Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
It remains, to round off this little topic, to remind you also about the proper order for giving and receiving baptism. As for giving it, the highest right belongs to the high priest — if there is a bishop present; after him, the presbyters and deacons, though not without the bishop's authorization, out of respect for the church, on whose safety the safety of peace itself depends. Otherwise, laymen too possess this right — for whatever is received on an equal footing can likewise be given on an equal footing — unless already bishops, or presbyters, or deacons, are to be called 'the Lord's disciples' as though no one else were; that is, just as the word ought not to be hidden away from anyone, so too baptism, which is equally God's property, can be administered by everyone. But how much more does discretion and modesty become laymen, when this is a thing that belongs properly to their betters, so that they do not seize for themselves an office reserved for the bishop! Rivalry over the episcopate is the mother of schisms. "All things are lawful," said the most holy apostle, "but not all things are expedient." Let it suffice, in cases of necessity, to make use of it, wherever the condition of place or time or person compels it; for then the boldness of the one coming to the rescue is excused, when the circumstance of the one in danger presses hard upon him — since he will be guilty of the ruin of a man if he holds back from supplying what he was free to give. But the impudence of the woman who has arrogated to herself the right to teach will certainly not also snatch for herself the right to baptize — unless some new beast turns up resembling the old one, so that, just as that first one abolished baptism, some other might likewise confer it on her own authority. But if certain people defend, by appeal to those falsely written 'Acts of Paul,' the example of Thecla as license for women to teach and to baptize, be it known that the presbyter in Asia responsible for compiling that writing, heaping it up out of his own zeal under cover of Paul's name, stood convicted of the fact, and on his own confession that he had done it out of love for Paul, was removed from his position. For how could it seem anywhere near credible that the very man who did not even consistently permit a woman to learn should have given her the power to teach and to baptize? "Let them be silent," he says, "and consult their own husbands at home."