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

Reply to the suggested objection that we are baptized “into water.” Also…
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. 1028 Thus I write not to disparage the baptism by water, but to overthrow the
arguments 1029 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.
1028 On the martyrs’ baptism of blood, cf. Eus. vi. 4, on the martyrdom of the Catechumen Herais. So St.
Cyril, of Jerusalem (Cat. Lect. iii. 10), “If a man receive not baptism, he has not salvation; excepting only the
martyrs, even who without the water receive the kingdom. For when the Saviour was ransoming the world
through the cross, and was pierced in the side, He gave forth blood and water, that some in times of peace should
be baptized in water; others in time of persecution, in their own blood.” So Tertullian (In Valentin. ii.) of the
Holy Innocents, “baptized in blood for Jesus’ sake” (Keble), “testimonium Christi sanguine litavere.”
1029 Τοὺς λογισμοὺς καθαιρῶν. cf. 2 Cor. x. 4.
189
23