Chapter XLVI: Section XLIV: The Levitical Baptisms in the Christian Fathers

The writers of the primitive church distinctly recognize the Old Testament sprinklings, and especially the water of separation, by the name of baptism. By the same name, they designate the idolatrous imitations above described. Tertullian was born about fifty years after the death of the apostle John. In allusion to the renewing efficacy which he attributed to Christian baptism and the futility of the Gentile rites, he says,—“The nations, strangers to all understanding of true spiritual potencies, ascribe to their idols the self-same efficacy. But they defraud themselves with unwedded waters; for they are initiated, by washing, into certain of their sacred mysteries—as for example of Isis, or Mithras. Even their gods themselves they honor with lavations. Moreover, everywhere, country seats, houses, temples and whole cities are purified by sprinkling with water carried around. So, it is certain they are imbued (_tinguntur_) in the rituals of Apollo and Eleusis; and they imagine this to accomplish for them renewing and impunity for their perjuries. Moreover, among the ancients, whoever was polluted with murder, expiated himself with purifying waters.... We see here the diligence of the devil, emulating the things of God, since he even administers baptism to his own.”[62]

Footnote 62:

Tertull. de Baptisma, chapter v.

Here, Tertullian expressly designates these rites of the Gentile idolatries by the name of baptism, and represents them as imitations of the divinely appointed ordinance. Some he distinctly describes as sprinklings, and among them evidently refers to Ovid’s representation of the dishonest merchant, sprinkling himself to wash out his “perjuries.” He does not allude to immersion, and in fact that form of rite was not found among the Greek and Roman superstitions. The only difference which Tertullian recognizes between the idolatrous rites and Christian baptism is indicated by the phrase (_viduis aquis_), “unwedded,” or “widowed, waters,” by which he designates the element used in the pagan rites. His meaning, here, is to be found in the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which already prevailed in the church; according to which, it was believed that, in baptism, in response to the invocation of the officiating minister, the Holy Spirit descended upon the water, imparting to it a divine potency to produce a new birth in the recipient of the rite. Thus, the waters of Christian baptism were married waters, as being capable of generating life; whilst the others were unmarried,—unendowed with any “spiritual potency.”

It is further worthy of special notice, that Tertullian here refers, among other Gentile imitations of baptism, to that purgation for murder, by affusion of water, from which evidently Josephus derived his preposterous explanation of the sprinkling of the water of separation, for defilement by the dead. The probability is great that the Greek purgation was derived from that appointed for the elders of Israel, in the case of a concealed murder.

Jerome, living between A. D. 340 and 420, comments thus upon Ezekiel xxxvi, 25-27.—“I will pour out or sprinkle (effundam sive aspergam), upon you clean water and ye shall be cleansed from all your defilements. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a right spirit within you.... I will pour out the clean water of saving baptism.... It is to be observed that a new heart and a new spirit may be given by the pouring out or sprinkling of water.” Again, he paraphrases;—“I will no more pour out on them the waters of saving baptism, but the waters of doctrine and of the word of God.”—Jerome v, 341.

Ambrose, bishop of Milan from A. D. 374 to 391, thus expounds the 7th verse of Psa. li.—“He asks to be _cleansed with hyssop_, according to the law. He desires to be washed according to the gospel, and trusts that if washed he will be whiter than snow. He who would be purified by typical baptism was sprinkled with the blood of a lamb, by a hyssop bush.”[63]

Footnote 63:

Ambrosii Opera, in Psa. li.

Again he says, “He (the priest), dipping the living sparrow, with cedar, scarlet and hyssop, into water in which had been mingled the blood of the slain sparrow, sprinkled the leper seven times, and thus was he rightly purified.... By the cedar wood, the Father, by the hyssop the Son, and by the scarlet wool, having the brightness of fire, the Holy Spirit, is designated. With these three, he was sprinkled who would be rightly purified, because no one can be cleansed from the leprosy of sins, by the water of baptism, except through invocation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.... We are represented by the leper.”[64]

Footnote 64:

Ibid., in Apocal. cap. 6.

Again, addressing the newly baptized, he says,—“You took the white garments, to indicate that you cast away the cloak of sin and put on the spotless robe of innocence; whereof the prophet said: ‘Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean, thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.’ For he that is baptized appears cleansed both according to the law and the gospel; according to the law, since Moses, with a bunch of hyssop sprinkled the blood of a bird; according to the gospel, because the garments of Christ were white as snow, when, in the gospel, he showed the glory of his resurrection. He whose sins are forgiven is made whiter than snow.”[65]

Footnote 65:

Ibid. Lit. ad initiandos. c, 7.

Cyril lived in the next century. He was bishop of Alexandria, A. D. 412-444. In his exposition of Isaiah iv, 4, he says, “We have been baptized, not with bare water, nor with the ashes of a heifer,—We are sprinkled [with these] to purify the flesh, alone, as says the blessed Paul,—but with the Holy Spirit, and fire.”

Thus, from the translation of the Old Testament into Greek down through the time of Christ and the apostles, and to the middle of the fifth century, the Levitical sprinklings were known and designated as baptisms. Further we need not trace them.