260 The Faith of Our Fathers The Bishops unanimously subscribe to the following reply: "As to what regards the baptism of infants, ... we all judged that the mercy and grace of God should be denied to no human being from the moment of his birth. If even to the greatest delinquents the remission of sins is granted, how much less should the infant be repelled, who, being recently born according to Adam, has contracted at his first birth the contagion of the ancient death."343 The African Council asserts here two prominent facts — the universal contagion of the human race through Adam's fall, and the universal necessity of Baptism without distinction of age. Upon this decision, I will make two observations: First — Fidus did not inquire about the necessity of infant baptism, which he already admitted, but about the propriety of conferring it on the eighth day, in imitation of the Jewish law of circumcision. Second — The Bishops assembled in that Council were as numerous as the whole Episcopate of the United States, which contains about five thousand Priests and upwards of six millions [271] of Catholics. We may therefore reasonably conclude that the judgment of the African Council represented the faith of several thousand Priests and several millions of Catholics. St. Augustine, commenting on this decision, justly observes that St. Cyprian and his colleagues made no new decree, but maintained most firmly the faith of the Church. And this is the unanimous sentiment of tradition from the days of the Apostles to our own times. Is it not ludicrous as well as impious to see a few German fanatics, in the sixteenth century, raising their feeble voice against the thunder tones of all Christendom, by decrying a practice which was universally held as sacred and essential? In judging between the teachings of Apostolical antiquity on the one hand and of the Anabaptists on the other, it is not hard to determine on which side lies the truth; for, what becomes of the 343 Epis. ad Fidum.