Holy Spirit, they showed later generations how, from then on, the boldness of profane novelty, in all its various ravings of error, might be crushed by the authority of hallowed antiquity. Nor is there anything new in this. It has always been so in the church: the more a man is under the influence of religion, the readier he is to oppose innovations. There are examples without number. But to be brief, we will take one, and that from the Apostolic See in preference to others, so that it may be clearer than day to everyone with how great energy, how great zeal, and how great earnestness the blessed successors of the blessed apostles have always defended the purity of the religion they once received. [a]

Once, then, Agrippinus, bishop of Carthage, of venerable memory, held the doctrine, and he was the first to hold it, that baptism ought to be repeated. This was contrary to the divine canon, contrary to the rule of the universal church, contrary to the customs and institutions of our ancestors. This innovation brought so much evil with it that it not only gave heretics of every kind an example of sacrilege, but even became an occasion of error to certain catholics. So when everyone protested against the novelty, and the priesthood everywhere opposed it, each as his zeal moved him, Pope Stephen of blessed memory, who presided over the Apostolic See, resisted it. He did so together with his colleagues, yet he himself was the foremost, thinking it right, I have no doubt, that as he surpassed all others in the authority of his place, so he should also surpass them in the devotion of his faith. In short, in a letter sent to Africa at the time, he laid down this rule: “Let there be no innovation, nothing but what has been handed down.” For that holy and prudent man knew well that true devotion admits no other rule than this: whatever has been faithfully received from our fathers is to be faithfully passed on to our children. He knew that it is our duty not to lead religion where we would, but rather to follow religion where it leads; and that Christian modesty and seriousness require us not to hand down our own beliefs or practices to those who come after us, but to preserve and keep what we have received from those who went before us. What, then, was the outcome of the whole matter? What but the usual and customary one? Antiquity was kept, and novelty was rejected. [b]

But perhaps the cause of innovation lacked support at that time? On the contrary, it had on its side such powerful talent, such abundant eloquence, so many partisans, so much likeness to the truth, such weighty support in Scripture (only interpreted in a new and perverse sense), that it seems to me that whole conspiracy could not possibly have been defeated, unless the one thing that caused all this extraordinary stir, the very novelty of what was so undertaken, so defended, so praised, had failed it. In the end, what came, under God, of that African council and its decree? Nothing at all. The whole affair was annulled, canceled, and trampled underfoot, as though it were a dream, a fable, a thing of no account whatever. [d]

And what a marvelous reversal! The authors of this same doctrine are judged catholics, and its followers heretics. The teachers are acquitted, the disciples condemned. The writers of the books will be children of the Kingdom, while those who defend them will have their portion in hell. For who is so out of his mind as to doubt that Cyprian, that blessed light among all holy bishops and martyrs, together with the rest of his colleagues, will reign with Christ? Or who, on the other hand, is so sacrilegious as to deny that the Donatists, and those other pests who boast of the authority of that council for their repeating of baptism, will be consigned to eternal fire with the devil? [e]