Baptism outside the Church is void
Doctrine · On the Church · from c. 255
A baptism administered outside the communion of the Church confers nothing, and one who comes over must be baptized.
Cyprian's position in the rebaptism controversy with Stephen of Rome, held afterwards by the Donatists and by parts of the East. Nicaea receives some bodies without rebaptism and others only with it, which is the compromise the question settled into.
Held it
- 255 — Cyprian (Holds). Holds with the African councils that there is no baptism outside the Church, and that converts must be baptized. New Advent (Fathers and Catholic Encyclopedia) · Cyprian, Epistle 72, to Jubaianus
Refused it
- 325 — The First Council of Nicaea (Rejects). Receives the Novatianists by laying on of hands and not by baptism. The Seven Ecumenical Councils (NPNF series 2 vol. 14) · Nicaea I (325), canon 8
In the disputes
- The Donatist schism Whether a church whose bishops had handed over the scriptures under persecution was still the church, and whether the sacraments of an unworthy minister are anything at all.
- The rebaptism controversy Cyprian of Carthage and Stephen of Rome disagreed, sharply, about whether a baptism given outside the church's communion is a baptism at all.
First stated in this form after The Seven Ecumenical Councils (NPNF series 2 vol. 14) · Nicaea I (325), canon 19.