On Baptism

But how great is the power of perversity in undermining faith, or in refusing to receive it at all, so as to attack it from the very things on which it rests. Nothing so hardens the minds of men as the simplicity of the divine works when seen in the act, and the greatness which is promised in the effect: so that here too, since with such great simplicity, without pomp, without any novel apparatus, without expense, a man is lowered into the water and baptized amid a few words, and rises up not much cleaner, or no cleaner at all, the attainment of eternity is for that reason deemed incredible. I lie, if the solemn rites and mysteries of idols do not, on the contrary, build up faith and authority for themselves by their platform and apparatus and expense. Alas, wretched unbelief, which denies to God his own properties, simplicity and power. What then? Is it not wonderful that death should be washed away by a bath?

Nay, it is all the more to be believed, if, because it is wonderful, it is for that reason not believed. For what manner of things ought the works of God to be, if not beyond all admiration? We ourselves also marvel, but because we believe. Unbelief, on the other hand, marvels but does not believe. For it marvels at simple things as though they were vain, and at great things as though they were impossible. And let it be plainly as you think; the divine pronouncement has sufficiently anticipated both cases: God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wisdom thereof, and Things very 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—it is fitting that he has established the materials of his working in the opposites of wisdom and power, that is, in foolishness and impossibility. For all virtue receives its occasion from those things by which it is challenged.

Mindful of this pronouncement, as of a rule, we nonetheless treat of how foolish and impossible it is that a man should be reformed by water. What indeed has this material merited so great a condescension of office? In my opinion, the authority of the liquid element must be examined. And indeed it is very great, and from the very beginning. For it is one of those things which, before the whole fabric of the world, still unformed in appearance, rested with God: In the beginning, it says, God made heaven and earth. But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was upon the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the waters. You have, O man, first of all reason to revere the age of the waters, as an ancient substance; then their dignity, as the seat of the divine Spirit, more pleasing evidently than the other elements at that time.

For even the darkness was still wholly without the adornment of stars and formless, and the deep was gloomy, and the earth unprepared, and the sky unformed: the liquid alone, ever a perfect material, joyful, simple, pure of itself, offered a worthy vehicle to God. What of the fact that thenceforth the ordering of the world was constituted by God by means of waters as its modulators in a certain way? For, to suspend the heavenly firmament, he made it by dividing the waters in the midst; and, to lay bare the dry land, he accomplished it by separating the waters. Then, after the world had been ordered through its elements, when inhabitants were to be given to it, the waters were first commanded to bring forth living souls. The first liquid brought forth what had life—let it be no wonder, then, in Baptism, if waters have learned to give life. For even the work of fashioning man himself was completed with the cooperation of waters.

The material was of earth, to be sure, yet not workable unless wet and moist, which the waters, separated before the fourth day into their own station, had tempered into clay with the moisture remaining. If from this point I were to pursue all or most things that I might recount concerning the authority of this element—how great its power or grace, how many its uses, how many its offices, what an instrument it furnishes to the world—I fear I might seem to be gathering praises of water rather than the rationale of Baptism. Though I might thereby teach more fully that there should be no doubt, if the material which God has disposed in all his works and deeds he has also made to serve in his own sacraments; if that which governs earthly life also provides for the heavenly.

But it will be sufficient to have gathered those things in which the rationale of Baptism is also recognized—that first one, by which even then, in its very bearing, it was pre-figured as a type of Baptism: that the Spirit of God, which from the beginning was borne over the waters, would reform those who were baptized. Now the Holy was borne over the holy; or else that which was borne upon received holiness from that which bore it. For every material subject must necessarily take on the quality of that which hovers over it, especially the corporeal from the spiritual, which is easy to penetrate and to settle in by reason of the fineness of its substance. Thus, the nature of the waters being sanctified from the Holy One, they themselves also conceived the power to sanctify. Let no one say: Are we then baptized in those very waters which existed then in the beginning? Not in those very waters, except insofar as the genus is one, though the species are many.

But what has been attributed to the genus overflows also into the species. And therefore it makes no difference whether one is washed in the sea or a pool, in a river or a spring, in a lake or a channel; nor does it matter at all between those whom John baptized in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber. Unless also that eunuch, whom Philip baptized along the road with water found by chance, obtained more or less salvation. Therefore all waters, by virtue of the ancient prerogative of their origin, attain the sacrament of sanctification when God is invoked. For the Spirit straightway comes down from heaven and rests upon the waters, sanctifying them from himself, and thus being sanctified they drink in the power of sanctifying. Although a likeness may suit the simple act, in that, since we are defiled by sins in the manner of filth, we are washed by waters.

But sins, just as they do not appear in the flesh—for no one carries on his skin the stain of idolatry, or of fornication, or of fraud—so they are foul in the spirit, which is the author of the sin. For the spirit rules, the flesh serves; yet both share the guilt with each other, the spirit by reason of command, the flesh by reason of service. Therefore, the waters being in a manner medicated through the intervention of the Angel, the spirit is corporally washed in the waters, and the flesh is spiritually cleansed in the same.

But indeed the foreign nations, estranged from all understanding of spiritual powers, supply the same efficacy to their idols, but with waters that are widowed, they deceive themselves. For they are also initiated into certain sacred rites by means of a bath—of some Isis or Mithras; they even carry their own gods in procession with washings. Moreover, villas, houses, temples, and whole cities they purify everywhere by sprinkling with water carried about; certainly at the Apollinarian and Eleusinian games they are baptized. And they presume that this brings about for them regeneration and impunity for their perjuries. Likewise among the ancients, whoever had defiled himself with murder would expiate himself with purifying water. Therefore, if they flatter themselves with water on the basis of nature alone—that it is the proper material for washing, as a token of cleansing—how much more truly will waters accomplish this through the authority of God, by whom their whole nature was established?

If they think that water is made efficacious by religion, what religion is more powerful than that of the living God? In recognizing this, we also recognize here the zeal of the devil, who imitates the things of God, since he too exercises Baptism among his own. What resemblance is there? The unclean cleanses, the destroyer liberates, the condemned absolves. He will evidently destroy his own work by washing away the sins which he himself inspires. These things have been set down as testimony against those who reject the faith, if they do not believe in the things of God, in whose imitations among the rival of God they do believe. Does not the unclean spirit also in other ways, without any sacrament, brood over waters, seeking after that bearing of the divine Spirit upon them in the beginning? All murky springs know this, and all out-of-the-way streams, and pools in baths, and channels in houses or cisterns, and wells, which are said to snatch people away—by the force, that is, of a harmful spirit.

For they also call those who have been killed or driven mad or made hydrophobic those whom the waters have slain or afflicted with madness or terror. To what end have we recalled these things? Lest anyone should find it too hard to believe that a holy Angel of God is present at the tempering of waters for the salvation of man, when an evil angel frequents the profane commerce of the same element for the destruction of man. If it seems new that an Angel should intervene in the waters, an example of what was to come ran before. An Angel intervening stirred the pool of Bethsaida; those who were troubled with ill health watched for it. For if anyone had gone down there first, he ceased to complain after the bath. This figure of bodily medicine foretold spiritual medicine, in that form by which carnal things always precede as a figure of spiritual things.

As therefore the grace of God advanced among men, more was added to the waters and to the Angel: those who remedied the defects of the body now heal the spirit; those who worked temporal salvation now restore eternal salvation; those who freed one person once a year now preserve peoples daily, death being abolished through the washing away of sins. With guilt removed, punishment too is removed. Thus man is restored to God in his likeness, he who formerly had been made in the image of God; the image is reckoned in the outward form, the likeness in eternity. For he receives again that Spirit of God which he had then received from his breath, but afterwards lost through sin.

Not that we receive the Holy Spirit in the waters; but being cleansed in the water under the Angel, we are prepared for the Holy Spirit. Here too a figure went before. For just as John was the forerunner of the Lord, preparing his ways: so also the Angel, the overseer of Baptism, makes straight the ways for the Holy Spirit that is to come, by the washing away of sins, which faith obtains, sealed in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For if every word shall stand by three witnesses, how much more, when we have through the blessing those same arbiters of faith who are also the guarantors of salvation, does even the number of the divine names suffice for the confidence of our hope? But when, under three, both the testimony of faith and the pledge of salvation are secured, mention of the Church is necessarily added; because where three are, that is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is the Church, which is the body of the three.

Next, the hand is laid on, calling upon and inviting the Holy Spirit through blessing. Surely human ingenuity will be permitted to summon a spirit into water and to animate the union of these two, by the application of hands from above, with another spirit of such great brightness; but God will not be permitted in his own instrument to modulate spiritual sublimity through holy hands? But this too is from the ancient sacrament, by which Jacob blessed his grandsons through Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, with hands laid upon their heads and crossed over, and indeed so crossed obliquely upon each other that, forming the figure of Christ, they already then foretold the blessing that was to come in Christ.

Then that most holy Spirit willingly descends from the Father upon cleansed and blessed bodies, rests upon the waters of Baptism as upon his ancient seat recognized again, having descended in the form of a dove upon the Lord, so that the nature of the Holy Spirit might be declared through an animal of simplicity and of innocence, because even bodily the dove lacks gall itself. And therefore He says: Be ye, He says, simple as doves, not even this without the evidence of the preceding figure.

For just as after the waters of the flood, by which ancient iniquity was purged, after the Baptism (so to speak) of the world, the dove, herald of heavenly wrath appeased, announced peace to the earth, sent forth from the ark and returning with the olive branch; which sign is also held out among the nations as a token of peace: by the same arrangement of spiritual effect upon the earth, that is upon our flesh emerging from the washing after old sins, the dove of the Holy Spirit flies down, bringing the peace of God, sent forth from the heavens, where the Church is prefigured as the ark. But the world sins again, by which comparison Baptism is ill-matched with the flood. And so it is destined for fire, just as also the man who after Baptism renews his sins, so that this too ought to be received as a sign of warning to us.

How many patronages of nature, then, how many privileges of grace, how many solemn observances of discipline, figures, prefigurations, prayers have ordered the religion of water? First indeed, when the people, freely delivered from Egypt, escaping the power of the king of Egypt by passing through the water, the water itself extinguished that same king with all his forces. What figure is more manifest in the sacrament of Baptism? Nations are freed from the world through water, and they leave behind the devil, their former master, overwhelmed in the water. Likewise water is remedied from the fault of bitterness to its own sweetness by the wood of Moses. That wood was Christ, healing from itself the most unwholesome veins of a formerly poisonous and bitter nature, the waters of Baptism, that is. This is the water which flowed from the accompanying rock for the people. For if the rock is Christ, without doubt we see the water in Christ blessed for Baptism. How great is the grace of water before God and His Christ for the confirmation of Baptism.

Christ is never without water, since He Himself also is baptized in water. The first rudiments of His power, invited to a wedding, He inaugurates with water. When He delivers a discourse, He invites the thirsty to His own eternal water. When He teaches concerning the agape, He approves the cup of water offered to a brother among the works of charity. At a well He recovers His strength; He walks upon water willingly, He crosses the sea; He ministers water to His disciples; the testimony of Baptism persists even to His passion; when He is delivered 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 spoken, as far as our modest ability permitted, concerning all the things which establish the religion of Baptism; now I shall proceed to the remaining state of it, from which I will advance as best I can through certain minor questions. Baptism announced by John already at that time had a question put to it by the Lord Himself, proposed to the Pharisees, whether that Baptism was heavenly or earthly. Concerning which they were unable to answer consistently, since they did not understand, because they did not believe. We, moreover, with however small a faith we have, can with equally small understanding estimate that it was indeed a divine Baptism, yet by mandate and not also by power, since we read that John was sent by the Lord for this office, but otherwise human in condition. For it conferred nothing heavenly, but ministered beforehand to heavenly things, being set over repentance, that is, which is in man's power. Hence the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, who were unwilling to believe, neither did penance.

But if repentance is human, the Baptism of it must necessarily be of the same condition; otherwise it would give both the Holy Spirit and remission of sins, if it had been heavenly. But neither does it remit sin, nor does it bestow the Spirit, save God alone. Even the Lord Himself, unless He had first ascended to the Father, denied otherwise that the Spirit would descend. What the Lord was not yet conferring, a servant could certainly not provide. So afterwards in the Acts of the Apostles we find, that those who had the Baptism of John had not received the Holy Spirit, whom they had not even known by hearing: therefore it was not heavenly, which did not exhibit heavenly things: since that very thing which had been heavenly in John, the spirit of prophecy, after the translation of the whole Spirit to the Lord, had so far ceased that he whom he had proclaimed, whom he had pointed out as coming, he afterwards sent to ask whether He was the one.

The Baptism of repentance was therefore being administered, as a candidate, so to speak, for the remission and sanctification that would follow in Christ. For what the Baptism of repentance proclaimed in remission of sins was announced as a future remission. Since repentance comes first, remission follows after, and this is to prepare the way: but he who prepares does not himself also perfect it, but procures it to be perfected by another. He himself declares that his things are not heavenly but Christ's, saying: He that is of the earth, of the earth he speaketh: he that cometh from above is above all. Likewise, that he baptizes in repentance alone; that one was soon to come who would baptize in spirit and fire. That is, because the true and steadfast faith of water by which one is baptized is unto salvation; but the feigned and weak is baptized by fire unto judgment.

But behold, someone says, the Lord came and did not baptize. For we read: And yet He Himself did not baptize, but His disciples, because, in truth, John had proclaimed that He Himself would baptize with His own hands. This is certainly not to be understood in that way, but is said simply in the common manner. Just as, for example, the Emperor issued an edict, or the Prefect beat with rods; does he himself issue it, or does he himself beat? He is always said to do a thing by whom it is administered. So it is to be understood. He shall baptize you, in place of what it is: you shall be baptized through Him, or into Him. But let it not trouble some that He Himself did not baptize. For into what would He baptize? Into repentance? Then what need had they of a forerunner? Into remission of sins, which He gave by a word? Into Himself, whom He was concealing in humility? 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 them as forerunner, with the same Baptism of John—lest anyone suppose it was a different one—since no other existed except afterwards that of Christ, which at that time certainly could not be given by the disciples, inasmuch as the glory of the Lord had not yet been fulfilled, nor the efficacy of the washing established through the passion and resurrection: because neither could our death be dissolved except by the Lord's passion, nor life restored without His resurrection.

But when it is laid down as a rule that salvation belongs to none without Baptism, chiefly from that pronouncement of the Lord who says: Unless one shall have been born of water, he has not life, there arise the scrupulous, nay rash, reconsiderations of certain persons, as to how salvation belongs to the Apostles under this rule, since we do not find them baptized by the Lord, except Paul. Indeed, since Paul alone of them put on the Baptism of Christ, either judgment must be passed on the peril of the rest who lack the water of Christ, so that the rule may stand, or the rule must be rescinded, if salvation is established even for the unbaptized. I have heard, the Lord being my witness, persons of this sort, lest anyone think me so abandoned as to stir up of my own accord, out of the pleasure of the pen, things that cast a stumbling-block upon others. And now I will answer them as best I can, those who deny that the Apostles were baptized.

For if they had entered upon the human Baptism of John and desired the Lord's, inasmuch as the Lord Himself had defined one Baptism, saying to Peter who was unwilling to be washed: He that has washed once has no need to wash again: which He certainly would not have said to one not baptized at all: and this is the clear proof against those who take away from the Apostles even the Baptism of John, so as to destroy the sacrament of water. Can it seem credible that in those persons the way of the Lord was then prepared, that is the Baptism of John, 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? What then? Were others not baptized? Not, however, the companions of Christ, but rivals in faith, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees.

Hence it is also suggested that, since those who opposed the Lord were unwilling to be baptized, those who followed the Lord had been baptized, and had not shared the mind of their rivals, especially since the Lord to whom they clung had extolled John by his testimony, saying: No one, He says, greater among those born of women than John the Baptist. Others indeed, with sufficient strain, interject that the apostles then fulfilled the role of Baptism when they were sprinkled and covered by the waves in the boat; and that Peter himself, walking upon the sea, was sufficiently immersed. In my opinion, however, it is one thing to be sprinkled or seized by the violence of the sea, another to be baptized by the discipline of religion.

Moreover, that boat bore the figure of the Church, which on the sea, that is the world, is troubled by waves, that is persecutions and temptations, while the Lord sleeps as it were through patience, until, roused in the last times by the prayers of the saints, He restrains the world and restores tranquility to His own. Now whether they were baptized in some manner or other, or persisted unbaptized, so that even that saying of the Lord, concerning the one washing in the person of Peter, may apply to us alone, yet concerning the salvation of the Apostles it is sufficiently rash to judge, because to them the prerogative of the first calling, and thenceforth of inseparable intimacy, could confer the benefit of Baptism. With Him, I think, they were following Him who promised salvation to each believer: Thy faith, He said, hath made thee whole, and: Thy sins are forgiven thee, to one who believed certainly, yet was not baptized.

If the Apostles lacked this, I know not whose faith: raised by one word of the Lord, he left the tax-booth; he forsook his father, and his boat, and the trade by which he sustained his life; he despised his father's funeral rites: that supreme precept of the Lord: He that hath preferred father or mother before me is not worthy of me, he fulfilled before he heard it.

Here therefore those most wicked persons provoke questions. So, they say, Baptism is not necessary for those to whom faith is sufficient, for Abraham also pleased God by no sacrament of water but of faith. But in all things later things conclude, and what follows prevails over what precedes. Let salvation have been formerly through naked faith before the passion and resurrection of the Lord. But when faith was enlarged by believing in His nativity, passion, and resurrection, an enlargement was added to the sacrament, the sealing of Baptism: a garment, as it were, of the faith which formerly was naked and had no power without its own law. For the law of baptizing was imposed, and the 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 one shall have been born again of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, which bound faith to the necessity of Baptism.

And so from that time all believers were baptized. Then also Paul, when he believed, was baptized. And this is what the Lord had commanded in that stroke of blindness: Arise, He said, and go into Damascus, there it shall be shown thee what thou must do, namely to be baptized, which alone was lacking to him. Otherwise he had sufficiently learned and believed that the Nazarene was the Lord the Son of God.

But concerning the Apostle himself they bring up what he said: For Christ sent me not to baptize, as if by this argument Baptism were taken away. For why 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 according to the condition of that time, because schisms and dissensions were being stirred up among them, while one attributed himself to Paul, another to Apollos. On account of which the peaceable Apostle, lest he should seem to claim everything for himself, says he was sent not to baptize but to preach. For preaching comes first, baptizing second. If preaching came first: I think moreover it was also permitted to baptize to him to whom it was permitted to preach.

I know not whether anything further is being ventilated in the controversy concerning Baptism. I will indeed retrace what I omitted above, lest I seem to cut short thoughts that press upon me. There is for us one Baptism altogether, both from the Lord's Gospel and from the Apostle's letters; since there is one Lord and one Baptism and one Church in the heavens. But concerning heretics, what is to be observed may worthily be reconsidered by someone; for it has been set forth for us. Heretics, however, have no fellowship with our discipline, since they are declared to be outsiders by the very withdrawal of communion. I ought not to recognize among them what has been enjoined upon me, because God is not the same for us and for them, nor is Christ one, that is, the same. And therefore neither is Baptism one, because it is not the same.

Since they do not have it rightly, without doubt they do not have it, nor can what is not held be counted as held: and so neither can they receive it, because they do not have it. But concerning this matter a fuller treatment has already been set out by us in Greek. Once, therefore, we enter the washing; once sins are washed away, because they ought not to be repeated. Otherwise Israel, the Jew, washes daily, because he is defiled daily. Lest this also be done repeatedly among us, for this reason it has been determined that there is one washing. Happy is the water which washes once, which is not a mockery to sinners, which, not infected by the constant recurrence of filth, does not again defile those whom it has cleansed.

There is indeed for us also a second washing, 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 by water, glorified by blood; and likewise to make us, called by water, chosen by blood. These two baptisms He sent forth from the wound of His pierced side, so that those who believed in His blood might be washed by water; those who had been washed by water might also drink His blood. This is the Baptism which both stands in place of the washing not yet received, and restores that which has been lost.

It remains, to conclude this little subject, to give admonition also concerning the observance of giving and receiving Baptism. The right of giving it indeed belongs to the chief priest, who is the bishop. Thereafter to presbyters and deacons, yet not without the bishop's authority, for the honor of the Church. With that preserved, peace is preserved. Otherwise, laymen also have the right. For what is received equally can be given equally, unless bishops or presbyters or deacons are now called learners; the word of the Lord ought not to be hidden from anyone. Accordingly, Baptism likewise, being equally God's property, can be administered by all; but how much more does the discipline of modesty and restraint press upon laymen, since it is fitting for those of higher rank, lest they take upon themselves the office of the bishop, which is consecrated to the episcopate. Rivalry is the mother of schisms. All things are lawful, said the most holy Apostle, but not all things are expedient.

Let it suffice, that is, in cases of necessity you make use of it, wherever the condition of place, or time, or person compels. For then the steadfastness of one who comes to the rescue is accepted, when the circumstance of one in peril is urgent. For he will be guilty of a lost man's destruction if he has refrained from offering what he was freely able to offer. But the impudence of a woman who has usurped the right to teach will assuredly not also bring her the right of baptizing, unless some new beast should arise similar to the former one: so that just as that one took away Baptism, so some woman might confer it by herself.

But if certain writings which are falsely ascribed to Paul are cited in defense of the license of women to teach and to baptize, on the example of Thecla; let them know that in Asia the presbyter who composed that writing, as if adding to Paul's authority from his own store, was convicted and confessed that he had done it out of love for Paul, and resigned his position. For how credible would it seem that he who did not even steadily permit a woman to learn should give a woman the power of teaching and baptizing: Let them be silent, and at home consult their husbands.

Furthermore, those whose office it is know that Baptism is not to be conferred rashly. Give to every one that asketh thee has its own proper application, pertaining likewise to almsgiving. Rather this is to be considered: Give not that which is holy to dogs, and cast not your pearls before swine, and lay hands on no man hastily, lest you be partaker of other men's sins. If Philip so readily baptized the eunuch, let us reflect that the manifest and express condescension of the Lord had intervened. The Spirit had commanded Philip to go along that road; the eunuch himself was found not idle, nor one who had suddenly conceived a desire to be baptized: but he had set out to the temple for the purpose of prayer, and was 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, to whom again the Spirit commanded him to join himself to the eunuch's chariot; the Scripture itself met his faith at the right moment, he is exhorted and takes it up, the Lord is shown to him, faith does not delay, water is not waited for, the Apostle is snatched away when the business is completed. But Paul too was indeed baptized quickly. For Simon his host had quickly recognized that he was a vessel of election appointed by God. God's condescension sends its own prerogatives before it; every request can both deceive and be deceived. And so, according to the condition and disposition of each person's character, and also age, delay of Baptism is more advantageous: especially however in the case of little children. For what need is there to expose sponsors also to danger?

Since they themselves too through mortality may fail to fulfill their promises, and may be disappointed by the development of an evil disposition. The Lord indeed says: Forbid them not to come to me. Let them come, then, when they are growing up; let them come when they are learning, when they are being taught where they are coming to; let them become Christians when they have been able to know Christ. Why should innocent age hasten to the remission of sins? One will act more cautiously in worldly matters: to one to whom earthly substance is not entrusted, shall divine substance be entrusted? Let them know how to ask for salvation, so that you may appear to have given it to one who asked. For no less a reason the unmarried also are to be deferred, in whom temptation is prepared, as much for virgins through their ripeness as for widows through their wandering, until they either marry or are strengthened in continence.

If any understand the weight of Baptism, they will fear its reception more than its delay: faith that is whole 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 celebrate the last Passover, having sent the disciples to make preparation, He said: You will find a man carrying water; He indicated the place for celebrating the Passover by the sign of water. Thereafter Pentecost is a most ample space for arranging baptisms, during which also the Lord's resurrection was celebrated among the disciples, and the grace of the Holy Spirit was inaugurated, and the hope of the Lord's coming was intimated, because when He had then been received back into the heavens, the Angels said to the Apostles that He would come in the same manner as He had also 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 the feast day, signifies the day of the Passover and of Pentecost, which is properly the feast day. For the rest, every day is the Lord's, every hour, every time is suitable for Baptism: if there is a difference as regards solemnity, there is none as regards grace.

For the people, having crossed the sea and been brought into the wilderness, though nourished there by divine food for forty years, nevertheless remembered their belly and their gullet more than God. Then the Lord, after the water, withdrawn into the desert, having completed forty days of fasting, showed that man of God does not live by bread but by the word of God: and that temptations directed at the fullness and excess of the belly are crushed by abstinence. Therefore, blessed ones whom the grace of God awaits, when you ascend from that most holy washing of new birth, and open your first hands at the Mother's side with your brethren, ask of the Father, ask of the Lord, special gifts, graces, distributions of charisms, with the words, "Ask, and you shall receive", He says. For you have sought and found; you have knocked, and it has been opened to you. I only pray that when you make petition you may also be mindful of Tertullian the sinner.