Note 192 — Chapter II
Neil Buchanan translation
Footnote 192:
(return)
Neither Optatus nor Augustine take Cyprian's theory as the starting-point of their disquisitions, but they adhere in principle to the distinction between heretic and schismatic. Cyprian was compelled by his special circumstances to identify them, but he united this identification with the greatest liberality of view as to the conditions of ecclesiastical unity (as regards individual bishops). Cyprian did not make a single new article an "articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiæ." In fact he ultimately declared—and this may have cost him struggle enough—that even the question of the validity of heretical baptism was not a question of faith.