To the Bishops of Sicily, on the Seasons for Baptism

Leo the bishop to all the bishops throughout Sicily, greeting in the Lord.

God’s commands and the apostle’s warnings urge us to keep careful watch over the state of all the churches. If anything is found anywhere that needs rebuke, we must act quickly to call people back, whether from the dullness of ignorance or from brashness and presumption. We are warned by the Lord’s own command, the sacred charge he pressed three times on the blessed apostle Peter: whoever loves Christ is to feed Christ’s sheep. So reverence for the see that we hold, by the abundance of divine grace, compels us to shun the danger of laziness as far as we can. Otherwise the confession of the chief apostle, by which he testified that he loved God, might not be found in us. For if, through us, Peter carelessly feeds the flock so often entrusted to him, he is shown not to love the chief Shepherd. [a]

Reliable witnesses have brought a report to my ears, and I already felt a brother’s affectionate concern about what you do, beloved. They tell me that in one of the chief sacraments of the church you depart from the practice laid down by the apostles: you baptize greater numbers on the feast of the Epiphany than at Easter. I was surprised that you or your predecessors could have brought in so unreasonable an innovation. It confuses the mysteries of the two festivals, as though there were no difference between the day on which Christ was worshiped by the wise men and the day on which he rose again from the dead. You could never have fallen into this fault if you had taken all your observances from the source from which you receive your consecration as bishops, and if the see of the blessed apostle Peter, which is the mother of your priestly dignity, were recognized as your teacher in the church’s order. We would indeed bear your departure from its rules less calmly if you had already received some rebuke from us by way of warning. But as things are, since we do not despair of correcting you, we must show gentleness. An excuse that pleads ignorance can hardly be tolerated in priests, yet we prefer to soften the rebuke we must give, and to instruct you plainly in the true order of the church. [c]

The restoration of humankind has always stood, unchangeably foreordained, in God’s eternal counsel. But the series of events that had to be accomplished in time through Jesus Christ our Lord began with the Incarnation of the Word. So there is one time when, at the angel’s announcement, the blessed Virgin Mary believed that she would be with child through the Holy Spirit, and conceived. There is another when the child was born without loss of her virginity, and was made known to the shepherds by the joyful rejoicing of the heavenly attendants. Another when the baby was circumcised. Another when the sacrifice the law required is offered for him. Another when the three wise men, drawn by the brightness of the new star, arrive at Bethlehem from the East and worship the infant, offering gifts full of sacred meaning. [d]

Again, the days are not the same on which he was taken out of the reach of wicked Herod by the flight into Egypt that God appointed, and on which he was called back from Egypt into Galilee after his pursuer’s death. Among these different occasions we must also count the growth of his body. The Lord increases, as the evangelist bears witness, in age and in grace. At the time of the Passover he comes to the temple at Jerusalem with his parents. When he was missing from the company on its way home, he is found sitting with the elders, debating among the astonished teachers, and giving the reason why he stayed behind: “Why is it that you looked for me? Did you not know that I must be in what is my Father’s?” By this he showed that he was the Son of the one whose temple he was in. Later still, when he was to be made known more openly, he sought out the baptism of John, his forerunner. Was there any doubt then that he was God, when after the baptism of the Lord Jesus the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove and rested on him, and the Father’s voice was heard from the sky: “You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased”? We have touched on all these things as briefly as we can for this reason: that you may know, beloved, that every day of Christ’s life was made holy by many mighty works of his, and that in all his actions sacraments full of mystery shone out; and yet that at one time events were foreshadowed by signs, and at another they were fulfilled; and that not all the Savior’s recorded works are suitable for the time of baptism. For if we were to honor, without distinction, the things too that we know the Lord did after the blessed John baptized him, his whole lifetime would have to be kept as an unbroken series of festivals, since all his acts were full of miracles. But the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge so instructed the apostles and teachers of the whole church as to allow nothing disordered or confused in our Christian observances. So we must recognize the relative importance of the various feasts and keep a reasonable distinction in all the institutions of our fathers and rulers. For we cannot otherwise “be one flock and one shepherd,” except as the apostle teaches us: “that we all speak the same thing, and that we be made perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment.” [e]

It is true, then, that both the things that belong to Christ’s humiliation and those that belong to his exaltation meet in one and the same Person, and all that is in him of divine power and of human weakness works together to accomplish our restoration. Even so, it is fitting that the power of baptism should change the old creature into the new on the day the Crucified died and the day the Dead rose again. In this way Christ’s death and his resurrection may work in those being born again, as the blessed apostle says: “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried with him through baptism into death, so that, as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too should walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with the likeness of his death, we will also be united with the likeness of his resurrection.” And so on, in the rest of what the Teacher of the Gentiles says further in commending the sacrament of baptism. The spirit of this teaching shows that the day and the time chosen for giving the sons of men new birth and adopting them among the sons of God is the one on which, by a sacred likeness and pattern, what is done in the limbs matches what was done in the Head himself. For in the rite of baptism death follows when sin is slain; the threefold immersion imitates the three days of lying in the tomb; and the raising out of the water is like him who rose again from the tomb. The very nature of the act, then, teaches us that the recognized day for the general reception of this grace is the day on which the power of the gift and the character of the action began. This is strongly confirmed by the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ himself, after he rose from the dead, handed on both the form and the power of baptizing to his disciples. In their persons all the leaders of the churches received their instructions, in these words: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He could of course have taught them this even before his suffering, had he not especially wished it to be understood that the grace of new birth began with his resurrection. It must be added, indeed, that the solemn season of Pentecost, made holy by the coming of the Holy Spirit, is also permitted, since it is, as it were, the sequel and completion of the Easter feast. Other festivals fall on other days of the week, but this festival always falls on the day marked by the Lord’s resurrection. It holds out, so to speak, the hand of helping grace, and invites those who have been cut off from the Easter feast by disabling sickness, or the length of a journey, or difficulties at sea, to gain what they long for through the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the only Son of God himself wished no difference to be felt between himself and the Holy Spirit, either in the faith of believers or in the power of his works, because there is no difference in their nature. As he says: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth.” And again: “But the Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” And again: “When he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” So, since Christ is the Truth, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, and the name “Comforter” belongs to both, the two festivals are not unlike, where the sacrament is the same. [j]

We do not press this on our own conviction; we hold it on the authority of the apostles. We prove it by a fitting example, following the blessed apostle Peter. On the very day on which the promised coming of the Holy Spirit filled up the number of believers, he dedicated to God in the baptismal font three thousand of the people who had been converted by his preaching. Holy Scripture, which contains the Acts of the Apostles, teaches this in its faithful history, saying: “Now when they heard this they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘What shall we do, brothers?’ But Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.’ With many other words he also testified and urged them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’ Those, then, who received his word were baptized, and about three thousand were added that day.” [n]

It is quite clear, then, that these two seasons we have been speaking of are the rightful ones for baptizing the chosen in church. So we urge you, beloved, not to add other days to this observance. There are other festivals too that deserve great reverence in God’s honor; yet we must, with good reason, guard this chief and greatest sacrament as a deep mystery, and not as part of the ordinary routine. This does not, however, forbid the freedom to help those in danger by baptizing them at any time. We defer the vows of those who are not pressed by ill health and who live in peace and safety to those two closely joined and related festivals. But we never refuse this, the one safeguard of true salvation, to anyone in danger of death, in the crisis of a siege, in the distress of persecution, or in the terror of shipwreck. [o]

Someone may think that the feast of the Epiphany, which certainly deserves due honor in its proper degree, has a claim to the privilege of baptism, because, according to some, the Lord came to Saint John’s baptism on that same day. Let him know that the grace of that baptism and its purpose were quite different. It does not stand on an equal footing with the power by which people are born again of the Holy Spirit, of whom it is said, “who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” For the Lord needed no forgiveness of sin and did not seek the remedy of being born again. He wished to be baptized just as he wished to be circumcised and to have a sacrifice offered for his purification. He who had been “made of a woman,” as the apostle says, was to become also “under the law,” which he had come “not to destroy but to fulfill,” and by fulfilling to bring to its end, as the blessed apostle proclaims: “But Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” But he founded the sacrament of baptism in his own person, because, “having the first place in all things,” he taught that he himself was the Beginning. And he established the power of new birth at the moment when the blood of ransom and the water of baptism flowed from his side. The Old Testament was the witness to the New, and “the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The various sacrifices prefigured the one Victim, and the slaughter of many lambs was ended by the offering of him of whom it is said, “Behold the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sin of the world.” In the same way John, who was not the Christ but Christ’s forerunner, not the bridegroom but the friend of the bridegroom, was so faithful in seeking “not his own, but the things of Jesus Christ” that he declared himself unworthy to untie the sandals on his feet. For John himself baptized “in water for repentance,” but the one who, with a twofold power, would both restore life and destroy sins was to “baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire.” So all these distinct proofs come before you, beloved brothers, and they remove all doubt. You recognize that in baptizing the chosen, who by the apostles’ rule must be cleansed by exorcisms, made holy by fasting, and instructed by frequent sermons, only two seasons are to be kept, namely Easter and Pentecost. We charge you, brother, to depart no further from the institutions of the apostles. For from now on no one who thinks the apostles’ rules may be defied will go unpunished. [q]

So we require this first and foremost, for the keeping of perfect harmony. Following the wholesome rule of the holy fathers, that there should be two meetings of bishops every year, three of you are to appear without fail each time, on the 29th of September, to take part in the council of the brothers. In this way, with the help of God’s grace, we will more easily guard against the rise of stumbling blocks and errors in Christ’s church. And this council must always meet and deliberate in the presence of the blessed apostle Peter, so that all his ordinances and canonical decrees may remain unbroken among all the Lord’s priests. [u]

These are the matters on which we thought it necessary to instruct you, by the inspiration of the Lord. We wish them brought to your knowledge by our brothers and fellow bishops Bacillus and Paschasinus. May we learn from their report that the institutions of the Apostolic See are reverently kept among you. Dated the 21st of October, in the consulship of the illustrious Calepius and Ardabur (in the year 447). [v]