Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

Chapter XV.
Reply to the suggested objection that we are baptized “into water.” Also concerning baptism.
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 reason 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, 1004 lowliness, and long
suffering set us in His life, but also of His actual death. So Paul, the imitator of Christ, 1005
says, “being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead.” 1006 How then are we made in the likeness of His death? 1007 In
that we were buried 1008 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 unless a man be born again, according
to the Lord’s word; 1009 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, 1010 a kind of halt and
pause intervenes between the movements in the opposite direction, so also in making a
1004 ἀοργησία in Arist. Eth. iv. 5, 5, is the defect where meekness (πραότης) is the mean. In Plutarch, who
wrote a short treatise on it, it is a virtue. In Mark iii. 5, Jesus looked round on them “with anger,” μετ᾽ ὀργῆς,
but in Matt. xi. 29, He calls Himself πρᾷος.
1005 cf. 1 Cor. xi. 1.
1006 Phil. iii. 10, 11.
1007 Rom. vi. 4, 5.
1008 A.V., “are buried.” Grk. and R.V., “were buried.”
1009 John iii. 3.
Reply to the suggested objection that we are baptized “into water.” Also…
1010 In the double course (δίαυλος) the runner turned (κάμπτω) the post at the end of the stadium. So
“κάμψαι διαύλον θάτερον κῶλον πάλιν” in Æsch. Ag. 335, for retracing one’s steps another way.
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