Canon CX. (Greek
cxii.
bis
)
That infants are baptized for the remission of sins.
Likewise
it seemed good that
whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother’s wombs
should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but
that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed
by the laver of
regeneration, from
whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the
remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him
be anathema.
For no otherwise can be understood what the Apostle
says, “By one man sin is come into the world, and death through
sin, and so death passed upon all men in that all have sinned,”
than the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always understood
it. For on account of this rule of faith (
regulam fidei
)
even infants, who could have committed as yet no sin themselves,
therefore are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that
what in them is the result of generation may be cleansed by
regeneration.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon CX.
Whoso affirms that those newly born and baptized
contract nothing from Adam’s transgression, which needs to be
washed away by baptism, is to be execrated: for through one both
death and sin invaded the whole world.
This is Canon ij. of Carthage,
a.d.
418 [Greek Canon 112].
Johnson.
See Can. 63, 104, both which are double, as this
likewise is in the old Greek scholiasts.
[Also it seemed good, that if anyone should say that the
saying of the Lord, “In my Father’s house are many
mansions” is to be understood as meaning that in the kingdom of
heaven there will be a certain middle place, or some place somewhere,
in which infants live in happiness who have gone forth from this life
without baptism, without which they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven,
which is eternal life, let him be anathema. For after our Lord
has said: “Except a man be born again of water and of the
Holy Spirit he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven,” what
Catholic can doubt that he who has not merited to be coheir with Christ
shall become a sharer with the devil: for he who fails of the
right hand without doubt shall receive the left hand portion.]
Notes.
The foregoing, says Surius, is found in this place in a
very ancient codex. It does not occur in the Greek, nor in
Dionysius. Bruns relegates it to a foot-note.