In a previous post, I said I might address the subject in the future. Here are a couple of relevant passages in Augustine:
"For He saw, like an excellent physician of eternal salvation, that overweening pride would be found in some, who, having made such progress in the understanding of the truth and in uprightness of character that they would not hesitate to place themselves, both in life and knowledge, above many that were baptized, would think it was unnecessary for them to be baptized, since they felt that they had attained a frame of mind to which many that were baptized were still only endeavoring to raise themselves." (On Baptism, Against The Donatists 4:22)
"And why must the Lord be baptized? Because many there would be to despise baptism, that they might appear to be endowed with greater grace than they saw other believers endowed with. For example, a catechumen, now living continently, might despise a married person, and say of himself that he was better than the other believer. That catechumen might possibly say in his heart, 'What need have I to receive baptism, to have just what that other man has, than whom I am already better?' Therefore, lest that neck of pride should hurl to destruction certain men much elated with the merits of their own righteousness, the Lord was willing to be baptized by a servant, as if addressing His chief sons: 'Why do you extol yourselves? Why lift yourselves up because you have, one prudence, another learning, another chastity, another the courage of patience? Can you possibly have as much as I who gave you these? And yet I was baptized by a servant, you disdain to be baptized by the Lord.'" (Tractates On John 13:6)
He refers to these individuals as "sons" of the Lord, and he refers to their generally high character. In fact, it's their high character that's cited by them as evidence of a lack of need for baptism. So, not only does Augustine seem to think they're orthodox, but their character development suggests it as well. The most straightforward interpretation of Augustine's comments on their view of baptism seems to be that they didn't practice it. They may have been comparable to a group like the Salvation Army, in the sense that they accepted the validity of baptism in some contexts (e.g., where it's present in the New Testament), but didn't include it as part of their regular practice. If so, they were wrong, but they're still individuals who rejected baptismal regeneration.
It could be argued that Augustine is using highly hyperbolic language, as people often do when describing the views of their opponents (e.g., Catholics accusing Protestants of "hating Mary" when they argue against the Catholic view of her, homosexuals claiming that opponents of their sexuality "hate" them). Underestimating baptism without rejecting it altogether could be (mis)characterized as "disdaining to be baptized by the Lord" and such. So could delaying baptism, even if the individual would eventually be baptized. And maybe their belief that they were already better off than the baptized and didn't have anything to gain from baptism was only meant to be applied in a certain context, without denying that they lacked other things that the baptized had (regeneration, forgiveness of sins, etc.). But we should only conclude that Augustine was using that sort of exaggerated rhetoric if there's evidence to that effect, which I'm not aware of in this context.
However, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Augustine was being highly hyperbolic. Even under that scenario, the individuals Augustine is describing held a view of baptism different than Augustine's and had characteristics of Christian maturity that we'd normally associate with regeneration, which would provide some evidence of regeneration apart from baptism. So, even under the scenario I'm granting for the sake of argument, these individuals provide some evidence against baptismal regeneration. It's a matter of what sort of evidence they provide to that effect, not whether they provide some.
As I explained above, though, it's more likely that they rejected baptismal regeneration. When people are referred to as "despising baptism", thinking they have no need of baptism, and thinking they had obtained such a large degree of Christian maturity without baptism, baptismal regeneration probably isn't something they believed in.
And Augustine thought there were enough of these people to refer to the existence of "many" of them and to address them on multiple occasions, in multiple documents.
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