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34. What more? Verily, our opponents are well equipped with
arguments. We are baptized, they urge, into water, and of course we
shall not honour the water above all creation, or give it a share of
the honour of the Father and of the Son. The arguments of these men
are such as might be expected from angry disputants, leaving no means
untried in their attack on him who has offended them, because their
reason is clouded over by their feelings. We will not, however,
shrink from the discussion even of these points. If we do not teach
the ignorant, at least we shall not turn away before evil doers.But
let us for a moment retrace our steps.
35. The dispensation of our God and Saviour concerning man is a
recall from the fall and a return from the alienation caused by
disobedience to close communion with God. This is the mason for the
sojourn of Christ in the flesh, the pattern life described in the
Gospels, the sufferings, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection; so
that the man who is being saved through imitation of Christ receives
that old adoption. For perfection of life the imitation of Christ is
necessary, not only in the example of gentleness, lowliness, and long
suffering set us in His life, but also of His actual death. So
Paul, the imitator of Christ, says, "being made conformable unto
his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the
dead." How then are we made in the likeness of His death? In that
we were buried with Him by baptism. What then is the manner of the
burial? And what is the advantage resulting from the imitation?
First of all, it is necessary that the continuity of the old life be
cut. And this is impossible less a man be born again, according to
the Lord's word; for the regeneration, as indeed the name shews, is
a beginning of a second life. So before beginning the second, it is
necessary to put an end to the first. For just as in the case of
runners who turn and take the second course, a kind of halt and pause
intervenes between the movements in the opposite direction, so also in
making a change in lives it seemed necessary for death to come as
mediator between the two, ending all that goes before, and beginning
all that comes after. How then do we achieve the descent into hell?
By imitating, through baptism, the burial of Christ. For the
bodies of the baptized are, as it were, buried in the water. Baptism
then symbolically signifies the putting off of the works of the flesh;
as the apostle says, ye were "circumcised with the circumcision made
without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ; buried with him in baptism."
And there is, as it were, a cleansing of the soul from the filth that
has grown on it from the carnal mind, as it is written, "Thou shalt
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." On this account we do
not, as is the fashion of the Jews, wash ourselves at each
defilement, but own the baptism of salvation to be one. For there the
death on behalf of the world is one, and one the resurrection of the
dead, whereof baptism is a type. For this cause the Lord, who is
the Dispenser of our life, gave us the covenant of baptism,
containing a type of life and death, for the water fulfils the image of
death, and the Spirit gives us the earnest of life. Hence it follows
that the answer to our question why the water was associated with the
Spirit is clear: the reason is because in baptism two ends were
proposed; on the one hand, the destroying of the body of sin, that it
may never bear fruit unto death; on the other hand, our living unto
the Spirit, and having our fruit in holiness; the water receiving the
body as in a tomb figures death, while the Spirit pours in the
quickening power, renewing our souls from the deadness of sin unto
their original life. This then is what it is to be born again of water
and of the Spirit, the being made dead being effected in the water,
while our life is wrought in us through the Spirit. In three
immersions, then, and with three invocations, the great mystery of
baptism is performed, to the end that the type of death may be fully
figured, and that by the tradition of the divine knowledge the baptized
may have their souls enlightened. It follows that if there is any
grace in the water, it is not of the nature of the water, but of the
presence of the Spirit. For baptism is "not the putting away of the
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards
God." So in training us for the life that follows on the
resurrection the Lord sets out all the manner of life required by the
Gospel, laying down for us the law of gentleness, of endurance of
wrong, of freedom from the defilement that comes of the love of
pleasure, and from covetousness, to the end that we may of set purpose
win beforehand and achieve all that the life to come of its inherent
nature possesses. If therefore any one in attempting a definition were
to describe the gospel as a forecast of the life that follows on the
resurrection, he would not seem to me to go beyond what is meet and
right. Let us now return to our main topic.
36. Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise,
our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the adoption of
sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers
of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our
sharing in eternal glory, and, in a word, our being brought into a
state of all "fulness of blessing," both in this world and in the
world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us, by
promise hereof, through faith, beholding the reflection of their grace
as though they were already present, we await the full enjoyment. If
such is the earnest, what the perfection? If such the first fruits,
what the complete fulfilment? Furthermore, from this too may be
apprehended the difference between the grace that comes from the Spirit
and the baptism by water: in that John indeed baptized with water,
but our Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost. "I indeed," he
says, "baptize you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh
after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he
shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Here He
calls the trial at the judgment the baptism of fire, as the apostle
says, "The fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is."
And again, "The day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed
by fire." And ere now there have been some who in their championship
of true religion have undergone the death for Christ's sake, not in
mere similitude, but in actual fact, and so have needed none of the
outward signs of water for their salvation, because they were baptized
in their own blood. Thus I write not to disparage the baptism by
water, but to overthrow the arguments of those who exalt themselves
against the Spirit; who confound things that are distinct from one
another, and compare those which admit of no comparison.
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