Answer to Letters of Petilian, Bishop of Cirta

⁴ Petilianus said: "Those who have polluted their souls with a guilty laver, under the name of baptism, reproach us with baptizing twice—than whose obscenity, indeed, any kind of filth is more cleanly, seeing that through a perversion of cleanliness they have come to be made fouler by their washing."

5. Augustine answered: We are neither made fouler by our washing, nor cleaner by yours. But when the water of baptism is given to any one in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, it is neither ours nor yours, but His of whom it was said to John, "Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizes with the Holy Ghost."