On Baptism
Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists
Augustine, bishop of Hippo
Seven books on whether a bad man can hand you a good thing. He can, and that is the whole comfort of it.
- Catch rate
- 65 / 255
- Base research
- 148
- Stat total
- 246
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Seven books on one question, and the answer held: the church has never gone back to asking whether the minister was worthy enough.
Whenever the church argues about baptism — and it has never really stopped — this is the book both sides go and read. It speaks early as often as not.
Cited for this book
The Donatists were not being petty and Augustine never pretends they were. Their bishops had watched neighbours die rather than hand over the Scriptures, and then watched men who HAD handed them over go straight back to ordaining. He grants the outrage and denies the conclusion, and the reason is not procedural: if a baptism were only as good as the hands that gave it, nobody could ever be certain of their own.
Moves learned
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | It Rests on Christ | Ecclesiology | Argument | 72 | 100% | 10 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 9 | Turn the Charge | Ethics | Argument | 60 | 100% | 15 |
| 16 | The Universal Church | Ecclesiology | Type shift | — | — | 10 |
| 22 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 26 | Steelman | Rationality | Type shift | — | — | 10 |
| 30 | Rule of Faith | Christology | Argument | 55 | 100% | 15 |
| 38 | One Chair | Ecclesiology | Argument | 72 | 100% | 10 |
Read it: Valid, and Not Yet Profitable
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.
“…the baptism of the Church may exist outside, but the gift of the life of happiness is found alone within the Church…”
Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists 4.1 (trans. King, NPNF¹ 4, public domain).
“…by reconciliation to unity, that begins to be profitably possessed which was possessed to no profit in exclusion from unity…”
Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists 1.10 (trans. King, NPNF¹ 4, public domain).
“…his error was compensated by his remaining in catholic unity, and by the abundance of his charity; and finally it was cleared away by the pruning-hook of martyrdom.”
Augustine on Cyprian, On Baptism, Against the Donatists 1.28 (trans. King, NPNF¹ 4, public domain).
Seven books against the Donatists, written around the year 400, and the argument that settled how the West would think about sacraments for the next thousand years.
The distinction is the whole book, and it is two words: valid, and profitable. A schismatic’s baptism is real. It does him no good at all until he comes back.
Augustine’s difficulty is that the Donatists were quoting Cyprian at him, and quoting him correctly. Cyprian rebaptised, and Cyprian is not a man Augustine wants to lose.
So look at what he does with him. Not “Cyprian agreed with me really.” Cyprian was wrong, and stayed, and loved his opponents, and died — and the pruning-hook took the error off.