Daily Archives: October 5, 2009

Cyprian on Baptism

I ran across this excerpt over the weekend in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Mark while looking at Sunday’s Gospel text:

Even to the foulest offenders, when they afterward believe, remiussion of sin is granted. On this premise2 no one is prohibited from Baptism and grace. How much more should an infant be admitted, who, just born, has not sinned in any respect, except that, being born of the flesh of Adam, has in his first birth contracted the contagion of the ancient deadly nature. Would not such a child obtain remission of sins with the less difficulty, because not his own actual guilt, but that of another is so remitted? Our sentence therefore, dearest brother, in the Council was that none by us should be prohibited from baptism and the grace of God, who is merciful and kind to all. (Cyprian, Letters, Epistle 58)

Oh—CG, there should be a way to make the underlined blue items disappear at NewAdvent (linked to above), but it’s a little technical. I believe that a local style sheet would over ride their style sheet at which point you could (in essence) tell it not to display the hyperlinks. I’d have to research how you could do that; perhaps another reader with better css kung fu could comment…