Cyprian of Carthage said: The letter which was written to our colleague Jubaianus very fully expresses my opinion, that, according to evangelical and apostolic testimony, heretics, who are called adversaries of Christ and Antichrists, when they come to the Church, must be baptized with the one baptism of the Church, that they may be made of adversaries, friends, and of Antichrists, Christians.
Wherefore my sentence is, that we do not trouble those who from among the Gentiles turn unto God: but to charge them that they abstain from the pollutions of the Gentiles, and from what is sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; which laws were given to the ancients who lived before the law, under the law of nature, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Job, and if there be any other of the same sort."
This James was bishop, as they say, and therefore he speaks last, and herein is fulfilled that saying, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." But observe the discretion shown by him also, in making his argument good from the prophets, both new and old. For he had no acts of his own to declare, as Peter had and Paul. And indeed it is wisely ordered that this active part is assigned to those, as not intended to be locally fixed in Jerusalem, whereas James here, who performs the part of teacher, is no way responsible for what has been done, while however he is not divided from them in opinion. "Men and brethren," he says, "hearken unto me." Great is the moderation of the man. His also is a more complete oration, as indeed it puts the completion to the matter under discussion. "Symeon," he says, "declared:" namely, in Luke, in that he prophesied, "Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all nations, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel." "How God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His Name." Then, since that witness, though from the time indeed he was manifest, yet had not authority by reason of his not being ancient, therefore he produces ancient prophecy also.
[AD 258] Cyprian on Acts 15:13