De Baptismo

Happy is the sacrament of our water, in that, our sins of former blindness being washed away, we are set free into eternal life! This treatise will not be idle, instructing both those who are just now being formed, and those too who, content to have simply believed, carry an untested though probable faith, through inexperience, without having examined the grounds of the traditions. And indeed, lately a viper of the Cainite heresy, sojourning here, swept away a great many with her most venomous doctrine, destroying baptism first of all. Plainly according to nature. For vipers and asps, and the basilisks themselves among serpents, frequent dry and waterless places. But we little fishes, after the example of our IXTHYS, Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor are we saved otherwise than by remaining in the water. And so that most monstrous creature, who had no right even to teach properly, knew very well how to kill little fishes by taking them away from the water.

But how great is the power of perversity for shaking faith, or for refusing to receive it altogether, that it should assail faith from those very things on which it is established! Nothing so hardens the minds of men as the simplicity of the divine works which is seen in the act, and the magnificence which is promised in the effect: so that here too, because with so great a simplicity, without pomp, without any new apparatus, and finally without expense, a man is let down into the water and washed amid a few words, and rises again not much, or nothing, the cleaner, the attainment of eternity is on that account thought incredible. I lie, if it is not on the contrary the case that the solemnities and mysteries of idols build up faith and authority for themselves out of pageantry and apparatus and expense. O wretched unbelief, which deniest to God his own properties, simplicity and power! What then? Is it not a thing to be wondered at, that death should be washed away by a bath? But on that very account it is the more to be believed, if, because it is a thing to be wondered at, it is therefore not believed. For of what sort ought the works of God to be, except beyond all admiration? We ourselves too wonder, but because we believe. Unbelief, on the other hand, wonders, but does not believe. For it wonders at the simple things as though they were vain, at the magnificent as though they were impossible. And granting it be plainly as you suppose, the divine pronouncement has run ahead sufficiently for both cases. God has chosen the foolish things of the world, that he may confound its wisdom; and the things most difficult among men are easy with God. For if God is both wise and powerful — which even those who pass him by do not deny — he has with reason set up the materials of his working in the adversaries of wisdom and power, that is, in foolishness and impossibility; since all virtue takes its occasion from those things by which it is challenged.

Mindful of this pronouncement as of a prescription, let us nonetheless treat of how foolish and impossible a thing it is to be reformed by water. What, after all, has this material deserved, to discharge an office of so great a dignity? The authority of the liquid element, I suppose, must be demanded. But of this there is abundant proof, and indeed from the very beginning. For it is one of those things which, before all the framing of the world, were resting with God in a state as yet unwrought. In the beginning, he says, God made heaven and earth. And the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of the Lord was borne over the waters. You have, O man, first of all to venerate the age of the waters, in that they are an ancient substance; then their dignity, in that they were the seat of the divine Spirit, more pleasing to him, doubtless, than the other elements that then were. For the darkness was as yet wholly formless, without the adornment of the stars; and the abyss was gloomy; and the earth unfurnished; and the heaven rude; the liquid alone, always a perfect material, glad, simple, pure of itself, was furnishing a worthy vehicle for God. What of the fact that thereafter the disposition of the world stood for God by means, as it were, of waters that gave the measure? For that he might hang the firmament of heaven in the midst, he made it by dividing the waters; that he might suspend the dry land, he disposed it by separating the waters. Then, the world having been ordered through its elements, when inhabitants were to be given it, it was the waters that were first commanded to bring forth living things. The first liquid produced what should live, that it be no wonder in baptism if waters know how to give life. For was not the very work of forming man himself accomplished with the help of the waters? Material suitable to it is found from the earth, yet it is not fit unless moist and sodden — which the waters, separated before the fourth day into their own station, temper into mud with the surviving moisture. If from this point I should go on to pursue all, or many, the things I might recall concerning the authority of this element, how great its power or its grace, how many its devices, how many its offices, how great an instrument it brings to the world, I fear I might seem to have gathered together the praises of water rather than the rationale of baptism — though by that I would teach the more fully that it is not to be doubted that God has made the material which he has disposed in all his things and works to obey also in his own sacraments, that the very thing which governs earthly life should provide also for the heavenly.

But it will be enough to have culled beforehand those points in which is recognized that first rationale of baptism — which even then was prefigured, by the very posture, toward the figure of baptism: namely, that the Spirit of God, which from the beginning was borne over them, was to abide over the waters of the baptized. But surely the Holy was borne over a holy thing; or the thing that bore borrowed sanctity from that which was borne over it; since every subject material must needs seize the quality of that which hangs over it from above — especially the corporeal seizing the spiritual, which through the subtlety of its substance easily penetrates and settles. Thus the nature of the waters, sanctified by the Holy, itself conceived the power to sanctify. Let no one say: Is it then in the very waters that we are baptized, which were in the beginning? Not in the very ones, except in so far as the genus indeed is one, but the species are many. And what is attributed to the genus overflows into the species too. And therefore there is no distinction whether one be washed in the sea or in a pool, in a river or a spring, in a lake or a channel; nor is there any difference between those whom John baptized in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber. Unless indeed that eunuch too, whom Philip baptized by the way with chance water, gained more salvation or less. Therefore all waters, from the prerogative of their original origin, attain the sacrament of sanctification when God is invoked. For the Spirit straightway supervenes from heaven and is upon the waters, sanctifying them from himself; and being so sanctified, they imbibe the power of sanctifying. Although the likeness is suitable to the simple act, that, since by transgressions we are defiled as it were with filth, we should be washed clean by waters. But just as transgressions do not appear in the flesh — since no one carries upon his skin the stain of idolatry or fornication or fraud — so things of this kind are foul in the spirit, which is the author of the transgression. For the spirit dominates, the flesh serves. Yet each shares the guilt between them, the spirit on account of the command, the flesh on account of the service. Therefore, the waters being in a manner medicated through the angel's intervention, both the spirit is corporeally washed in the waters, and the flesh in the same is spiritually cleansed.

But indeed the foreign nations, strangers to all understanding of the spiritual powers, attribute the same efficacy to their idols. But they deceive themselves with widowed waters. For they too are initiated by certain rites through a washing — of some Isis or Mithras; their very gods too they carry forth with washings. For the rest, they expiate country-houses, dwellings, temples, and whole cities everywhere with water carried round in sprinkling. Certainly at the games of Apollo and at the Eleusinian rites they are baptized; and they presume to do this for regeneration and for the impunity of their perjuries. Likewise, among the ancients, whoever had stained himself with homicide sought out purifying waters. Therefore, if from the nature of water alone — because it is the proper material of washing — they flatter themselves with omens of cleansing, how much more truly will waters effect this through the authority of God, by whom all their nature was constituted? If they think water is medicated by religion, what religion is mightier than that of the living God? In acknowledging which, here too we recognize the zeal of the devil, who rivals the things of God, since he too practises a baptism among his own. What likeness is there? The unclean cleanses, the destroyer sets free, the condemned absolves. He will, forsooth, destroy his own work by washing away the transgressions which he himself inspires. These things, indeed, have been set down as a testimony against those who reject the faith, if they do not believe the things of God, in the imitations of which, with God's rival, they do believe. And do not unclean spirits also, otherwise, without any sacrament, brood upon waters, affecting that bearing of the divine Spirit in the beginning? The shadowy springs, and all out-of-the-way streams, and the pools in baths, and the channels in houses, or the cisterns and wells which are said to snatch away — that is, by the force of a hurtful spirit — these know it. Nymph-stricken, water-mad, water-fearing they call those whom the waters have killed, or harassed with madness or terror. To what end have we recalled these things? Lest anyone find it hard to believe that a holy angel of God is present to temper the waters unto the salvation of man, when an evil angel keeps up a profane dealing with the same element unto the ruin of man. If it seems new that an angel should intervene in waters, an example of what was to come ran on before. An intervening angel used to stir the pool of Bethsaida. They watched who complained of ill health. For if anyone had got down there first, after the bath he ceased to complain. This figure of bodily medicine sang of a spiritual medicine, by that pattern by which the carnal always precede in figure of the spiritual. So, as the grace of God advanced among men, more accrued to the waters and to the angel. Those who used to remedy the vices of the body now heal the spirit; those who used to work a temporal salvation now restore an eternal one; those who used to free one man once a year now daily preserve whole peoples, death being abolished through the washing-away of transgressions. The guilt being removed, of course, the penalty too is removed. So man will be restored to God after the likeness of him who once had been after the image of God. The image is reckoned in the form, the likeness in eternity. For he recovers that Spirit of God which then, from his breathing, he had received, but afterward had lost through transgression.

Not that in the waters we attain the Holy Spirit, but, cleansed in the water under the angel, we are made ready for the Holy Spirit. Here too a figure went before; for so John was beforehand the forerunner of the Lord, preparing his ways. So too the angel, the arbiter of baptism, makes the ways straight for the Holy Spirit who is to supervene, by the washing-away of transgressions which faith — sealed in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit — obtains. For if in three witnesses every word shall stand, how much more, while through the blessing we have the same arbiters of faith as the sponsors of salvation, does even the number of the divine names suffice for the assurance of our hope? And since under three both the testimony of faith and the pledge of salvation are guaranteed, the mention of the Church is necessarily added, since where the three are — that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit — there is the Church, which is the body of the three.

Thereupon, having come up from the bath, we are anointed with a blessed unction, after the ancient discipline, by which men were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn in the priesthood; from which Aaron was anointed by Moses, whence Christ is named from the chrism, which is the anointing, which lent its name to the Lord, made spiritual, because he was anointed with the Spirit by God the Father, as it is in the Acts: For truly they were gathered together in this city against thy holy Son, whom thou hast anointed. So in us too the unction runs carnally, but profits spiritually; just as in baptism itself the act is carnal, in that we are immersed in water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are set free from transgressions.

After this the hand is laid on, through a blessing summoning and inviting the Holy Spirit. Surely it will be permitted to human ingenuity to summon a spirit into water, and by the laying-on of hands from above to animate the embodiment of them with another spirit of so great brightness — but to God it will not be permitted, in his own instrument, to attune a spiritual sublimity through holy hands? But this too is from the old sacrament, by which Jacob blessed his grandsons by Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, with hands laid on their heads and crossed, and indeed so crossed athwart each other that, prefiguring Christ, they portended even then the blessing that should be in Christ. Then that most Holy Spirit, gladly from the Father, descends upon bodies cleansed and blessed, and over the waters of baptism, recognizing them as it were its ancient seat, it rests, having glided down in the figure of a dove upon the Lord, that the nature of the Holy Spirit might be declared through a creature of simplicity and innocence — since the dove even bodily is without gall. And therefore, Be ye, he says, simple as doves; not even this without the warrant of a foregoing figure. For just as, after the waters of the flood, by which the ancient iniquity was purged, after the baptism, so to speak, of the world, a dove, the herald of the heavenly anger laid aside, announced peace to the earth, being sent forth from the ark and returning with the olive — a sign which even among the nations is held forth for peace — by the same disposition, by a spiritual effect, the dove of the Holy Spirit flies to the earth, that is, to our flesh, as it emerges from the bath after its old transgressions, bringing the peace of God, sent forth from the heavens, where the Church is the figured ark. But the world again sinned; wherefore baptism is ill compared to the flood. And so it is destined to fire, even as is the man who after baptism renews his transgressions — so that this too ought to be taken as a sign of our admonition.

How many patronages of nature, then, how many privileges of grace, how many solemnities of discipline, figures, prefigurings, prayers, have ordained the religion of water? First indeed, when the people, freely set forth from Egypt, escaped the power of the king of Egypt by crossing through the water, the water itself extinguished that king with all his forces. What figure more manifest in the sacrament of baptism? The nations are set free from the world, by water of course, and they leave behind the devil, their former master, overwhelmed in the water. Likewise the water, from a fault of bitterness, is remedied to its own profitable sweetness by the wood of Moses. That wood was Christ, remedying from himself the veins of a nature once poisoned and bitter into the most healthful waters, namely of baptism. This is the water that flowed down for the people from the accompanying rock. For if the rock is Christ, without doubt we see baptism blessed in the water in Christ. How great is the grace of water with God and his Christ for the confirmation of baptism! Never is Christ without water: since indeed he himself too is baptized with water; called to a wedding, he inaugurates the first rudiments of his power with water; when he makes his discourse, he invites the thirsty to his own everlasting water; when he teaches of love, he approves among the works of charity a cup of water offered to a poor man; at a well he resumes his strength; he walks upon the water; he gladly crosses it; he ministers water to his disciples. The testimony of baptism continues even to the passion: when he is given over to the cross, water intervenes — Pilate's hands know it; when he is wounded, water bursts forth from his side — the soldier's lance knows it.

We have said, as far as our mediocrity allowed, concerning all the things that build up the religion of baptism; now I will go on, as best I can, to the remaining state of it, concerning certain little questions. The baptism announced by John already then had its question, proposed by the Lord himself to the Pharisees, whether that baptism were heavenly or rather earthly. To which they were not able steadfastly to reply, inasmuch as they did not understand, because they did not believe. We, moreover, with however little faith we are endowed, can with just so little understanding judge that it was indeed a divine baptism, yet by commandment, not also by power — since we read that John too was sent by the Lord to this office — but otherwise human in its condition. For it conferred nothing heavenly, but was a fore-ministry to heavenly things, being set over repentance, which is in the power of man. In short, the doctors of the law and the Pharisees, who would not believe, did not repent either. But if repentance is a human thing, his baptism too must needs have been of the same condition; or it would have given both the Holy Spirit and the remission of transgressions, if it had been heavenly. But neither does any but God alone forgive sin or grant the Spirit. Even the Lord himself denied that the Spirit would descend otherwise unless he himself first ascended to the Father. What the Lord did not yet confer, the servant surely could not provide. So thoroughly is this so, that afterwards in the Acts of the Apostles we find that those who had John's baptism had not received the Holy Spirit, whom they had not so much as heard of. Therefore that was not heavenly which did not exhibit heavenly things — since the very thing which had been heavenly in John, the spirit of prophecy, after the transferring of the whole Spirit to the Lord, so utterly failed that he afterwards sent to inquire whether he himself were the very one whom he had proclaimed, whom he had marked out as coming. So the baptism of repentance was carried on as a kind of candidate for the remission and sanctification that was to follow in Christ. For as to its proclaiming a baptism of repentance unto the remission of transgressions, this was announced of a future remission: since indeed repentance goes before, remission follows after; and this is to prepare the way; and he who prepares does not himself complete it, but provides that it be completed by another. He himself professes that his things are not heavenly, but Christ's, by saying, He who is of the earth speaks of the earth; he who comes from above is above all; likewise that he baptizes only with repentance, but that there would presently come one who would baptize with the Spirit and with fire. Doubtless because the true and stable faith is baptized with water unto salvation, but the feigned and feeble is baptized with fire unto judgement.

But behold, they say, the Lord came and did not baptize. For we read: And yet he himself did not baptize, but his disciples. As though in truth John had proclaimed that he would baptize with his own hands. It is surely not to be understood thus, but it was said simply, after the common manner. As is, for example, The Emperor put forth an edict, or The Prefect beat with rods: does he himself put it forth, or does he himself beat? He is always said to do it for whom the service is rendered. So is it to be taken, He himself will baptize you, in place of what is meant, By him you will be baptized, or unto him. But let it not move some that he himself did not baptize. For into what would he baptize? Into repentance? to what end, then, the forerunner for him? Into the remission of sins, which he gave by a word? into himself, whom by his humility he concealed? into the Holy Spirit, who had not yet descended from the Father? into the Church, which the apostles had not yet built? And so his disciples baptized, as ministers, as John before as forerunner, with the same baptism of John — lest anyone suppose it another, since there is no other extant except, afterwards, that of Christ, which then surely could not be given by the disciples, inasmuch as the glory of the Lord was not yet fulfilled, nor the efficacy of the bath established through the passion and resurrection; because neither could our death be dissolved except by the Lord's passion, nor life be restored without his resurrection.

But when it is prescribed that to no one does salvation belong without baptism — chiefly from that pronouncement of the Lord who says, Unless a man be born of water, he has not life — there arise scrupulous, nay rash, re-examinations of certain people: how, from this prescription, salvation should belong to the apostles, whom we do not find baptized in the Lord, except Paul. Nay, since Paul alone of them put on the baptism of Christ, either it has been prejudged concerning the peril of the rest, who lack the water of Christ, in order that the prescription may be kept safe; or the prescription must be rescinded, if salvation has been appointed even for those not baptized. I have heard — the Lord being my witness — talk of this kind, lest anyone think me so lost as to devise of my own accord, out of a lust for the pen, things which might inflict a scruple upon others. And now I will reply, as best I can, to those who deny that the apostles were baptized. For if they had entered upon the human baptism of John and were desiring the Lord's, inasmuch as the Lord himself defined one baptism, saying to Peter, who refused to be drenched, He who has once washed has no need to do so again — which surely he would by no means have said to one not baptized; and this is a proof brought forth against those who take from the apostles even John's baptism, that they may destroy the sacrament of water. Or can it seem credible that in these persons the way of the Lord — that is, the baptism of John — was not then prepared, who were destined to open the way of the Lord throughout the whole world? The Lord himself, owing no repentance, was baptized: was it not necessary for sinners? As for those, then, who were baptized otherwise, yet not the companions of Christ but the rivals of the faith, namely the doctors of the law and the Pharisees — whence it is suggested that, since those who set themselves against the Lord would not be baptized, those who followed the Lord were baptized, and were not of one mind with their rivals; especially since the Lord, if any clung to him, had exalted John by his testimony, saying, No one among those born of women is greater than John the Baptist. Others, plainly, in no great seriousness, throw in that the apostles then fulfilled the office of baptism when, in the little boat, sprinkled with the waves, they were covered over; that Peter himself too, walking through the sea, was sufficiently immersed. But, as I think, it is one thing to be sprinkled or caught up by the violence of the sea, another to be baptized by the discipline of religion. For the rest, that little boat presented a figure of the Church, in that it is disquieted on the sea — that is, in the world — by the waves, that is, by persecutions and temptations, the Lord through patience as it were sleeping, until, roused at the last by the prayers of the saints, he checks the world and restores tranquillity to his own. Now whether they were in some way baptized, or persevered unwashed — so that even that saying of the Lord concerning one bath, under the person of Peter, should regard us only — concerning the salvation of the apostles it is rash enough to make a judgement: because to them the prerogative either of their first enrolment and thenceforth of their inseparable familiarity could confer the abridgement of baptism, since they, I think, were following him who promised salvation to every believer. Thy faith, he was wont to say, has made thee whole; and, Thy sins shall be forgiven thee — to one believing, of course, and yet not baptized. If this was wanting to the apostles, I know not whose . . . roused by a word of the Lord, left the toll-booth, forsook his father and the trade by which he sustained life, who . . . disregarded his father's obsequies, fulfilled that highest precept of the Lord, He who has preferred father or mother to me is not worthy of me, before he heard it.

Here, then, those most wicked men raise their questions. So . . . baptism is not necessary for those for whom faith is enough; for Abraham too pleased God by the sacrament of no water but of faith. But in all things the later things conclude the matter, and the things that follow prevail over those that precede. Salvation may have been, of old, through naked faith, before the Lord's passion and resurrection. But when faith was increased by believing in his nativity, passion, and resurrection, there was added an enlargement of the sacrament, the sealing of baptism, a kind of garment for the faith which before was naked, and it can no longer be without its own law. For the law of baptizing has been imposed, and the form prescribed. Go, he says, teach the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And that definition, joined to this law — Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven — has bound faith to the necessity of baptism. And so all thenceforth, on believing, were baptized. Then Paul too, when he believed, was baptized. And this is what the Lord had commanded him in that stroke of blindness, saying, Rise and enter Damascus; there it shall be shown thee what thou must do — namely, be baptized, which alone was wanting to him. For otherwise he had sufficiently learned and believed that the Nazarene was the Lord, the Son of God.

But concerning the apostle himself they reel back to what he said: For Christ did not send me to baptize. As though by this argument baptism were taken away. For why then did he baptize Gaius and Crispus and the household of Stephanas? Although, even if Christ had not sent him to baptize, yet he had commanded the other apostles to baptize. But these things were written to the Corinthians for the condition of that time, since schisms and dissensions were stirred up among them, while one reckons himself of Paul, another of Apollos. On account of which the peace-making apostle, lest he should seem to claim all things for himself, says that he was sent not to baptize but to preach. For it is the prior thing to preach, the later to baptize. So preaching came first. But I suppose it was permitted also to baptize him to whom it was permitted to preach.

I do not know whether anything more is bandied about for the controversy of baptism. To be sure, I will go back over what I omitted above, lest I seem to cut off thoughts that press upon me. There is for us absolutely one baptism, both from the Lord's gospel and from the apostle's letters, since there is one God and one baptism and one Church in the heavens. But concerning heretics, what is to be observed one may worthily re-examine. For it was to us that the matter was published. But heretics have no share in our discipline, whom the very taking-away of communion testifies to be strangers. I ought not to recognize in them what is commanded to me, because the same God is not ours and theirs, nor one Christ — that is, the same; and therefore not one baptism, because not the same; which, since they do not rightly have it, they without doubt have not at all, nor can that be reckoned which is not had; and so neither can they receive it, because they have it not. But of this we have already treated more fully in Greek. Once, then, we enter the bath, once are our transgressions washed away, because they ought not to be repeated. For the rest, the Jew, Israel, washes daily, because daily he is defiled. That this should not be practised in us too, on that account it has been defined concerning the one bath. Happy is the water which washes once, which is no mockery to sinners, which, not being infected by the constant return of filth, does not again defile those whom it has washed.

We have, indeed, also a second bath, itself one and the same — namely of blood — concerning which the Lord says, I have a baptism to be baptized with, when he had already been baptized. For he had come through water and blood, as John wrote, that he might be baptized with water, glorified with blood; and accordingly to make us, called by water, chosen by blood. These two baptisms he sent forth from the wound of his pierced side, to the end that those who believed in his blood might be washed with water, and those who had washed with water might also drink his blood. This is the baptism which both represents the bath when it has not been received, and restores it when lost.

It remains, to conclude this little matter, to admonish concerning the observance also of giving and receiving baptism. The right of giving it the chief priest, who is the bishop, indeed has; thereafter the presbyters and deacons, yet not without the bishop's authority, for the honour of the Church, which being kept safe, peace is safe. Otherwise the right belongs even to the laity. For what is received on equal terms can be given on equal terms. Unless they are already bishops or presbyters or deacons, the learners are called. The word of the Lord ought not to be hidden from anyone. Accordingly baptism too, being equally God's appointment, can be administered by all. But how much more does the discipline of modesty and reserve lie upon the laity, since these things belong to their superiors — lest they take to themselves the office dedicated to the bishop! The rivalry for the episcopate is the mother of schisms. The most holy apostle said that all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. Let it suffice, then, that you use it in necessities, where the condition of place, or time, or person compels. For then the boldness of one who succours is accepted, when the circumstance of one in peril presses; since he will be guilty of a man's perdition if he forbears to provide what he could freely have done. But a woman of petulance, who has usurped the right to teach, will surely not thereby bear for herself also the right of baptizing — unless some new beast arise like that former one, so that, just as she took baptism away, so some other woman should of herself confer it. But if certain writings falsely ascribed to Paul defend the example of Thecla as a licence for women to teach and to baptize, let them know that in Asia the presbyter who composed that writing, heaping up as it were a work under Paul's title from his own store, when convicted and confessing that he had done it for love of Paul, was removed from his place. For how could it seem near to the faith that he should give a woman the power of teaching and baptizing, who would not steadfastly permit a woman even to learn? Let them keep silence, he says, and consult their husbands at home.

For the rest, those whose office it is know that baptism is not to be rashly granted. Give to everyone that asks of thee — this has its own application, pertaining likewise to almsgiving. Nay, that is rather to be considered: Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not cast your pearls before swine; and, Do not lay on hands too readily, lest you share in another's transgressions. If Philip so readily baptized the eunuch, let us reflect that a manifest and outstretched warrant of the Lord intervened. The Spirit had commanded Philip to go forth on that road; the eunuch himself too was found not idle, nor one who suddenly desired to be baptized, but, having set out to the temple for the sake of prayer, intent upon the divine Scripture — thus he ought to be found, to whom God of his own accord had sent an apostle, whom again the Spirit bade join himself to the eunuch's chariot. The Scripture of his very faith met him in time; being exhorted, he is taken up; the Lord is shown; faith does not delay; the water is not waited for; the apostle, the business completed, is snatched away. But Paul too in truth was quickly baptized. For Simon his host had quickly recognized that he was constituted a vessel of election. The condescension of God sends before it its own prerogatives; every request can both deceive and be deceived. And so, according to the condition and disposition of each person, even his age, a delay of baptism is more profitable, but chiefly with regard to little children. For what need is there, if there be not such need, that the sponsors too should be brought into peril, who both themselves may, through mortality, fail of their promises, and may be deceived by the development of an evil disposition? The Lord indeed says, Do not forbid them to come to me. Let them come, then, while they grow up; let them come while they learn, while they are taught whither they come; let them become Christians when they have been able to know Christ. Why does the innocent age hasten to the remission of sins? More cautiously will one act in worldly matters, so that to him to whom earthly substance is not entrusted, the divine should be entrusted. Let them know how to ask for salvation, that you may seem to have given to one who asks. For no lesser cause are the unmarried too to be deferred, in whom temptation is prepared, as for virgins by their maturity, so for widows by their freedom — until they either marry or are strengthened in continence. Let those who understand the weight of baptism fear its attainment rather than its delay; an entire faith is secure of salvation.

The Passover affords a more solemn day for baptism, when also the Lord's passion, in which we are baptized, was fulfilled. Nor will it be interpreted incongruously as a figure, that, when the Lord was about to keep his last Passover, having sent disciples to prepare it, he said, You shall meet a man carrying water — he showed the place for celebrating the Passover by the sign of water. Thereafter Pentecost is a most joyful space for arranging baptisms, in which the resurrection of the Lord was frequently shown among the disciples, and the grace of the Holy Spirit dedicated, and the hope of the Lord's coming intimated, because then, when he had been received back into the heavens, the angels said to the apostles that he would come in the same way as he had ascended into the heavens — namely at Pentecost. But indeed Jeremiah, when he says, And I will gather them from the ends of the earth on a feast day, signifies the day of the Passover and of Pentecost, which is properly a feast day. For the rest, every day is the Lord's, every hour, every season is fit for baptism: if there is a difference as to the solemnity, as to the grace it makes no difference.

Those who are about to enter upon baptism ought to pray with frequent prayers, with fastings and kneelings and vigils, and with the confession of all their past transgressions, that they may set forth even the baptism of John. They were baptized, it says, confessing their sins. To us it is matter for thanksgiving, if now we publicly confess our iniquities or shameful deeds. For at once we both make satisfaction for the former, by the conflict of flesh and spirit, and build up beforehand defences against the temptations that shall follow. Watch and pray, he says, that you fall not into temptation. And therefore, I believe, they were tempted, because they had fallen asleep, so that they deserted the Lord when he was seized, and he who had stood by him and used the sword even denied him thrice; for it had been said before that no one untempted should attain the kingdoms of heaven. Temptations stood about the Lord himself straightway after his bath, when he had fulfilled forty days of fasting. Therefore we too, someone will say, ought rather to fast after our bath. And who indeed forbids it, save the necessity of joy and the thanksgiving for salvation? But the Lord, so far as I judge, turned back upon Israel a reproach in a figure against himself. For the people, having crossed the sea and been carried over into the wilderness for forty years, though they were fed there with divine provisions, nonetheless remembered their belly and gullet rather than God. Then the Lord, separated into the desert after the water, having measured out fastings of forty days, showed that the man of God lives not by bread but by the word of God, and that the temptations which are set against the fullness and immoderation of the belly are struck away by abstinence. Therefore, blessed ones, whom the grace of God awaits, when you ascend from that most holy bath of a new birth, and spread your first hands, with the brethren, at your mother's side, ask of the Father, ask of the Lord, that the special gifts of grace, the distributions of the charisms, may be made yours. Ask, he says, and you shall receive. For you have sought, and have found; you have knocked, and it has been opened to you. Only I pray that, when you ask, you remember Tertullian the sinner too.