713 In the first treatise we promised that we would speak concerning all the mysteries which you have obtained through our ministry and the grace of Christ, lest any negligence should arise for us out of ignorance. But we took thought for your labor and memory, providing lest either the mind, wearied by hearing, should not be able to understand everything, or the memory, overburdened by the knowledge of many things at once, should quickly forget and lose even what it had understood. In the first preaching, therefore, we spoke only of those things which we handed down to you, before you came to the holy font, according to the institutions of the catholic rule; and—
we interpreted what the anointing signified which, applied to the different parts of your body, designates a different meaning, as the Lord deigned to grant; when we showed that you, through the oil of sanctification, were prepared for the hearing of faith and called to the good odor of Christ, and were admonished that renunciation must be made with the whole heart. But now we are going to speak of the interior mysteries which were celebrated in the holy font itself.
For having made that most sure pledge by which you promised to renounce all his pomps and works and every diabolical fornication, you then went down into the sacred font, the font of life, the font of redemption, a font sanctified by heavenly power, and so sanctified that by washing away the many sins of men it sanctifies them. For you must not judge those waters with the eyes, but with the mind. For although the substance of that water is of the common nature of waters, yet its effect proceeds from the grace and power of God, who created the waters so that by the hidden virtue of His might He might wash away the sins that are not seen.
For the Holy Spirit works in that water, so that those who before baptism were held guilty of divers crimes, and were destined to burn with the devil in the Gehenna of eternal fire, might after baptism be counted worthy to enter the kingdom of heaven. Whence the Lord in the Gospel, expressing the power of so great a sacrament, says: Unless a man be born again of water and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John III). In this font, therefore, before we immersed your whole body, we asked: Do you believe in God the Father almighty? You answered: I believe. Again we asked: Do you also believe in Jesus Christ His Son, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary? You answered, each one: I believe. Again we asked:
Do you also believe in the Holy Spirit? You likewise answered: I believe. Now these things we did according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour, who, when He was ascending to the Father into the heavens, charged His disciples, that is, the apostles, saying: Go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you (Matt. XXVIII). Yet let no one, when he hears of Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, suppose that we confess three Gods. Far be such sacrilege from our faith! For we have come to know, by His own testimony, that there is only one God. I, He says, am God, and there is none other beside me; there is no just one and Saviour beside me.
Turn to me, and you shall be saved, for I am God from the ends of the earth, and there is none other beside me (Isa. XLV and Hos. XIII). And in another book: Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut. VI). And again: The Lord your God, He is in heaven above and on the earth beneath, and there is none other beside Him (Deut. IV). Therefore we hold and believe three persons, that is, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of one power, one substance, one eternity, one will, and even one deity; and we venerate the whole Trinity under the name of one God. But to believe in many gods is the impiety of the heathen. And again:
Not to believe three persons of one substance in one deity, equality, and co-eternity, is heretical madness; since this authority of Christ, which we have cited, is manifest: Baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. XXVIII). But as to what we asked, namely: Do you believe in the holy Church and the remission of sins? — we did not ask in such a way that one believes in the holy catholic Church just as one believes in God. It is holy and catholic for this reason, that it rightly believes in God. We did not therefore say that you should believe in the Church as in God, but understand that we say and have said that, dwelling in the holy and catholic Church, you should believe in God.
You should also believe in the resurrection of the flesh, which is to come. As therefore you have believed in the mystery of the Trinity, and have received one God in the name of Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit; as you have believed that your sins were to be forgiven, and now already believe through baptism that they have been forgiven; so also believe that the resurrection of the flesh is to come, which you have surely pledged to believe. For in this the whole hope of Christians consists, that we believe the resurrection of this body, and not of another, will in truth come to pass. And just as we now stand in the Church before the altar of God, so let us believe that we shall stand on the day of judgment before the tribunal of God, as the blessed apostle Paul says:
We must all be made manifest before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in his own body, according as he has done, whether good or evil (2 Cor. V). And this is what unbelieving souls do not believe will come to pass. And there are some who promise with their lips to believe, but despair in their heart; who do a great injury to almighty God, in that they do not believe men can be raised and made alive by Him after death. But we, who put faith in the divine sayings, cannot doubt concerning our resurrection. For we believe that God, who made men when before they were not, can easily remake those who once were.
He who made heaven, and earth, and the seas, and all that is in them, and all the elements out of nothing — how can He not restore men, whom He made for this purpose, that in this life they should do that for which they would be judged in another, and merit rewards for a good will or punishments for an evil one?
For this is the faith of catholic Christians, that we believe we shall rise again with this same soul in which we now are, having a fitting exemplar of our future resurrection in our Lord, the Word of the Father, who, since He is God and the Son of God, that is, the Word, and according to the substance of His divinity co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father, therefore took upon Him the manhood of our nature, according to which He willed to be born of a virgin, and afterward to suffer, and to die, and on the third day He rose again, and ascended into heaven, that He might kindle in us the hope of resurrection, so that we might believe we are to be raised from the dead, just as we confess that Christ rose from the dead. Whence the blessed Apostle rebukes the minds of unbelievers, saying:
But if Christ is preached that He rose from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. XV)? Hold this, therefore, steadfastly, and believe what is affirmed by the divine sayings, that there shall be a resurrection, in which to all the saints who love Christ and do His will a glorious immortality is to be given, so that in the sight of God, with the angels and the heavenly powers, they may be glorified for ever. But the unbelieving and sinners, and those who do not keep God's commandments, shall rise again for this, that their flesh, made immortal, may be consigned to eternal fires; that it may ever burn, and never by burning be consumed.
For this the word of our Lord Jesus Christ also testifies, who in the Gospel pronounced concerning sinners: Then shall the wicked go into eternal punishment, but the just into eternal life (Matt. XXV). Now these things which we have thus far spoken — after you promised to believe them, we immersed your bodies a third time in the sacred font. This order of baptism is celebrated with a twofold significance of mystery. For rightly were you immersed three times, you who received baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead on the third day. For that immersion, thrice repeated, expresses the type of the Lord's burial, through which you were buried with Christ in baptism, and with Christ you rose
again in faith, that being washed from sins you might live for Christ in the holiness of virtues by imitating Him. Whence the blessed Apostle says: Do you not know that whosoever of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into His death? For we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that as Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified together with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, that henceforth we may not serve sin (Rom. VI).
Consider, brethren, under what condition the Apostle said we are baptized, namely that henceforth, he says, we should not serve sin. For what — I will not say negligence, but madness — is it, when through baptism you have received the remission of sins, to wish to bind yourself again with sins: so that you who had been made holy out of a sinner, should again wish to be a sinner out of a saint, and after that sacred font, in which it is lawful to be washed only once, to return again to the filth of vices? Take heed therefore, most beloved, that what you have received, and what can no longer be received again by you, you may keep whole and unspotted unto the end; and having once been made without sin, you may forever withdraw from all sins.
For Christ, who by His mercy cleansed you when you were polluted and defiled by the persuasion of the devil, does not wish those He has cleansed to be defiled again. To Him be glory and honour, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.