Davide's Notes

Why was forgiveness of post-baptismal sins in the pre-nicene Church a controversial topic?

For Hermas, "the repentance of the righteous has limits". The text could be clearer, but it seems to say that, if one "repents with all his heart, and drives all doubts from his mind", then forgiveness will be given for "all the sins which in former times one committed" (whether this includes the concept of original sin I can't really say; implicitly, perhaps.) The occasion for forgiveness seems to be then one of complete adherence to the salvific message of Christ; but the important addendum here is that

the Lord has sworn by His glory, in regard to His elect, that if any one of them sin after a certain day which has been fixed, he shall not be saved. For the repentance of the righteous has limits. Filled up are the days of repentance to all the saints; but to the heathen, repentance will be possible even to the last day. (Vis. II.2.1-6)

So, once you are part of the community of the saints, you may not partake of salvation if you happen to sin; but if you are still to embrace the message of Christ, you can still repent and thus be saved. This starts a pattern that we are going to find in several other authors later (and which will result in the tendency to delay baptism as much as possible). The concept is made even more explicit by Hermas when he says

"I heard, sir, some teachers maintain that there is no other repentance than that which takes place, when we descended into the water and received remission of our former sins." He said to me, "That was sound doctrine which you heard; for that is really the case. For he who has received remission of his sins ought not to sin any more, but to live in purity." (Mand. IV.3.1-2)

So at this point it seems that baptism is understood to be a most rigid Great Divide. But Hermas then adds:

"And therefore I say to you, that if any one is tempted by the devil, and sins after that great and holy calling. in which the Lord has called His people to everlasting life, he has opportunity to repent but once. But if he should sin frequently after this, and then repent, to such a man his repentance will be of no avail; for with difficulty will he live." (Mand. IV.3.6)

Therefore, the "limit" Hermas was referring to above is now set to at most one repentance after baptism.

Incidentally, it is interesting to note that Heb 6:4-8 seems to suggest, with Vis II.2.1-6 and Mand. IV.3.1-2, the impossibility of repentance for those who had been baptized and then committed sin:

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

Clement treats sin with explicit references to the OT, and apparently sees no problems with multiple repentance and forgiveness. It is remarkable that he quotes Jonah and the Ninivites, who were saved although they were not part of the people of Israel:

Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved. Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God.
[...]
The ministers of the grace of God have, by the Holy Spirit, spoken of repentance; and the Lord of all things has himself declared with an oath regarding it, "As I live, says the Lord, I desire not the death of the sinner, but rather his repentance;" adding, moreover, this gracious declaration: "Repent O house of Israel, of your iniquity. Say to the children of My people, Though your sins reach from earth to heaven, and though they be redder than scarlet, and blacker than sackcloth, if you turn to Me with your whole heart, and say, Father! I will listen to you, as to a holy people." (1 Clement, VII.VIII)

The Didache explicitly says that transgressions should be confessed so that the sacrifice of the eucharist be pure - therefore, this confession (and the associated purification deriving from it) can be repeated several times:

But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one who is at odds with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. (Didache, XIV)

Ignatius dealt with sin in several places. He suggests the idea, which obviously will have to be refined very soon, that the man possessing true faith does not sin, nor hate (cf. Eph. XIV); Ignatius' concern for unity ("If any man follows him that makes a schism in the Church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God.", Phil. III) leads him to desire no divisions, but rather agreement with the bishop:

To all them that repent, the Lord grants forgiveness, if they turn in penitence to the unity of God, and to communion with the bishop. (Philadelphians, VIII)

This process of contrition and forgiveness is not as detailed as in Hermas, and it does not seem to cover sins different from schism, which is what interests Ignatius here.

An interesting departure from these subjective patterns of repentence/forgiveness can be found in Polycarp, when he grieves on account of Valens, "who was once a presbyter among you":

I am deeply grieved, therefore, brethren, for him (Valens) and his wife; to whom may the Lord grant true repentance! (Philippians, XI)

It is interesting that here the main actor is explicitly the Lord, the giver of the grace that brings repentance, rather than the man Valens. For what regards multiple repentance, this does not seem a problem for Polycarp, who makes explicit reference to Luke 6:37 in Philippians II ("Judge not, that ye be not judged; forgive, and it shall be forgiven unto you; be merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again").

So, apart from Hermas, we see that in the very early Church multiple repentance was not considered to be a big issue, and direct references to both the OT and the NT seemed to suggest that this was an entirely legitimate interpretation. But things were to change once conflicts between competing churches or ideologies started to emerge.

Hippolytus is extremely clear in saying that repentance and forgiveness have to be "validated" and cannot be exercised privately. For Hippolytus the bad example is Callistus, who allegedly remitted sins to everybody, as long as they joined his own church. We see here very clearly that the concept of "sin" and the practice of "remitting sins" can be very powerful devices. While Hippolytus is clearly outraged by this behavior of Callistus', it has to be said that the alternative would possibly have been to leave outsiders join other cults or sects, so Callistus' choice was definitely a strategic one. What is at stake here is the authority to declare what is orthodox and what is not (we'll see this also very clearly in the disputes on the validity of the rite of baptism performed by the different churches).

But the other allegation that Hippolytus brings against Callistus is also extremely important: Callistus apparently said that

if a bishop was guilty of any sin, if even a sin unto death, he ought not to be deposed. About the time of this man, bishops, priests, and deacons, who had been twice married, and thrice married, began to be allowed to retain their place among the clergy. If also, however, any one who is in holy orders should become married, Callistus permitted such a one to continue in holy orders as if he had not sinned. (Ref. VII)

This touches on the problem of the dignity of the bishopric office. Is it affected by personal sins? We'll see Cyprianus' answer later.

Tertullian, as it happens for several of his ideas, holds different opinions on repentance of post-baptismal sin before and after his conversion to Montanism. Before becoming a Montanist, he allows (although not enthusiastically) for a second repentance; this is the well-known passsage where he introduces the concept of ἐξομολόγησις:

So long, Lord Christ, may the blessing of learning or hearing concerning the discipline of repentance be granted to Thy servants, as is likewise behoves them, while learners, not to sin; in other words, may they thereafter know nothing of repentance, and require nothing of it. It is irksome to append mention of a second----nay, in that case, the last----hope;
[...]
These poisons of [the devil], therefore, God foreseeing, although the gate of forgiveness has been shut and fastened up with the bar of baptism, has permitted it still to stand somewhat open. In the vestibule He has stationed the second repentance for opening to such as knock: but now once for all, because now for the second time; but never more because the last time it had been in vain.
[...]
The narrower, then, the sphere of action of this second and only (remaining) repentance, the more laborious is its probation; in order that it may not be exhibited in the conscience alone, but may likewise be carried out in some (external) act. This act, which is more usually expressed and commonly spoken of under a Greek name, is ἐξομολόγησις, whereby we confess our sins to the Lord, not indeed as if He were ignorant of them, but inasmuch as by confession satisfaction is settled, of confession repentance is born; by repentance God is appeased. And thus exomologesis is a discipline for man's prostration and humiliation, enjoining a demeanor calculated to move mercy. (De Poenitentia, VII.IX)

After Tertullian embraced Montanism, he thought that a second repentance was not possible anymore, consistently with his rigid moral requirements and his concern for the purity of the church. As a matter of fact, sins are divided by Tertullian into two groups:

the faults, which are committed against a brother, are cleansed but not those against God. And accordingly we promise in the paternoster to forgive our debtors. But it is not proper in addition to distort the authority of such pronouncements alternately now here, now there - like pulling on a rope - to their very opposite, so that one page seems to pull the bridle of the doctrine and the next to relax it, while, if they are uncertain, the one seems to destroy even the value of penitence by weakness, the other to deny it completely by austerity. [...] According to this difference of the sins, you must make a difference between the possibilities of mercy. Sometimes you may gain forgiveness, that is to be understood, when your sin may be forgiven; sometimes you cannot under any circumstances gain forgiveness, i. e. of course - when your sin is not to be forgiven. (De Pudicitia, II)

In this last phase of his life, Tertullian labels even the rigid enough Hermas an "apocryphal shepherd of the adulterers":

I should admit you were right, if the tract, called "Pastor", which only stands up for the adulterers, had deserved to be taken up in the Holy Writ, if it were not considered by every congregation, even your own, to be apocryphal and forged, adulterous even itself and for that reason a spokeman for its compeers (De Pudicitia, X)

So, it is understandable why for Tertullian baptism is so important: because it is really the only occasion one has to see his sins forgiven. For this reason he writes:

With no less reason ought the unmarried also to be delayed until they either marry or are firmly established in continence: until then, temptation lies in wait for them, for virgins because they are ripe for it, and for widows because of their wandering about. All who understand what a burden baptism is will have more fear of obtaining it than of its postponement. (De Baptismo, XVIII)

This also explains why he was against infant baptism (about which see also the notes on Baptism in the Early Church).

Origen is less strict than Tertullian on reconciliation: it is always possible to be restored in purity, but with a distinction: mortal guilt can be pardoned an indefinite number of times, while a "mortal crime", like blaspheming the faith, can only be pardoned once. This is apparently to allow lapsed to re-enter the church, while at the same time requiring that this abandoning/returning to the church not be turned into a pattern:

There is always an opening for recovery when, for example, some mortal guilt ["culpa mortalis"] has found us out that does not consist in mortal crime ["crimen mortale"] like blaspheming the faith, but in some vice of speech or habit.... Such guilt can always be repaired, and penance is never denied for sins of this kind. In the case of the graver crimes, only once is there given place for penitence; but these common things, which we frequently incur, always admit of penance, and without intermission they are redeemed. (On Leviticus, XIV)

The concept of "mortal sin" is at this stage still a bit lacking; certainly it included unchastity (cf. Tertullian's views on adultery), homicide and apostasy.

Origen's views on sin, penance and salvation are quite interesting. First of all, salvation is always dependent on one's will:

God the Father of all things, in order to ensure the salvation of all his creatures through the indescribable plan of his Word and wisdom, so arranged each of these, that every spirit, whether soul or rational existence, however called, should not be compelled by force, against the liberty of his own will, to any other course than to which the motives of his own mind led him. (De Princ. II)

But Origen also taught that everybody can (and possibly will) be saved, including Satan himself: from which one could derive that there are really no sins that cannot be forgiven. Obviously this view was not easy to digest (especially when seen in the context of Origen's idea of universal restoration): it just did not fit very well with the concept of the reality of sin, nor it resonated with the power structures that allowed participation to (or excommunication from) the church depending on adherence (or not) to some thought system. So Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, formerly a friend of Origen, and later one who strongly resented the fact that Origen had been ordained a presbyter away from his home church, very clearly said:

Away with Origen! What is to become of virtue, and heaven, and--clerical power, if the fear of eternal punishment is not forever kept before men's eyes as the prop of human and divine authority?

(can't find the direct reference; quoted in Hanson) This shows very well how a doctrine of (post-baptismal) sin can be instrumental to the exercise of authority. No surprise that Butterworth writes "No opinion of Origen's was more vehemently opposed than this one which gave demons and lost men a chance of restoration". Cf. Jerome:

while in word he [i.e. Origen] asserts the resurrection of the flesh, he destroys the force of this language by other assertions. As, for instance, that, after many ages and one "restitution of all things," it will be the same for Gabriel as for the devil, for Paul as for Caiaphas, for virgins as for prostitutes. (Ep. ad Pammachium et Oceanum, VII)

At any rate, it would not be fair to say that Origen discounted sin so as to consider it irrelevant. When considering the treatment to be reserved to lapsed Christians, he wrote that they could be readdmitted into the community, but at certain conditions; and the fact of having lapsed rendered them unsuitable to clerical office:

They [i.e. the Christians] admit them [i.e. the lapsed] [...] provided that they show a real conversion, though their period of probation is longer than that required of those who are joining the community for the first time. But they [i.e. the Christians] do not select those who have fallen after their conversion to Christianity for any office or administration in the Church of God, as it is called. (Contra Celsum, III.51)

Here Origen seems to reflect the common practice of the church, confirmed by Cyprian when he was dealing with the lapsed Spanish bishops (more on this later). Against this practice of readmitting lapsed Christians to the Church was Novatian. It is most interesting that, in his rejection of the lapsed, Novatian also denied validity to baptism itself. As Dionysius of Alexandria writes to Dionysius of Rome,

And besides all this he [i.e. Novatian] rejects the holy baptism, and overturns the faith and confession which precede it. (Eusebius, HE VII.8)

As a matter of fact, Novatian re-baptized all those who came over to him from the Church considering the baptism administered by others as invalid. The idea of true vs. false baptism will be later adopted by the Donatists.

And finally we turn to Cyprian, who was directly concerned with the problem of the lapsed, of re-baptism, and of post-baptismal sin, due to the persecutions started in 250 with Decius. First of all, Cyprian was certainly horrified by the mass aposthasy that took place e.g. in Carthage, and was not at all sympatethic to those who lapsed, although he himself preferred to flee away from Carthage when the persecution broke (which gained him not a lot of support from the roman clergy, who had their own bishop Fabian martyred during the same persecution); actually he wrote a self-defence to explain his behavior:

I have thought it necessary to write this letter to yon, wherein I might give an account to you of my doings, my discipline, and my diligence; for, as the Lord's commands teach, immediately the first burst of the disturbance arose, and the people with violent clamour repeatedly demanded me, I, taking into consideration not so much my own safety as the public peace of the brethren, withdrew for a while, lest, by my over-bold presence, the tumult which had begun might be still further provoked. (Ep. XIV.1)

But in general he appears to have taken a very realistic approach when dealing with the problem of the lapsed. In particular, he explains at length the decisions of the Council of Carthage (251), mentioning "wholesome moderation":

But since in them [i.e. the lapsed] there is that, which, by subsequent repentance, may be strengthened into faith; and by repentance strength is armed to virtue, which could not be armed if one should fall away through despair; if, hardly and cruelly separated from the Church, he should turn himself to Gentile ways and to worldly works, or, if rejected by the Church, he should pass over to heretics and schismatics; where, although he should afterwards be put to death on account of the name, still, being placed outside the Church, and divided from unity and from charity, he could not in his death be crowned. And therefore it was decided, dearest brother, the case of each individual having been examined into, that the receivers of certificates should in the meantime be admitted, that those who had sacrificed should be assisted at death, because there is no confession in the place of the departed, nor can any one be constrained by us to repentance, if the fruit of repentance be taken away. If the battle should come first, strengthened by us, he will be found ready armed for the battle; but if sickness should press hard upon him before the battle, he departs with the consolation of peace and communion. (Ep. LI.17)

Here again we see the strategic value of readmitting lapsed people into the Church, i.e. what I had mentioned before in the case of Callistus, but this time with the clear and explicitly stated intent of not letting lapsed fall to sects (cf. Cyprian's concern for the unity of the Church) or to gentile ways. So Cyprian does allow for repentance, and even aposthasy may be remitted, as it appears from the final part of De Lapsis:

If a man make prayer with his whole heart, if he groan with the true lamentations and tears of repentance, if be incline the Lord to pardon of his sin by righteous and continual works, he who expressed His mercy in these words may pity such men: "When you turn and lament, then shall you be saved, and shall know where you have been." [...] He can show mercy; He can turn back His judgment. He can mercifully pardon the repenting, the labouring, the beseeching sinner. He can regard as effectual whatever, in behalf of such as these, either martyrs have besought or priests have done. Or if any one move Him still more by his own atonement, if he appease His anger, if he appease the wrath of an indignant God by righteous entreaty, He gives arms again whereby the vanquished may be armed; He restores and confirms the strength whereby the refreshed faith may be invigorated. (On the lapsed, XXXVI)

But, as for Origen, readmission does not mean to Cyprian complete restoration, at least not for those who had offices in the Church. The letter of Cyprian to two Spanish churches makes the following two points very clear:

• the designation of bishops must be done in accordance with all the neighboring bishops and at the presence of the people "for whom a prelate is ordained"; these people are essential to the process, because they "know most fully the lives of each, and are thoroughly acquainted with the character of every one from his conversation." Now, this procedure was apparently not followed in the case of two lapsed bishops (Basilides of Leon and Martial of Merida), who were seeking to be restored to the bishopric office by means of an appeal to the bishop of Rome, Stephen (discarding also the fact that other bishops had replaced them already).
  
• the sin of aposthasy (of which Basilides and Martial were guilty), although it can be forgiven, prohibits anyone from entering the clergy, and this is true even for those who once were bishops:

  [it is] evident that men of that mind can neither preside over the Church of Christ, nor ought to offer sacrifices to God: especially since our colleague Cornelius, a peaceable and righteous priest, and by the favour of the Lord honoured also with martyrdom, long since decreed in conjunction with us and with all the bishops consituted throughout the whole world, that such men might indeed be admitted to do penance, but must be kept back from the doors of the clergy and the honour of the priesthood.

A key point here is the establishment of a sort of canon law, agreed by "all the bishops". What the two lapsed bishops were trying to do was to circumvent this law, appealing to another bishop (Stephen). And from the above one could also say that while the sin of aposthasy does not invalidate baptism, it does invalidate priesthood. This obviously is interesting because it shows that the idea of universal priesthood does not apply here (but certainly Cyprian was not the first on this point -- cf. for example Didache XV, 1 Clement XLIV, or Tertullian's De Baptismo XVII). The other big issue is the meaning of priesthood in the context of a theology of the sacraments, which again is in this ante-nicene period not very well defined: for example, we still don't see here traces of the idea that priesthood imprints on the soul "an indelible spiritual mark" - and that, therefore, ordination cannot be repeated nor canceled, and so, that a return to lay state is impossible (as the Council of Trent will explicitly say).

We should also not forget that in the eyes of Cyprian, of all possible sins, Basilides and Martial were guilty of the most pernicious one: schism. In his On the Unity of the Church he wrote:

And this unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the Church, that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a falsehood: let no one corrupt the truth of the faith by perfidious prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole. [...]
Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church. (On the Unity of the Church, V.VI)

Digression: the maxim "he can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother" is quoted by Calvin (who quoted also the even more famous Cyprianism extra ecclesiam nulla salus) in Institutes, 4:1.

The next point that is absolutely essential in the debate on sin is Cyprian's refusal to consider heretical baptism as valid. This does not mean that he wanted to re-baptize heretics: he is just saying that what was administered to heretics was not baptism:

When we were together in council, dearest brethren, we read your letter which you wrote to us concerning those who seem to be baptized by heretics and schismatics, (asking) whether, when the), come to the Catholic Church, which is one, they ought to be baptized. On which matter, although you yourselves hold thereupon the truth and certainty of the Catholic rule, yet since you have thought that of our mutual love we ought to be consulted, we put forward our opinion, not as a new one, but we join with you in equal agreement, in an opinion long since decreed by our predecessors, and observed by us,-judging, namely, and holding it for certain that no one can be baptized abroad outside the Church, since there is one baptism appointed in the holy Church. (Ep. LXIX.1)

For I know not by what presumption some of our colleagues are led to think that they who have been dipped by heretics ought not to be baptized when they come to us, for the reason that they say that there is one baptism which indeed is therefore one, because the Church is one, and there cannot be any baptism out of the Church. For since there cannot be two baptisms, if heretics truly baptize, they themselves have this baptism. (Ep. LXX.1)

This position will be exploited during the Donatist controversy, with the Donatists arguing that sacraments had to be considered invalid because of subjective imperfections on the part of the person administering them. This position can actually be seen as starting from what Cyprian (and Origen) had said with regard to the necessity of a bishop to be immaculate in order to remain a bishop. The clarification will come from Augustine, who will argue that, in a church made of saints and sinners, the sacraments are to be understood as efficacious ex opere operato (i.e. on account of the grace of Christ) rather than ex opere operantis (i.e. on account of personal moral qualitites). The ultimate reason for this is naturally that, in the Augustine world view, it is impossible for fallen beings to distinguish who is pure and impure, worthy and unworthy.

By way of conclusion: controversies over post-baptismal sin, almost not documented in the very early church, seem to be mostly associated to questions of  definition of authority (what is the true catholic church, what are heresies) on the one hand, and to problems of purity on the other.

But vivid doctrinal debates and the lack of a developed theology of the sacraments make it difficult to establish authority itself, as the polemics between Hippolytus and Callistus and between Cyprian and lapsed christians (and notably bishops) prove.

At the same time, the lack of a clear theology of salvation permits positions ranging from those of a Tertullian in his Montanist phase (the quest for absolute purity) to Origen's vision of universal salvation; both these positions were, for opposite reasons, not effective for the consolidation of the same Church their proponents were sincerely believing in, and were thus destined to be rejected: the former because exclusivism could not embrace the masses and ultimately failed to account for human nature; the latter because it undermined the human power structures that hold together the very same concept of orthodoxy.

In the end, a relatively moderate position like that of Cyprian (who anyway very strongly argued for doctrinal unity centered around councils, thus strengthening the position of the Church against scattered movements), later clarified by Augustine to avoid the excesses of the Donatists, prevailed, and the mechanisms to deal with post-baptismal sins had to evolve to include formalized ways toward penance and reconciliation.

---

Categories: Church_History