The Sentences of the Eighty-Seven Bishops

​Crescens of Cirta said: “Since our dearest Cyprian’s letters to Iubaianus and also to Stephen having been read in such a great assembly of most holy fellow priests—which letters contain in themselves so many of most holy testimonies descending from the divine scriptures that we all, united by the grace of God, ought deservedly to agree—I decree therefore that all heretics and schismatics who wish to come to the catholic church should not enter before they have first been exorcised and baptized; excepting indeed those who have been baptized before in the [catholic] church; let them, however, be reconciled to the church through the imposition of hands in repentance.”

​Nicomedes of Segermes said: “My opinion is this, that heretics coming to the church should be baptized, because they will obtain no remission of sins outside among sinners.”

​Monnulus of Girba said: “The truth of our mother, the [catholic] church, brethren, has [always] remained and remains among us, because in baptism there is the Trinity, as our Lord said: ‘Go and baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Since therefore we know manifestly that heretics have neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit, they ought, when coming to our mother the church, to come, to be born again and to be baptized, so that the cancer which they had, and the wrath of condemnation, and the harmful effect of error, may be sanctified through the holy and heavenly washing.”

​Secundinus of Cedias said: “Since our Lord Christ says: ‘He who is not with me is against me,’ and John the apostle says that those who go out from the church are antichrists, without doubt the enemies of Christ and those who have been named antichrists cannot administer the grace of saving baptism. And therefore I decree that those who flee from the snares of heretics to the church must be baptized by us, who by His condescension have been called friends of God.”

​Felix of Bagai said: “As a blind man leading a blind man will fall into a ditch, so a heretic baptizing a heretic will fall together into death. And therefore a heretic must be baptized and made alive, lest we who are alive should communicate with the dead.”

​Polianus of Mileum said: “It is right that a heretic be baptized in the holy church.”

​Theogenes of Hippo Regius said: “According to the sacrament of God’s heavenly grace which we have received, we believe in one baptism which is in the holy church.”

​Dativus of Vada said: “As for us, as far as lies in our power, we do not communicate with a heretic, unless he has been baptized in the church and has received the remission of sins.”

​Successus of Abbir Germaniciana said: “To heretics either nothing is lawful or everything is lawful. If they can baptize, they can also give the Holy Spirit; but if they cannot give the Holy Spirit, because they do not have the Holy Spirit, neither can they baptize spiritually. Therefore we decree that heretics must be baptized.”

​Fortunatus of Thuccabori said: “Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the Son of God the Father and Creator, built the church upon Peter, not upon heresy, and gave the power of baptizing to bishops, not to heretics. Wherefore those who are outside the church and, standing against Christ, scatter His sheep and flock, cannot baptize outside.”

​Sedatus of Thuburbo said: “In so far as water, sanctified by the priest’s prayer in the church, washes away sins, so far does it, infected by heretical discourse like a cancer, accumulate sins. Wherefore we must indeed strive with all peaceable forces lest anyone, infected and dipped in heretical error, should refuse to receive the unique and true baptism of the church, without which whoever has not been baptized will become a stranger to the kingdom of heaven.”