BAPTISM

BAPTISM

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Clement of Alexandria (Strom, vi. circa mcd.), inreproducing the whole passage. St. Irenaeus(iii. 17) in the same way speaks of our Lord“ giving His disciples the power of regeneration,when He bade them go and teach all nations,baptising them in the name of the Father, Son,and Holy Ghost.” “ Happy the Sacrament ofwater,” says Tertullian, “which is ours, and inwhich the ill effects of our original blindnesshaving been washed away, we are set free for

eternal life.True to our prototype, Jesus

Christ, whose name is we that are named

after Him are born in water, and cannot other-wise live than by remaining in it” ( De Bapt.c. 1). “Let us therefore,” says St. Cyprian (DeZelo et Lie. c. 8), after quoting Col. iii. 1-6,“ who, according to the carnal sins of the oldinan, have both died, and are buried in baptism,and who have risen together with Christ inheavenly regeneration, let us both think and dothe things which are of Christ as the sameapostle again teaches and admonishes (1 Cor. xv.47-9).” “On entering the baptistery,” saysSt. Cyril (Cat. xx. 2), “you put off your gar-ments—a type of the old man which you haveput off also. Stripped of your garments, youwere naked, imitating Christ on the Cross: Whothus ‘ having spoiled principalities, made a showof them openly, triumphing over them in it.’Afterwards, you were brought to the font, asChrist was from the cross to the sepulchre.There, each one was asked if he believed on thename of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then,having made this salutary confession, you wentdown into the water thrice, and came out again:thus symbolising in figure the days passed byChrist in the grave.” The difficulty, in extract-ing such passages, is where to stop. Equallystriking is the incorporation, which Dr. Puseyfills pages in shewing (p. 35 et seq . and p. 58et seq .), of those texts, John iii. 3 and Tit. iii. 5,into “ every baptismal Liturgy, from Britain toIndia.” That there was but one baptism is afurther point which the fathers were unanimousin insisting upon : so much so, that a professiouto that effect was at length inserted in the creedof the church. Hence, in affirming that thebaptism of blood, or martyrdom—the baptismwith which our Lord was baptised after that ofJohn, as Tertullian says (De Bapt. c. 16)—wasof equal, if not superior, efficacy to that ofwater, they did not mean that when baptisedChristians were martyred, they were rebaptised:but only that those who were martyred, if theyhad not been baptised previously, were baptisedthen. In the same way, there was no real dif-ference in principle between those who were forbaptising heretics coming over to the church,and those who were for receiving them withimposition of hands only. Firmilian vindicatedhis practice from custom, as well as pope Stephen(ap. S. Cypr. Ep. 75 ; comp, what Dionysius ofAlexandria says in Euseb. H. E. vii. 7). St.Cyprian and the Easterns who supported himheld that baptism administered by heretics wasno baptism at all: consequently, that there wasno question of re-baptising them, when that ritewas administered to them for the first time inthe church. Any that had been baptised in thechurch, he says, in express terms, he neverreceived otherwise than by imposition of hands,did they fall away and return (Ep., 74, ad fin.).

Firmilian (Ep. 75) seems to have been pmiliaiin baptising those who had received baptismfrom regularly consecrated bishops, becomeheretics. But this was exceptional to the ques-tion then at issue, which was, whether hereticscoming over to the church, who had never beenin the church before, were to be baptised or not.

“ Some of my colleagues,” he says, “ unaccount-ably suppose that heretics ought not to bebaptised: because, say they, there is but onebaptism. Now, why is there but one, exceptbecause the church is one: and there can be no

baptism outside the church? (Ep. 71).If

you grant that heretics can baptise,” he says inanother place, “you cannot deny there are asmany churches as heresies ” (Ep. 76). Heargued, in general, from the unity of the church,and from that alone. Had it been the eucharist,instead of the baptism of heretics that was beingdiscussed, his opponents would have agreed withhim to a man. Even St. Augustine (De Bapt. c.Don. i. 15-18, and iv. 23 et seq .), the most out-spoken of them all, maintained that hereticalbaptism, though valid, carried with it no re-mission of sins, nor had any saving efficacy what-ever, till its recipients joined the church. Forsome reason or other, the tendency from apostolictimes downwards has been to minimise restric-tions both in administering and receiving bap-tism, and to multiply them in administeringand receiving the eucharist. As anybody mightreceive baptism, anybody might confer it. Any-body might be the means of bringing anybody toChrist. Lay-baptism, as has been pointed out,would seem to have been authorised by our LordHimself; deacon-baptism by His apostles. Inthe same way, according to the teaching of thefathers, to which we shall return again, any-body might baptise. They were led to say thison the same principle that they administeredbaptism to infants: namely, from the sense theyentertained of its overwhelming necessity tosalvation—a necessity which they were unani-mous in finding laid down in those words of ourLord which St. John records, and in the Epistleof St. Paul to the Romans — overwhelming,indeed, yet not absolute. St. Augustine maysuffice to be cited on both points. “Hear thegospel,” he says (Serm. ccxciv. 8 and 16), “youthat are for seuding unbaptised infants into thekingdom of heaven—hear the gospel: * Except aman be born of water and of the Spirit, hecannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ It isthe Lord who speaks thus: whom nobody resists,but he that is no Christian ..... Wherefore letno man deceive us. The Scripture is of theclearest: the authority of the highest; the faithmost catholic. Everybody that is born is con-demned : nobody save the regenerated is setfree.” Further on, he quotes St. Cyprian in hisfavour, as follows:—“Moreover, if the greatestof sinners may obtain remission of their worstsins on believing, and baptism and grace aredenied to none, how much less ought it to bedenied to the infant, who, just- born, has neversinned, except that he has inherited the con-tagion of the old death transmitted to him fromAdam, through his birth according to the flesh,and who therefore may come with all the moreassurance to receive remission of sins, as the sinswhich are forgiven him are not his own ” 19,

and St. Cypr. Ep. 59). That infant baptism waa