NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Reply to the suggested objection that we are baptized “into water.” Also concerningbaptism.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 arebaptized, 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 menare such as might be expected from angry disputants, leaving no means untried in their attackon him who has offended them, because their reason is clouded over by their feelings. Wewill not, however, shrink from the discussion even of these points. If we do not teach theignorant, at least we shall not turn away before evil doers. But let us for a moment retraceour steps.35. The dispensation of our God and Saviour concerning man is a recall from the falland 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 theGospels, the sufferings, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection; so that the man who is beingsaved through imitation of Christ receives that old adoption. For perfection of life the imitationof Christ is necessary, not only in the example of gentleness, 1004 lowliness, and longsuffering set us in His life, but also of His actual death. So Paul, the imitator of Christ, 1005says, “being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrectionof the dead.” 1006 How then are we made in the likeness of His death? 1007 Inthat we were buried 1008 with Him by baptism. What then is the manner of the burial? Andwhat is the advantage resulting from the imitation? First of all, it is necessary that the continuityof the old life be cut. And this is impossible less a man be born again, according tothe Lord’s word; 1009 for the regeneration, as indeed the name shews, is a beginning of asecond life. So before beginning the second, it is necessary to put an end to the first. Forjust as in the case of runners who turn and take the second course, 1010 a kind of halt andpause intervenes between the movements in the opposite direction, so also in making a1004 ἀοργησία in Arist. Eth. iv. 5, 5, is the defect where meekness (πραότης) is the mean. In Plutarch, whowrote 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. 3.1010 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.186