for his own decision to rebaptize all heretics who returned to the Church. At the end of the summer of 256, he sent the deacon Rogatian to Firmilian with a letter, together with the documents on the subject—letters of the pope, of his own, and of his council at Carthage in the spring, and the treatise De Ecclesia Catholica Unitate. In a letter to Pope Sixtus II (257–58), Dionysius mentions that in the controversy over rebaptism of the lapsed, Pope Stephen had refused communication with Helenus of Tarsus, Firmilian, and all Cilicia and Cappadocia, and the neighbouring lands (Eusebius, VII, v, 3–4), a subject touched on in the sole surviving letter of Firmilian, a response to Cyprian. On baptism Firmilian's reply was received at Carthage about the middle of November. It is a long letter, even more bitter and violent than the letter of Cyprian to Pompeius. It has come down to us in a translation made, no doubt, under Cyprian's direction, and apparently very literal, as it abounds in Greek expressions. In the letter, Cyprian's arguments against Pope Stephen are reiterated and reinforced. Firmilian says: "We have received your writings as our own, and have committed them to memory by repeated reading" (c. iv). Firmilian's reasoning against the validity of heretical baptism is mainly that of Cyprian, that those who are outside the Church and have not the Holy Spirit cannot admit others to the Church or give what they do not possess: "Very many of us meeting together in Iconium very carefully examined the matter, and we decided that every baptism was altogether to be rejected which is arranged for without the Church." Regarding Pope Stephen The argument of Firmilian's letter is written with a bit more vehemence and acerbity than becomes a bishop, chiefly for the reason, as may be suspected, that Stephen had also written to Firmilianus, Helenus, and other bishops of those parts. The dispute was similar to that which developed over Novatianism, that is, under what circumstances are those who left the faith to be re-admitted to communion. According to Alban Butler, the practice of the Church was to regard any baptism given in the evangelical words, that is, in the name of the three persons of the Holy Trinity, as valid and not dependent upon the moral character of the person administering it. While both faith and the state of grace are required