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In order, however, to complete our exposition of the ecclesiology of Saint Augustine of Hippo, with regard to its principles, we must relate the following very interesting points. As we have said, in his work De Baptismo contra Donatistas libri septem, Saint Augustine simultaneously rejected both the Donatists and Saint Cyprian of Carthage. The Donatists maintained that a Baptism is invalid if the Priest who performed it had committed a mortal sin; Saint Cyprian taught that Baptism is invalid only if the Priest is cut off from the Church. To these positions of the Donatists and of Saint Cyprian, Saint Augustine responded that the validity of Baptism does not depend on either the holiness of the Priest or on his unity with the Church; thus a Baptism can be lawfully accomplished just as much by âunrighteous and impious personsâ [115] and a murderer as by a âheretic or schismatic.â [116]
Thus, Saint Augustine placed dogma and morality on the same level (a move with significant consequences for Western Christianity); that is, he equated, with regard to their relationship to the Church, heretics and Her sinful members. Among those who have the Holy Mysteries, but without Divine Grace and to no avail, are included not only heretics and schismatics, but also all of the members of the Church who live contrary to the commandments of Christ. [117] In this way, Saint Augustine arrived at the complete relativization of the boundaries of the Church, as we see from the following statement of his: âFor in that unspeakable foreknowledge of God, many who seem to be without are in reality within, and many who seem to be within yet really are without.â [118] Whether someone is inside or outside of the Church thus depends on the condition of his heart. [119]
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This ecclesiology, expressed in such a novel way, clearly constituted a great rupture with the theological thinking both of the Latin Fathers and of the Greek Fathers of the Church, and indisputably forms part of the basis of todayâs Ecumenical Movement. Tragically for the further development of Western Christianity, subsequent generations of Latin theologians did not heed the exhortation that Saint Augustine of Hippo addressed to the readers of his works: âHold fast whatever truth you have been able to grasp, and attribute it to the Catholic Church. Reject what is false and pardon me who am but a man.â [120]
Thus, instead of being assessed in accordance with the words of Saint Vincent of LĂ©rins (â ca. 450), âwhat has been believed everywhere, always, and by all,â [121] the theology of Saint Augustine was established, especially by Scholasticism, as virtually the sole source and criterion for the formulation and development of Western theology. Later, in the Middle Ages, Western theology, following in the footsteps of Saint Augustine, departed yet further from the consensus Patrum. At the Council of Trent (1546â1563), Papism fell to the extreme point of anathematizing the pre-Augustinian ecclesiology expressed by Saint Cyprian of Carthage and other venerable Fathers, and sanctioned by Local Synods and the Quinisext Holy OEcumenical Synod:
If anyone says that the baptism which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, with the intention of doing what the Church does, is not true baptism: let him be anathema. [122]