Sermon 293A (Dolbeau 3 = Mainz 7)
14. I answer: You think John is being insulted, seeing that people were baptized after his baptism, if they aren't baptized after the baptism of heretics. I too grieve over the serious insult; but this is how I throw the ball back to you: „If they were baptized after John's baptism, shouldn't they also be baptized after the baptism of Optatus?” What do you say to me about that? Who was John?
"Among those born of women, none will arise greater than John the Baptist.”
With you there is some presbyter who is at any rate a drunkard – I won't say a usurer, I won't say an adulterer – for the time being we stick to what is common enough and what is public knowledge; there is at least some priest or other with you who is a drunkard.
"Granted.”
Why don't you rebaptize after him? If you baptize after John, who didn't drink wine, shouldn't you baptize after a drunkard? At this point, certainly, he's confused and has nothing to say. So what next? Listen to the answer from me.
15. Yes, Paul gives orders for those to be baptized who had John's baptism and didn't have Christ's. After a drunkard, though why don't you baptize? Because the baptism he gave is none other than Christ's. Let a sober man give it, let a drunkard give it, it's Christ's; it doesn't belong either to the sober man or to the drunkard. Peter gave this baptism, it's Christ's; Judas gave it, it's Christ's. […]
(trans. E. Hill, slighlty altered)