CHAPTER 1. Concerning the sacrament of our water, by which, our sins of former blindness being washed away, we are set free unto eternal life, this treatise will not be idle, instructing both those who are being formed even now, and those also who, content to have believed in simplicity, without having examined the reasons of the traditions, carry a faith open to temptation through ignorance. And indeed, of late a certain viper of the Cainite heresy, sojourning here, carried off very many with her most venomous doctrine, destroying baptism above all. Plainly according to her nature: for vipers and asps and even the basilisk serpents themselves frequent dry and waterless places. But we little fishes, after our IX-THUS (fish), Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor are we saved otherwise than by abiding in the water.
And so that most monstrous creature, who had not even a lawful right to teach at all, knew perfectly well how to slay the little fishes by taking them out of the water. CHAPTER 2. But how great is the force of perversity in undermining faith, or in wholly rejecting it, when it attacks faith from the very things by which faith is established! There is nothing that 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. And hence also, because with such great simplicity, without pomp, without any new apparatus, in short without expense, a man let down into the water and dipped amid a few words rises up not much or not at all cleaner, the attainment of eternity is therefore reckoned incredible.
I lie if, on the contrary, the solemnities or the mysteries of idols do not build up faith and authority for themselves out of their stage-array, apparatus, and expense. O wretched unbelief, that deniest to God His own properties, simplicity and power! What then? Is it not to be wondered at that death should be washed away by a bath? But because it is to be wondered at, is it therefore not believed? Nay, rather it is the more to be believed: for what kind should the works of God be, unless above all wonder? We too ourselves wonder, but because we believe. But unbelief wonders because it does not believe: for it wonders at simple things as though they were vain, at magnificent things as though impossible. And let it be plainly as you suppose: the divine pronouncement has sufficiently run ahead to meet both objections: God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound its wisdom;
and, Things difficult with men are easy with God. For if God is both wise and powerful—which even those who pass Him by do not deny—He rightly established the materials of His operation in the opposites of wisdom and power, that is, in folly and impossibility: since all virtue receives its cause from those things by which it is challenged. CHAPTER 3. Mindful of this pronouncement as of a prescription, we nonetheless treat of how foolish and impossible it is that a man should be reformed by water. And since this substance has assuredly deserved an office of such great honour, the authority of the liquid element is, as I think, to be examined. And indeed abundant proof is at hand, and that from the very beginning.
For it is one of those things which, before the whole framing of the world, rested with God in a still unformed appearance in the beginning. In the beginning, it says, God made heaven and earth: but the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters. You have, O man, first to reverence the age of the waters, in that it is an ancient substance; then their dignity, in that it was the seat of the divine Spirit, more pleasing, no doubt, than the other elements then. For the darkness too was still wholly formless, without the adornment of the stars, and the abyss dismal, and the earth unfurnished, and the heaven raw: the liquid alone, ever a perfect material, glad, simple, of itself pure, was furnishing a worthy vehicle for God.
What of the fact that thereafter the arrangement of the world was, in a certain way, established for God by the waters as its regulators? For to suspend the heavenly firmament in the midst, He made it by dividing the waters; to spread out the dry land, He accomplished it by separating the waters. Then, when the world had been ordered through its elements and inhabitants were to be given it, it was to the waters first that the command was given to bring forth living creatures: the liquid was the first to produce that which lived, so that it should be no wonder in baptism if the waters know how to give life. For was not the very work of fashioning man also accomplished with the waters as partners? Material was taken from the earth—it suits—yet not fit unless moist and juicy, which the waters, separated before the fourth day into their station with the surviving moisture, had tempered into mud.
If from this point I were to pursue all, or the more, of the things I might recall concerning the authority of this element—how great its force or grace, how many its ingenuities, how many its offices, how much of equipment it furnishes to the world—I fear I should seem to have gathered praises of water rather than the reasons of baptism: although I should thereby teach the more fully that there is no room for doubt if the material which God has arranged in all His things and works He has made to obey also in His own sacraments; if that which governs earthly life provides also for the heavenly. CHAPTER 4.
But it will be enough to have plucked out beforehand those things in which the very first reason of baptism is recognized—that reason which even then was already prefigured, by the very posture, toward the figure of baptism: that the Spirit of God, who from the beginning was borne over the waters, would tarry over the waters as the one who baptizes. But surely the holy was borne over the holy; or rather, that which bore borrowed sanctity from that which was borne above it, since whatever material is subject must of necessity seize the quality of that which hangs over it from above—especially the corporeal seizing the spiritual, which easily penetrates and settles through the subtlety of its own substance. Thus the nature of the waters, sanctified from the holy, itself conceived the power to sanctify.
Let no one therefore say, 'Are we then baptized in those very waters that existed in the beginning?' Not indeed in those very ones—except in the sense that they are the same in so far as the genus is one, though the species are many. But what is attributed to the genus overflows also into the species. And therefore there is no distinction whether one is 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 that eunuch too, whom Philip baptized on the road in chance water, brought back more salvation or less. Therefore all waters, from the ancient prerogative of their origin, attain the sacrament of sanctification when God is invoked.
For immediately the Spirit comes upon them from heaven and rests over the waters, sanctifying them of Himself, and thus sanctified they drink in the power of sanctifying. Although the likeness suits the simple act—that, as we are defiled by sins in the place of filth, we are washed by waters. But just as sins do not appear in the flesh, since no one carries on his skin the stains of idolatry or fornication or fraud, so such things are foul in the spirit, which is the author of sin: for the spirit rules, the flesh serves. Yet both share the guilt between themselves: the spirit on account of command, the flesh on account of ministry. Therefore, when the waters have in a certain way been medicated through the intervention of the angel, both the spirit is bodily washed in the waters and the flesh is spiritually cleansed in the same. CHAPTER 5.
But the foreign nations, strangers to all understanding of spiritual things, attribute the same efficacy to their idols. But they deceive themselves with widowed waters. For by certain rites they are initiated through a washing of some Isis or Mithras. Even their very gods they carry out for washings. Moreover they expiate country-houses, homes, temples, and whole cities by carrying water round in sprinkling. Certainly at the games of Apollo and at the Pelusian rites they are dipped everywhere, and they presume that they do this for regeneration and for impunity of their perjuries. Likewise among the ancients, whoever had stained himself with homicide would seek out purifying waters.
Therefore if they flatter an idol with a foretaste of cleansing by the nature of water, in that it is proper for washing, how much more truly will the waters furnish this through the authority of God, by whom their whole nature was constituted! If they think that waters heal through religion, what religion is more powerful than the acknowledgment of the living God? Here too we recognize the zeal of the devil, rivalling the things of God, since he too practises baptism among his own. What is alike? The unclean cleanses, the destroyer sets free, the condemned absolves? He will, forsooth, destroy his own work by washing away the sins which he himself inspires! These things indeed are set down by way of testimony against those who reject the faith, if they will by no means believe the things of God, in whose imitations, before God's rival, they do believe.
Or do not unclean spirits also, otherwise and without any sacrament, brood over waters, affecting that hovering of the divine Spirit in the beginning? The shady springs know it, and every trackless brook, and the pools in baths, and the channels and cisterns in houses, and the wells which are said to snatch men away—that is, by the force of a hurtful spirit. For they call those 'eseti' and 'lymphatics' and 'hydrophobes' whom waters have slain or driven mad or filled with dread. To what end have we brought forward these things? Lest anyone should too harshly believe that a holy angel of God is present at the tempering of the waters for man's salvation, when a profane angel of evil frequents his traffic with the same element for man's ruin. If it seems new that an angel should intervene in waters, an example of the future has run before.
An intervening angel used to stir the pool of Bethesda. Those who complained of their infirmity watched for it. For if anyone had gone down there beforehand, he ceased to complain after the bath. This figure of bodily medicine sang of spiritual medicine, according to the pattern by which carnal things always precede in figure of spiritual things. And so, as the grace of God advances in all things, more has accrued to the waters and to the angel: those who used to remedy the defects of the body now heal the spirit; those who used to work a temporal salvation now restore an eternal one; those who used to set free one man once a year now daily preserve peoples, death being blotted out through the washing away of sins. When the guilt is removed, of course, the penalty too is removed.
Thus man is restored to God unto the likeness of Him who formerly had been after the image of God: the image is reckoned in the form, the likeness in eternity: for he receives again that Spirit of God which he had then received from His breath, but afterward had lost through sin. CHAPTER 6. Not that we obtain the Holy Spirit in the water, but that, cleansed in the water under the angel, we are prepared for the Holy Spirit. Here too a figure preceded. For just as John was the forerunner of the Lord, preparing His ways, so also the angel, the arbiter of baptism, directs the ways for the Holy Spirit who is about to come, by the abolition of sins, 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 the gift of God, in a fourth?
By this blessing we have the same arbiters of faith as sponsors of salvation. Even the number of the divine names suffices for the assurance of our hope. But since under the Three both the testimony of faith and the pledge of salvation are guaranteed, the mention of the Church is necessarily added, since where there are the three—that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—there is the Church, which is the body of the Three. CHAPTER 7. Thereupon, having come out of the bath, we are anointed with the blessed unction, according to the ancient discipline by which they used to be anointed with oil from a horn for the priesthood, ever since Aaron was anointed by Moses. Whence Christ is so called from 'chrism,' which is unction, which also lent the Lord His name, having become spiritual because He was anointed with the Spirit by God the Father:
as in the Acts: For truly they were gathered together in this city against Thy holy Son whom Thou hast anointed. So in us also the unction runs carnally but profits spiritually, just as the very act of baptism is carnal—in that we are plunged in water—but its effect spiritual—in that we are set free from our sins. CHAPTER 8. Next the hand is laid on, through the blessing, calling upon and inviting the Holy Spirit. Truly, human ingenuity may be allowed to summon a spirit into water and to animate the joining of them, by hands fitted from above, with another spirit of such great clarity; and shall it not be allowed to God, in His own instrument, by holy hands, to attune a spiritual sublimity?
But this too is from the old sacrament, whereby Jacob blessed his grandsons by Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, with hands laid on and interchanged—and indeed so crossed obliquely over one another that, sketching Christ, they even then foreboded the blessing that was to be in Christ. Then that most holy Spirit willingly descends from the Father over the cleansed and blessed bodies, and over the waters of baptism rests, recognizing them as it were as His former seat: having glided down upon the Lord in the figure of a dove, so that the nature of the Holy Spirit might be declared through an animal of simplicity and innocence, since even bodily the dove is without gall. And therefore, He says, Be simple as doves:
not even this without the argument of a preceding 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 sent forth from the ark, and returning with an olive branch, announced to the earth the peace of heavenly wrath (which sign is also held out to the nations as a token of peace); by the same arrangement, upon the earth—that is, upon our flesh—emerging from the bath after its old sins, the dove of the Holy Spirit flies down, bringing the peace of God, sent forth from the heavens where the Church, the figure of the ark, is. 'But the world again transgressed, whereby baptism is ill compared to the flood.' And so it is destined to fire, just as man is when after baptism he restores his sins:
so that this too ought to be received as a sign of admonition to us. CHAPTER 9. How many patronages of nature, then, how many privileges of grace, how many solemnities of discipline, figures, prefigurings, and preachings have set in order the religious use of water! First indeed, when the people, freely delivered from Egypt, escaped the might of the king of Egypt by passing through the water, the water itself extinguished the king with all his forces. What figure could be plainer in the sacrament of baptism? The nations are set free from the world, namely through water, and they leave behind the devil, their former lord, overwhelmed in the water. Likewise the water, from the vice of bitterness, is remedied into the wholesomeness of sweetness by Moses' wood.
That wood was Christ, remedying from within Himself the veins of a nature formerly poisoned and bitter into the most healthful water, namely that of baptism. This is the water which flowed forth for the people from the accompanying rock: for if the rock is Christ, without doubt we see the water of baptism blessed 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 He Himself too is baptized with water; called to a wedding, He inaugurates the first rudiments of His power with water; when He makes discourse, He invites the thirsty to His own everlasting water; when He teaches of charity, He approves, among the works of love, a cup of water offered to the little one:
at a well He recovers His strength; He walks upon the water; He gladly crosses over; He ministers water to His disciples. The testimony of baptism perseveres even up to the passion: when He is given up 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. CHAPTER 10. We have said, as far as our mediocrity allowed, concerning all the things that furnish the religious meaning of baptism. Now I shall proceed, likewise as best I can, to the rest of its condition, concerning certain little questions. The baptism proclaimed by John already then had a question raised, indeed proposed by the Lord Himself to the Pharisees, whether that baptism was heavenly or earthly:
to which they were unable to reply steadfastly, inasmuch as they did not understand, because they did not believe. We indeed, by whatever small faith we have, can with corresponding small understanding estimate that his baptism was indeed divine, yet by mandate and not by power—in that we read that John too was sent by the Lord for this office—but human in its condition. For it furnished nothing heavenly, but ministered beforehand to heavenly things, being appointed, namely, over the repentance which is in man's will. In short, the doctors of the law and the Pharisees, who refused to believe, refused also to enter into repentance. But if repentance is human, His baptism too must needs have been of the same condition:
it would have given both the Holy Spirit and the remission of sins, had it been heavenly. But neither does it forgive sins nor bestow the Spirit, except God alone. Even the Lord Himself denied that the Spirit would descend in any other way unless He Himself first ascended to the Father. Thus what the Lord did not yet confer, the servant surely could not furnish. So much so that afterward, in the Acts of the Apostles, we find that those who had the baptism of John received the Holy Spirit, of whom they had not even known by hearing.
Therefore it was not heavenly, which did not exhibit heavenly things, since even that which had been heavenly in John—the spirit of prophecy—so far failed, after the transferring of the whole Spirit onto the Lord, that he sent to inquire whether He was the very one whom he had proclaimed, whom he had designated as coming. And so the baptism of repentance was conducted as a candidate, as it were, of the remission and sanctification that was to follow in Christ. For as to what we read, He preached the baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins, it was declared with regard to a future remission, since indeed repentance goes before and remission follows, and this is 'to prepare the way': but he who prepares does not himself accomplish, but procures that it be accomplished by another.
He himself professes that his things are not heavenly but Christ's, by saying, He who is of the earth speaks of earthly things; He who comes from above is above all: likewise that he baptizes unto repentance only, and that one would soon come who would baptize in Spirit and in fire: namely, because true and stable faith is baptized in the Spirit unto salvation, but a feigned and infirm faith is baptized in fire unto judgment. CHAPTER 11. 'But behold,' they say, 'the Lord came and did not baptize: for we read, And yet Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples.' As though indeed John had proclaimed that He would baptize with His own hands. It is not to be understood so, but was said simply in the common manner, as it is, for example, 'the emperor issued an edict,' or 'the prefect beat with rods.'
Does the emperor himself issue it, or does he himself beat? He is always said to do that for which the ministry is performed. So it will have to be taken, 'He shall baptize you,' in the sense of 'by Him you shall be baptized,' or 'into Him.' Nor let it move certain persons that He Himself did not baptize. Into what indeed 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 He concealed in humility? Into the Holy Spirit, who had not yet ascended to the Father? Into the Church, which He had not yet built up through the apostles? And so His disciples baptized as ministers, as John the forerunner, with the same baptism of John—lest you think it some other:
since no other exists except that of Christ afterward, which then could certainly not be given by the disciples, inasmuch as the glory of the Lord was not yet fulfilled, nor the efficacy of the bath instituted through the passion and resurrection—because neither could our death be dissolved except by the Lord's passion, nor life restored without His resurrection. CHAPTER 12. But since it is prescribed that salvation belongs to no one without baptism—chiefly from that pronouncement of the Lord, who says, Unless one is born of water, he shall not have life—there arise scrupulous, nay rather rash, reconsiderations of certain persons: how, according to this prescription, salvation can belong to the apostles, whom we do not find to have been baptized in the Lord, except Paul:
nay, since Paul alone of them put on the baptism of Christ, either it must be prejudged concerning the peril of the rest who lack the water of Christ, so that the prescription may be preserved, or the prescription must be rescinded, if salvation is appointed even for the unbaptized. I have heard, the Lord being my witness, persons of this sort—lest anyone think me so lost as to devise of my own accord, out of a passion for the pen, things that might strike a scruple into others. And now I shall answer, as best I can, those who deny that the apostles were baptized. For if they had obtained the human baptism of John, why did they desire the Lord's, seeing that the Lord Himself had defined one baptism, saying to Peter, who wished to be washed all over, He who has once washed has no need to do so again—which surely He would not at all have said to one not baptized?
And this is a proof advanced against those who take away from the apostles even the baptism of John, in order to destroy the sacrament of water. Or can it seem credible that in those persons the way was not then prepared for the Lord—that is, the baptism of John—who were destined to open the Lord's way throughout the whole world? The Lord Himself, though owing no repentance, was baptized: was it not necessary for sinners? Those, then, who were not baptized are no longer the companions of Christ, but the rivals of the faith—the doctors of the law and the Pharisees.
Whence it is also suggested that, since those who opposed the Lord refused to be baptized, those who followed the Lord were baptized, and did not think as their rivals did—especially when the Lord, to whom they clung, had extolled John with His testimony, saying, Among those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist. Others, plainly with force enough, throw in that the apostles then fulfilled the stead of baptism when they were being submerged by the waves in the little boat; and that Peter himself was submerged enough when he walked upon the sea. But, as I think, it is one thing to be sprinkled or overtaken by the violence of the sea, and another to be baptized according to the discipline of religion.
Moreover, that little boat presented a figure of the Church, in that it is troubled in the sea—that is, in the world—by waves, that is, by persecutions and temptations, while the Lord, through patience, is as it were asleep, until, roused at the last by the prayers of the saints, He curbs the world and restores tranquillity to His own. Now whether they were somehow baptized, or whether they persisted unwashed—so that even that saying of the Lord about the one bath, under the person of Peter, should regard us only—yet concerning the salvation of the apostles it is rash enough to make an estimate: because to them the prerogative of their earliest calling, and thereafter of their inseparable intimacy, could confer a shortcut of baptism, since they followed, I think, Him who promised salvation to every believer:
'Your faith,' He was saying, 'has made you whole,' and, 'Your sins are forgiven you' — spoken to one who believed, certainly, yet was not baptized. If this was lacking in the apostles, I do not know whose faith is safe. At a single word of the Lord one who was raised up abandoned the toll-booth, forsook father and ship and the craft by which he sustained his life; he despised his father's funeral rites, and that supreme precept of the Lord, 'He who prefers father or mother to Me is not worthy of Me,' he fulfilled before he had even heard it. Chapter 13. Hence, then, those most wicked men, raising provocative questions, say: 'Baptism is so far from being necessary that faith is enough; for even Abraham pleased God by the sacrament of no water, but of faith alone.' But in all things it is the later matters that conclude the case, and what comes after prevails over what precedes.
There may have been salvation in the past through bare faith, before the Lord's passion and resurrection; but once faith was enlarged, once men believed in His nativity, passion, and resurrection, there was added, as the sacrament was amplified, the sealing of baptism — a garment, as it were, for that faith which before was bare, and it can no longer save without its own law. For the law of baptizing has been imposed, and its form prescribed: 'Go,' He says, 'teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.' To this law that definition was joined: 'Unless a man be born again of water and of the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,' which bound faith to the necessity of baptism. And so from that time all who believed were baptized. Then too Paul, when he had believed, was then baptized;
and this is what the Lord had commanded him in that stroke of blindness, saying, 'Arise and enter into Damascus: there it shall be shown you what you must do' — namely, to be baptized, which alone was wanting to him. For otherwise he had learned and believed enough that the Nazarene was the Lord, the Son of God. Chapter 14. But they also bring up the apostle's own words, that he said, 'For Christ sent me not to baptize,' as though by this argument baptism were done away. Why then did he baptize Gaius and Crispus and the household of Stephanas? Yet even if Christ had not sent him to baptize, He had nonetheless commanded the other apostles to baptize.
But these things were written to the Corinthians in accordance with the circumstances of that time, since schisms and dissensions were being stirred up among them, while one reckoned himself of Paul, another of Apollos. On which account the peacemaking apostle, lest he should seem to claim everything for himself, said that he had been sent not to baptize but to preach. For preaching comes first, baptizing later, if the preaching has been done first. But I think it was lawful to baptize also for him to whom it was lawful to preach. Chapter 15. I do not know whether anything further is bandied about concerning the controversy of baptism. But I will indeed take up again what I omitted above, lest I should seem to cut off the pressing arguments.
There is for us but one baptism, both according to the Lord's Gospel and according to the apostle's letters, since there is one God, and one baptism, and one Church in heaven. But as regards heretics, one may with good reason consider carefully what ought to be observed. For to us it has been given forth; but heretics have no fellowship with our discipline, and the very removal of communion testifies that they are outsiders. I ought not to recognize among them what has been commanded to me, because the God we have is not the same as theirs, nor is Christ one, that is, the same. Therefore neither is the baptism one, because it is not the same. Since they do not have it rightly, without doubt they do not have it at all; nor can that be counted which is not possessed: thus neither can they receive it, because they do not have it.
But on this matter I have already treated more fully in a Greek work. Once, then, we enter the washing; once are our offences washed away, because they ought not to be repeated. For the rest, the Jewish Israel washes daily because he is daily defiled. Lest this should be practised among us also, it was for this reason defined that there be but one washing. Happy is the water which washes once, which is no mockery to sinners, which — not soiled by the constant filth — does not again defile those whom it has cleansed. Chapter 16. There is indeed for us also a second washing, itself likewise one — that of blood, namely — of 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 and glorified with blood.
Accordingly, that water might make us called and blood make us chosen, He sent forth these two baptisms from the wound of His pierced side, so that those who believed in His blood should be washed with water, and those who had washed with water should also be steeped in blood. This is the baptism which both stands in place of the washing when it has not been received, and restores it when it has been lost. Chapter 17. It remains, for the concluding of this little treatise, to give some reminder also concerning the observance of giving and receiving baptism. Of giving, the supreme right belongs to the high priest, if there be such — that is, the bishop; then to the presbyters and deacons, yet not without the bishop's authority, on account of the honour of the Church, in the safeguarding of which peace is safe. Otherwise, laymen too have the right: 'for what is received on equal terms can be given on equal terms.'
'unless the disciples of the Lord are now to be called bishops or presbyters or deacons — that is, just as the word ought not to be hidden by anyone, so too baptism, which is likewise God's endowment, may be administered by all.' But how much more does the discipline of modesty and restraint press upon laymen, since these things belong to their betters, that they should not arrogate to themselves the office assigned to the bishop! 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. It suffices, of course, that in cases of necessity you make use of it, wherever the condition of place, or of time, or of person compels;
for then the steadfastness of one who comes to the rescue is welcome when the circumstance of one in peril presses hard, since he will be guilty of a man's perdition if he refrains from providing what he could freely have provided. But the boldness of a woman who has usurped the right to teach will not, of course, seize for herself also the right of baptizing — unless perhaps some new beast should come, like the former one, so that just as she abolished baptism, so another should of herself confer it. But if certain persons, on the authority of the Acts of Paul — which are falsely written — cite the example of Thecla to license women to teach and baptize, let them know that in Asia the presbyter who put together that writing, as though heaping it up out of his own store under Paul's title, was convicted, and, having confessed that he did it out of love for Paul, was deposed from his office.
For how close to the faith does it seem that He should give a woman the power of teaching and baptizing, who did not even steadfastly permit a woman to learn? 'Let them be silent,' He says, 'and consult their own husbands at home.' Chapter 18. As for the rest, they know whose office it is that baptism is not to be entrusted rashly. 'Give to everyone who asks you' has its own heading, belonging properly to almsgiving. Rather, that other saying is to be regarded: 'Do not give what is holy to the dogs, and do not cast your pearl before swine,' and, 'Lay not hands hastily on anyone, nor share in the sins of others.' But if, because Philip so easily baptized the eunuch, someone objects, let us reflect that a manifest and express approval of the Lord had intervened. The Spirit had commanded Philip to set out upon that road;
the eunuch himself too was found not idle, nor one who suddenly craved to be baptized, but one who had gone up to the temple for the sake of prayer, absorbed in the divine Scripture. Thus it was fitting that he should be found to whom God had of His own accord sent an apostle, whom again the Spirit bade join himself to the eunuch's chariot. The Scripture of his very faith met him at the right time, he is exhorted and taken up, the Lord is set before him, faith does not delay, the water is not waited for, and, the business being completed, the apostle is snatched away. And Paul too was in truth quickly baptized: for quickly had Simon his host recognized him to be a vessel appointed of election. God's approval sends its prerogatives before it: every request both can deceive and can be deceived.
And so, according to the condition and disposition, and even the age, of each person, the deferring of baptism is more useful — especially, however, in the case of little children. For what need is there, if there be no such need, that the sponsors too should be brought into peril, who by their own mortality may fail to keep their promises, and may be disappointed by the growth of an evil disposition? The Lord indeed says, 'Do not forbid them to come to Me.' Let them come, then, while they are growing up, while they are learning, while they are being 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? Men act more cautiously in worldly matters, so that divine things should not be entrusted to one to whom earthly substance is not entrusted. Let them learn to ask for salvation, that you may seem to have given to one who asks.
With no less cause the unmarried too should be postponed, in whom temptation is prepared — for virgins through their ripeness, and for widows through their roving — until they either marry or are strengthened in continence. Whoever understand the weight of baptism will fear its attainment more than its delay. An entire faith is secure of salvation. Chapter 19. Passover affords a more solemn day for baptism, since the Lord's passion, in which we are baptized, was fulfilled then. And it will not be inappropriate to interpret it as a figure that, when the Lord was about to keep the last Passover and sent His disciples to prepare it, He said, 'You will meet a man carrying water': by the sign of water He indicated the place for celebrating the Passover.
After that, Pentecost is a most joyful span for arranging baptisms, in which both the Lord's resurrection was frequently made known among the disciples, and the grace of the Holy Spirit was dedicated, and the hope of the Lord's coming was intimated — because at that time, when He had been received back into the heavens, the angels said to the apostles that He would so come as He had also ascended into the heavens, namely at Pentecost. Moreover, when Jeremiah says, 'And I will gather them together from the ends of the earth on the feast-day of the Passover,' he signifies also the day of Pentecost, which is properly a feast-day. But for the rest, every day is the Lord's; every hour, every season is fit for baptism. If there be a difference as to solemnity, as to grace there is none. Chapter 20.
Those about to enter baptism ought to pray with frequent prayers, with fasts and kneelings and vigils, and with the confession of all their past offences, so as to set forth even the baptism of John: 'They were baptized,' it says, 'confessing their sins' — and we are to be congratulated if we do not confess our iniquities or shameful deeds publicly. For at the same time we make satisfaction for former sins by the mortification of flesh and spirit, and we build up beforehand defences against the temptations to follow. 'Watch and pray,' He says, 'lest you fall into temptation.' And therefore, I believe, they were tempted because they had fallen asleep, so that they abandoned the Lord when He was seized, and he who had stood by Him and used the sword even denied Him three times.
For it had also been said beforehand that no one would attain the heavenly kingdoms untempted. The Lord Himself, immediately after His baptism, was beset by temptations when He had performed forty days of fasting. 'Therefore we too,' someone will say, 'ought rather to fast after our baptism.' And indeed who forbids it — unless the necessity of joy, the gladness for salvation? But the Lord, as I reckon in some small measure, turned back a reproach against Israel itself, drawn from a figure. For the people, having crossed the sea and been carried into the wilderness, though for forty years they were nourished there with divine provisions, nonetheless were more mindful of their belly and gullet than of God.
Then the Lord, after the water, having withdrawn into the desert and passed through forty days of fasting, showed that the man of God lives not by bread but by the word of God, and that the temptations set beside the fullness and immoderation of the belly are shattered by abstinence. Therefore, blessed ones, whom the grace of God awaits, when you ascend from that most holy washing of the new birth and open your first hands with the brethren in your Mother's house, ask of the Father, ask of the Lord, that special endowments of grace, distributions of gifts, may be granted. 'Ask, and you shall receive,' He says. Indeed you have sought, and you have found; you have knocked, and it has been opened to you. Only this I pray, that when you ask you may also remember Tertullian the sinner. HERE ENDS THE BOOK OF TERTULLIAN ON BAPTISM.