{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p><span class=\"smcap\">Chap. xii.</span>—18. But he urges that \"we find that the\r\napostles, in all their epistles, execrated and abhorred the sacrilegious\r\nwickedness of heretics, so as to say that 'their word\r\ndoes spread as a canker.'\"<a id=\"FNanchor_244_244\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_244_244\">[244]</a> What then? Does not Paul also\r\nshow that those who said, \"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow\r\nwe die,\" were corrupters of good manners by their evil communications,\r\nadding immediately afterwards, \"Evil communications\r\ncorrupt good manners;\" and yet he intimated that\r\nthese were within the Church when he says, \"How say some\r\namong you that there is no resurrection of the dead?\"<a id=\"FNanchor_245_245\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_245_245\">[245]</a> But\r\nwhen does he fail to express his abhorrence of the covetous?\r\nOr could anything be said in stronger terms, than that\r\ncovetousness should be called idolatry, as the same apostle<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_97\">[Pg 97]</a></span>\r\ndeclared?<a id=\"FNanchor_246_246\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_246_246\">[246]</a> Nor did Cyprian understand his language otherwise,\r\ninserting it when need required in his letters; though\r\nhe confesses that in his time there were in the Church not\r\ncovetous men of an ordinary type, but robbers and usurers,\r\nand these found not among the masses, but among the bishops.\r\nAnd yet I should be willing to understand that those of whom\r\nthe apostle says, \"Their word does spread as a canker,\" were\r\nwithout the Church, but Cyprian himself will not allow me.\r\nFor, when showing, in his letter to Antonianus, that no man\r\nought to sever himself from the unity of the Church before\r\nthe time of the final separation of the just and unjust, merely\r\nbecause of the admixture of evil men in the Church, when\r\nhe makes it manifest how holy he was, and deserving of the\r\nillustrious martyrdom which he won, he says, \"What swelling\r\nof arrogance it is, what forgetfulness of humility and gentleness,\r\nthat any one should dare or believe that he can do what\r\nthe Lord did not grant even to the apostles,—to think that\r\nhe can distinguish the tares from the wheat, or, as if it were\r\ngranted to him to carry the fan and purge the floor, to endeavour\r\nto separate the chaff from the grain! And whereas the\r\napostle says, 'But in a great house there are not only vessels\r\nof gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth,'<a id=\"FNanchor_247_247\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_247_247\">[247]</a> that\r\nhe should seem to choose those of gold and of silver, and to\r\ndespise and cast away and condemn those of wood and of\r\nearth, when really the vessels of wood are only to be burned\r\nin the day of the Lord by the burning of the divine conflagration,\r\nand those of earth are to be broken by Him to\r\nwhom the 'rod of iron'<a id=\"FNanchor_248_248\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_248_248\">[248]</a> has been given.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_249_249\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_249_249\">[249]</a> By this argument,\r\ntherefore, against those who, under the pretext of\r\navoiding the society of wicked men, had severed themselves\r\nfrom the unity of the Church, Cyprian shows that by the\r\ngreat house of which the apostle spoke, in which there were\r\nnot only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and\r\nof earth, he understood nothing else but the Church, in which\r\nthere should be good and bad, till at the last day it should\r\nbe cleansed as a threshing-floor by the winnowing-fan. And\r\nif this be so, in the Church herself, that is, in the great house\r\nitself, there were vessels to dishonour, whose word did spread<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_98\">[Pg 98]</a></span>\r\nlike a canker. For the apostle, speaking of them, taught as\r\nfollows: \"And their word,\" he says, \"will eat as doth a\r\ncanker; of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus; who concerning\r\nthe truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past\r\nalready; and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the\r\nfoundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord\r\nknoweth them that are His. And, Let every one that nameth\r\nthe name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great\r\nhouse there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but\r\nalso of wood and of earth.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_250_250\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_250_250\">[250]</a> If, therefore, they whose word\r\ndid eat as doth a canker were as it were vessels to dishonour\r\nin the great house, and by that \"great house\" Cyprian understands\r\nthe unity of the Church itself, surely it cannot be that\r\ntheir canker polluted the baptism of Christ. Accordingly,\r\nneither without, any more than within, can any one who is\r\nof the devil's party, either in himself or in any other person,\r\nstain the sacrament which is of Christ. It is not, therefore,\r\nthe case that \"the word which eats as a canker to the ears\r\nof those who hear it gives remission of sins;\"<a id=\"FNanchor_251_251\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_251_251\">[251]</a> but when\r\nbaptism is given in the words of the gospel, however great be\r\nthe perverseness of understanding on the part either of him\r\nthrough whom, or of him to whom it is given, the sacrament\r\nitself is holy in itself on account of Him whose sacrament it\r\nis. And if any one, receiving it at the hands of a misguided\r\nman, yet does not receive the perversity of the minister, but\r\nonly the holiness of the mystery, being closely bound to the\r\nunity of the Church in good faith and hope and charity, he\r\nreceives remission of his sins,—not by the words which do\r\neat as doth a canker, but by the sacraments of the gospel\r\nflowing from a heavenly source. But if the recipient himself\r\nbe misguided, on the one hand, what is given is of no avail\r\nfor the salvation of the misguided man; and yet, on the other\r\nhand, that which is received remains holy in the recipient,\r\nand is not renewed to him if he be brought to the right way.</p>","headings":["WRITINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY.","BOOK FOURTH."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45843-paragraph-143"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"90291c5d25ba98719f577c779c5e731808dc75421ba0bb9e24f8c3d302178182","edition_title":"Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy","edition_translators":["John Richard King"],"edition_year":1872,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"2TI","chapter":2,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"2 Tim. ii. 17-20","verse":17,"verse_end":20}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45843-Footnote_250_250","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Title leaves identify J. R. King, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1872; catalog identifies translator John Richard King (1835-1907). Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/American Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_250_250","source_ebook":45843,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_250_250\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_250_250\"><span class=\"label\">[250]</span></a> 2 Tim. ii. 17-20.</p></div>","source_sha256":"a7a04003f4d3c49eb73db6c5936713979fcecadd86884373a9914ac54373ac5b","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45843/pg45843-images.html#Footnote_250_250","text_sha256":"f830c4de685d0075c5cc2699870ae14842d8b8dc68f8f9c8d486ff2f996c36f3","verified":false,"work_id":null}