ON BAPTISM.
difference whether a man be washed in a sea or a pool, a stream or a fount, a lake or a trough; ' nor is there any distinction between those whom John baptized in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber, un- less withal the eunuch whom Philip baptized in the midst of his journeys with chance water, derived (therefrom) more or less of salvation ihayi others.- All waters, therefore, in virtue of the pristine privilege of their ori- gin, do, after invocation of God, attain the sacramental power of sanctification; for the Spirit immediately supervenes from the hea- vens, and rests over the waters, sanctifying them from Himself; and being thus sancti- fied, they imbibe at the same time the power of sanctifying. Albeit the similitude may be admitted to be suitable to the simple act; that, since we are defiled by sins, as it were by dirt, we should be washed from those stains in waters. But as sins do not show themselves in our flesh (inasmuch as no one carries on his skin the spot of idolatry, or fornication, or fraud), so persons of that kind are foul in the spirit, which is the author of the sin; for the spirit is lord, the flesh servant. Yet they each mutually share the guilt: the spirit, on the ground of command; the flesh, of subservience. Therefore, after the waters have been in a manner endued with medicinal virtue ^ through the intervention of the angel,* the spirit is corporeally washed in the waters, and the flesh is in the same spirit- ually cleansed.
CHAP. v. — USE MADE OF WATER BY THE HEATH- EN. TYPE OF THE ANGEL AT THE POOL OF BETHSAIDA.5 '' Well, but the nations, who are strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their idols the imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy." (So they do) but they cheat themselves with waters which are widowed.* For washing is the channel through which they are initiated into some sacred rites — of some notorious Isis or Mith- ras. The gods themselves likewise they hon- our by washings. Moreover, by carrying water around, and sprinkling it, they every- where expiate ' country-seats, houses, tem- ples, and whole cities: at all events, at the Apollinarian and Eleusinian games they are baptized; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is their regeneration and ' Alveo.
* Medicatis.
* See c. vi. ad init., and c. v. ad /in. 5 Bethesda, Eng. Ver.
*i. e.,as Oehler rightly explains, "larking the Holy Spirit's presence and virtue." /Or, " purify."
the remission of the penalties due to their perjuries. Among the ancients, again, who- ever had defiled himself with murder, was wont to go in quest of purifying waters. Therefore, if the mere nature of water, in that it is the appropriate material for washing away, leads men to flatter themselves with a belief in omens of purification, how much more truly will waters render that service through the authority of God, by whom all their nature has been constituted! If men think that water is endued with a medicinal virtue by religion, what religion is more ef- fectual than that of the living God? Which fact being acknowledged, we recognise here also the zeal of the devil rivalling the things of God,^ while we find him, too, practising baptism in his subjects. What similarity is there? The unclean cleanses! the ruiner sets free! the damned absolves! He will, forsooth, destroy his own work, by washing away the sins which himself inspires! These (remarks) have been set down by way of testimony against such as reject the faith; if they put no trust in the things of God, the spurious imitations of which, in the case of God's rival, they do trust in. Are there not other cases too, in which, without any sacrament, unclean spirits brood on waters, in spurious imitation of that brooding 9 of the Divine Spirit in the very beginning? Witness all shady founts, and all unfrequented brooks, and the ponds in the baths, and the conduits '" in private houses, or the cisterns and wells which are said to have the property of "spiriting away,"" through the power, that is, of a hurtful spirit. Men whom waters have drowned '- or af- fected with madness or with fear, they call nymph-caught, '3 or " lymphatic," or " hydro- phobic." Why have we adduced these in- stances? Lest any think it too hard /or belief that a holy angel of God should grant his presence to waters, to temper them to man's salvation; while the evil angel holds frequent profane commerce with the selfsame element to man's ruin. If it seems a novelty for an angel to be present in waters, an example oi what was to come to pass has forerun. An angel, by his intervention, was wont to stir the pool at Bethsaida.'* They who were com- plaining of ill-health used to watch for him; for whoever had been the first to descend into, them, after his washing, ceased to complain.
This figure of corporeal healing sang of a 8 [Diabolus Dei Simius. | 9 Gestationem. 'o Euripi.
" Rapere.
'= Necaverunt.
'3 " Nympholeptos," restored by Oehler, = vf/n^oArjn-Tow?.
■4 So Tertullian reads, and some copies, but not the best, of the New Testament in the place referred to, John v. 1-9. [And note Tertullian's textual testimony as to this Scripture.]
ON BAPTISM.
[CHAK Via.
spiritual healing, according to the rule by which things carnal are always antecedent ' as figurative of- things spiritual. And thus, when the grace of God advanced to higher de- grees among men,- an accession of efficacy was granted to the waters and to the angel. They who^ were wont to remedy bodily de- fects,'' now heal the spirit; they who used to work temporal salvation, ^ now renew eternal; they who did set free but once in the year, now save peoples in a body* daily, death be- ing done away through ablution of sins. The guilt being removed, of course the penalty is removed too. Thus man will be restored for God to His " likeness," who in days by- gone had been conformed \.o " the image " of God; (the " image" is counted (to be) in his form: the "likeness" in his eterfdty-) for he receives again that Spirit of God which he had then first received from His afflatus, but had afterward lost through sin.
CHAP. VI. — THE ANGEL THE FORERUNNER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. MEANING CONTAINED IN THE BAPTISMAL FORMULA.
Not that in '' the waters we obtain the Holy Spirit; but in the water, under (the witness of) the angel, we are cleansed, and prepared for the Holy Spirit. In this case also a type has preceded; for thus was John beforehand the Lord's forerunner, " preparing His ways."* Thus, too, does the angel, the wit- ness' of baptism, "make the paths straight " '° for the Holy Spirit, who is about to come upon us, by the washing away of sins, which faith, sealed in (the name of) the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, ob- tains. For if "in the tnouth <y three witnesses every word shall stand:"" — while, through the benediction, we have the same (three) as witnesses of our faith whom we have as sure- ties '- of our salvation too — how much more does the number of the divine names suffice for the assurance of our hope likewise! More- over, after the pledging both of the attestation of faith and the promise '^ of salvation under " three witnesses," there is added, of neces- sity, mention of the Church;'"* inasmuch as, wherever there are three, (that is, the Father, ■ Compare i Cor. xv. 46.
3 Qui: i. e. probably " angeli qui."
4 Vitia.
5 Or, " health "— salutem. * Conservant populos.
7 Compare c. viii., where Tertullian appears to regard the Holy Spirit as given after the baptized had come up out of the waters Mid received the " unction."
9 Arbiter. [Eccles. v. 6, and Acts xii. 15.]
>' Deut. XIX. 15: Matt, xviii. 16; 2 Cor. xiii. i, '2 Sponsores.
•3 Sponsio.
"4 Compare de Oral. c. ii. sub fin.
the Son, and the Holy Spirit,) there Is the Church, which is a body of three. '* CHAP. VII. — OF THE UNCTION, After this, when we have issued from the font, '* we are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction, — (a practice derived) from the old discipline, wherein on entering the priesthood, 7neti were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn, ever since Aaron was anointed by Moses. '? Whence Aaron is called " Christ," '« from the "chrism," which is " the unction; " which, when made spiritual, furnished an appropriate name to the Lord, because He was "anointed" with the Spirit by God the Father; as written in the Acts: " For truly they were gathered together in this city '^ against Thy Holy Son whom Thou hast anointed." ^ Thus, too, in our case, the unction runs carnally, {i.e. on the body,) but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism itself too is carnal, in that we are plunged in water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from sins.
CHAP. VIII. OF THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS.
TYPES OF THE DELUGE AND THE DOVE.
In the next place the hand is laid on us, invoking and inviting the Holy Spirit through benediction. =' Shall it be granted possible for human ingenuity to summon a spirit into water, and, by the application of hands from above, to animate their union into one body " with another spirit of so clear sound; -^ and shall it not be possible for God, in the case of His own organ, ^"t to produce, by means of " holy hands," ^s a sublime spiritual modula- tion? But this, as well as the former, is de- rived from the old sacramental rite in which Jacob blessed his grandsons, born of Joseph, Ephrem^ and Manasses; with his hands laid on them and interchanged, and indeed so transversely slanted one over the other, that, by delineating Christ, they even portended the future benediction into Christ.^ Then, '5 Compare the de Orat. quoted above, and de Patten, xxi.; and see Matt, xviii. 20.
'6 Lavacro.
'7 See Ex. xxix. 7; Lev. viii. i2;Ps. cxxxiii, 2.
'^i.e. " Anointed. ' Aaron, orat least the priest, is actually so called in the I, XX., in Lev. iv. 5, 16, 6 ifpfv% 6 "^pivro^: as in the Hebrew it is the word whence Messiah is derived which is used.
'9 Civitate.
^ Acts iv. 27. " In this city" (iv rfi jrdAci touttj) is omitted in the Engli.sh version; and the name 'Ijjo'oOi', " Jesus," is omitted by Tertullian. Compare Acts x. 38 and Lev. 'v. 18 with Isa. Ixi. i in the LXX.
2' [See Bunsen, Hippol. Vol. III. Sec xiii. p. 22.]
2'-! Concorporationem.
23 The reference is to certain hydraulic organs, which the cditorj tell us are described by Vitruvius, ix. 9 and x. 13, and Pliny, //. N.
24 I.e. Man. There may be an allusion to Eph. ii. 10, "We are His workmanship," and to Ps. el. 4.
25 Compare i Tim. ii. 8.
=*i.e. Ephraim.
27 In Cliristum.
(HAT ON BAPTISM.
over our cleansed and blessed l)odies willingly descends from the Father that Holiest Spirit. Over the waters of baptism, recognising as it were His primeval seat,' He reposes: (He who) glided down on the Lord "in the shape of a dove," - in order that the nature of the Holy Spirit might be declared by means of the creature (the emblem) of simplicity and innocence, because even in her bodily structure the dove is without literaP gall. And ac- cordingly He says, "Be ye simple as doves."* Even this is not without the sup- porting evidence ^ of a preceding figure. For just as, after the waters of the deluge, by which the old iniquity was purged — after the baptism, so to say, of the world — a dove was the herald which announced to the earth the assuagement* of celestial wrath, when she had been sent her way out of the ark, and had returned with the olive-branch, a sign which even among the nations is the fore-token of peace;'' so by the self-same law^ of heavenly effect, to earth — that is, to our flesh ^ — as it emerges from the font,'° after its old sins, flies the doi^e of the Holy Spirit, bringing us the peace of God, sent out from the heavens, where is the Church, the typified ark." But the world returned unto sin; in which point baptism would ill be compared to the deluge.
And so it is destined to fire; just as the man too is, who after baptism renews his sins:'- so that this also ought to be accepted as a sign for our adm.onition.
CHAP. IX, TYPES OF THE RED SEA, AND THE WATER FROM THE ROCK.
How many, therefore, are the pleas '^ of nature, how many the privileges of grace, how many the solemnities of discipline, the figures, the preparations, the prayers, which have or- dained the sanctity of water? First, indeed, when the people, set unconditionally free,"* escaped the violence of the Egyptian king by crossing over through water, it was water that extinguished '5 the king himself, with his en- tire forces.'* What figure more manifestly 3 Ipso. The ancients held this.
4 Matt. X. 16. Tertullian has rendered diccpaioi (unmixed) by " simplices," i.e. without fold.
7 Paci.
8 Dispositione.
9 See de Orat. iv. ad init. 'o Lavacro.
" Compare de Idol. xxiv. ad fin.
»-[II. Pet. i. 9. Heb. x. 26,27, 29- These awful texts are too little felt by modem Christians. They are too often explained away.]
'4 " Libere expeditus, ' set free, and that without any conditions, such as Pharaoh had from time to time tried to imjKse. See Ex.
'5 " Extinxit," as it doesyfrr.
43 fulfilled in the sacrament of baptism? The nations are set free from the world '' by means of water, to wit: and the devil, their oki tyrant, they leave quite behind, overwhelmeil in the water. Again^ water is restored from its defect of " bitterness " to its native grace of "sweetness" by the tree'* of Moses. That tree was Christ, '« restoring, to wit, of Himself, the veins of sometime envenomed and bitter nature into the all-salutary ivatcrs of baptism. This is the water which flowed continously down for the people from the " accompanying rock; " for if Christ is " the Rock," without doubt we see baptism blest by the water in Christ. How mighty is the grace of water, in the sight of God and His Christ, for the confirmation of baptism! Never is Christ without 7f/«/<?/'.- if, that is, He is Him- self baptized in 7iiater;'^° inaugurates in ^uater the first rudimentary displays of His power, when invited to the nuptials; =' invites the thirsty, when He makes a discourse, to His own sempiternal 7t'<7/'^;v''^appproves,when teaching concerning love, -'^ among works of charity, -*■ the cup of water offered to a poor (child);-' recruits His strength at a well;^ walks over \\\Q water;'^ willingly crosses ^h&sca;'^ min- isters ivater to His disciples.^ Onward even to the passion does the witness of baptism last: while He is being surrendered to the cross, 7vatcr intervenes; witness Pilate's hands: ^" when He is wounded, forth from His side bursts water; witness the soldier's lance!^' CHAP. X. — OF John's baptism.
We have spoken, so far as our moderate ability permitted, of the generals which form the groundwork of the sanctity ^^ of baptism. I will now, equally to the best of my power, proceed to the rest of its character, touching certain minor questions.
The baptism announced by John formed the subject, even at that time, of a question, proposed by the Lord Himself indeed to the Pharisees, whether that baptism were heav- enly, or truly earthly: 33 about which they were unable to give a consistent-* answer, '7 Saeculo.
»9 " The tree of 'Life," " the True Vine," etc. '^i John ii. i-ii.
23 Agape. See de Orat. c. 28, ad fin.
24 Dilectionis. See de Patien. c. xii.
30.Matt, xxvii. 24. Comp. dc Orat. c. xiii.
3' John xix. 34. See c. ■nvm.siib fin.
32 Religionem.
33 Matt. xxi. 25; Mark xi. 30; Luke xx. 4. 34Con.stantcr.
ON BAPTISM.
[chap. XIIinasmuch as they understood not, because they believed not. But uve, with but as poor a. measure of understanding as of faith, are able to determine that that baptism was divitie indeed, (yet in respect of the command, not in respect of efficacy ' too, in that we read that John was sent by the Lord to perform this duty,)'' but human in its nature: for it con- veyed nothing celestial, but it fore-ministered to things celestial; being, to wit, appointed over repenta?ice, which is in man's power. ^ In fact, the doctors of the law and the Phari- sees, who were unwilling to "believe," did not "repent" either.'* But if repentance is a thing human, its baptism must necessarily be of the same nature: else, if it had been celes- tial, it would have given both the Holy Spirit and remission of sins. But none either par- dons sins or freely grants the Spirit save God only.s Even the Lord Himself said that the Spirit would not descend on any other condi- tion, but that He should first ascend to the Father.* What the Lord was not yet con- ferring, of course the servant could not fur- nish. Accordingly, in the Acts of the Apos- tles, we find that men who had "John's baptism" had not received the Holy Spirit, whom they knew not even by hearmg. ^ That, then, was no celestial thing which furnished no celestial (endowments): whereas the very thing which 7vas celestial in John — the Spirit of prophecy — so completely failed, after the transfer of the whole Spirit to the Lord, that he presently sent to inquire whether He whom he had himself preached,^ whom lie had pointed out when coming to him, were ''HE. "5 And so "the baptism of repent- ance "'° v/as dealt with" as if it were a candidate for the remission and sanctification shortly about to follow in Christ: for in that John used to preach " baptism/i^r the remis- sion of sins,"" the declaration was made with reference to 2l future remission; if it be true, (as it is,) that repentance is antecedent, re- mission subsequent; and this is " preparing the way." '3 But he who " prepares " does not himself " perfect," but procures for an- other to perfect. John himself professes that the celestial things are not his, but Christ's, by saying, " He who is from the earth speak- eth concerning the earth; He who comes from > Potestate.
3 It is difficult to see how this statement is to be reconciled with Acts V. 31. fi.e. under the universal illumination, John i. 9.]
y Malt. xi. 2-6; Luke vii. 18-23. 't' Acts xix. 4. " Afiebatur.
[He repeats this view."]
the realms above is above all; " '■* and again, by saying that he " baptized in repentance only, but that One would shortly come who would baptize in the Spirit and fire; " '^ — of course because true and stable faith is bap- tized with water, unto salvation; pretended and weak faith is baptized with Jire, unto judgment.
CHAP. XI. — ANSWER TO THE OBJECTION THAT " THE LORD DID NOT BAPTIZE."
" But behold, " say some, " the Lord came, and baptized not; for we read, ' And yet He used not to baptize, but His disciples! ' " '^ As if, in truth, John had preached that He would baptize with His own hands! Of course, his words are not so to be understood, but as simply spoken after an ordinary man- ner; just as, for instance, we say, " The em- peror set forth an edict," or, "The prefect cudgelled him. " Pray does the emperor in person set forth, or the prefect in person cud- gel? One whose ministers do a thing is always said to do it. ''' So " He will baptize you " will have to be understood as standing for, "Through Him," or "[Into Him," "you will be baptized." But let not (the fact) that "He Himself baptized not" trouble any. For into whom should He baptize? Into re- pentance? Of what use, then, do you make His forerunner? Into remission of sins, which He used to give by a word? Into Himself, whom by humility He was conceal- ing? Into the Holy Spirit, who had not yet descended from the Father? Into the Church, which His apostles had not yet founded? And thus it was with the selfsame "baptism of John " that His disciples used to baptize, as ministers, with which John before had bap- tized as forerunner. Let none think it was with some other, because no other exists, ex- cept that of Christ subsequently; which at that time, of course, could not be given by His disciples, inasmuch as the glory of the Lord had not yet been fully attained,'^ nor the efficacy of the font '' established through the passion and the resurrection; because neither can our death see dissolution except by the Lord's passion, nor our life be restored without His resurrection.
CHAP. XII. — OF THE NECESSITY OF BAPTISM TO SALVATION.
When, however, the prescript is laid down that "without baptism, salvation is attainable '* John iii. 30, 31, briefly quoted. '5 Matt. iii. 11, not quite exactly given. I* John iv. 2.
'7 For instances of this, compare Matt. viii. 5 with Luke vii. 3, 7; and Mark x. 35 with Matt. xx. 20. 'SCf. I Pet. i. II, ad Jin. 19 Lavacri.
:HAr. XIII.]
ON BAPTISM.
)}• none " (chiefly on the ground of that dec- laration of the Lord, who says, " Unless one be born of water, he hath not life"'), there arise immediately scrupulous, nay rather audacious, doubts on the part of some, " how, in acordance with that prescript, salvation is attainable by the apostles, whom — Paul ex- cepted— we do not find baptized in the Lord? Nay, since Paul is the only one of them who has put on the gannetit of Christ's baptism, ^ either the peril of all the others who lack the water of Christ is prejudged, that the pre- script may be maintained, or else the prescript is rescinded if salvation has been ordained even for the unbaptized." I have heard — the Lord is my witness — doubts of that kind: that none may imagine me so abandoned as to ex- cogitate, unprovoked, in the licence of my pen, ideas which would inspire others with scruple. And now, as far as I shall be able, I will reply to them who affirm " that the apostles were unbaptized." For if they had undergone the human baptism of John, and were longing tor that of the Lord, then since the Lord Him- self had defined baptism to be 07ie;'^ (saying to Peter, who was desirous* of being thor- oughly bathed, " He who hath once bathed liath no necessity /^ 7(;'ajr// a second time;"^ which, of course, He would not have said at all to one not baptized;) even here we have a conspicuous * proof against those who, in order to destroy the sacrament of water, de- prive the apostles even of John's baptism. Can it seem credible that " the way of the Lord," that is, the baptism of John, had not then been " prepared " in those persons who were being destined to open the way of the Lord throughout the whole world? The Lord Himself, though no " repentance " was due from Him, was baptized: was baptism not necessary for sinners? As for the fact, then, that " others were not baptized " — they, how- ever, were not companions of Christ, but enemies of the faith, doctors of the law and Pharisees. From which fact is gathered an additional suggestion, that, since the opposers of the Lord refused to be baptized', they who follo7ved the Lord were baptized, and were not like-minded with their own rivals: especially when, if there were any one to whom they clave, the Lord had exalted John above him (by the testimony) saying, " Among them who are born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist." ' ' John iii. 5, not fully given.
< " Volenti," which Oehler notes as a suKgestion of F'r. Junius, Js adopted here in preference to Oehler's " nolenti."
"Exerta. Comp. c. xviii. sub init.: ad Ux. ii. c. i. sub fin. ' Mavt. xi. II, €y^yepTai omitted.
Others make the suggestion (forced enough, clearly) " that the apostles then served the turn of baptism when, in their little ship, they were sprinkled and covered with the waves: that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea."® It is, however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or inter- cepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the dis- cipline of religion. But that little ship did present a figure of the Church, in that she is disquieted "in the sea," that is, in the world,' " by the waves," that is, by persecu- tions and temptations; the Lord, through patience, sleeping as it were, until, reused in their last extremities by the prayers of the saints. He checks the world, '° and restores tranquillity to His own.
Now, whether they were baptized in any manner whatever, or whether they continued unbathed " to the end — so that even that say- ing of the Lord touching the " one bath " '- does, under the person of Peter, merely re- gard 7is — still, to determine concerning the salvation of the apostles is audacious enough, because on them the prerogative even of first choice,'^ and thereafter of undivided intimacy, might be able to confer the compendious grace of baptism, seeing they (I think) fol- lowed Him who was wont to promise salvation to every believer. " Thy faith," He would say, "hath saved thee;"'* and, "Thy sins shall be remitted thee,"'^ on thy believing, of course, albeit thou be not ^i?/" baptized. If that '* was wanting to the apostles, I know not in the faith of what things it was, that, roused by one word of the Lord, otie left the toll- booth behind for ever;'^ another deserted father and ship, and the craft by which he gained his living;'® a third, who disdained his father's obsequies, '^ fulfilled, before he heard it, that highest precept of the Lord, " He who prefers father or mother to me, is not worthy of me."=° CHAP. XIII. ANOTHER OBJECTION: ABRAHAM PLEASED GOD WITHOUT BEING BAPTIZED. ANSWER THERETO. OLD THINGS MUST GIVE PLACE TO NEW, AND BAPTISM IS NOW A LAW.