“I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God, with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said: ‘Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into their mother’s womb, is manifest to all. And how those who have sinned and repent shall escape their sins is declared by Esaias, the prophet, as I wrote above; he thus speaks: ‘Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from your souls; learn to do well; judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow; and come and let us reason together, saith the Lord. And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white like wool; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as snow. But if ye refuse and rebel, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.’ And for this [rite] we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the laver the person that is to be washed, calling him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if anyone dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who, through the prophets, foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed.”[128]
The pagano-Christian theory of baptism and baptismal regeneration, variously expressed, is found in Methodius, The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, chapter vi; in Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, chapter xii; in Tertullian, Against Marcion, book i., chapter xxviii; in Cyprian, Epistles,[129]—1, To Donatus; 22, To Clergy at Rome; 51, To Antonianus; and 75, To Magnus; also Testimonies against the Jews, paragraph 65; also, A Treatise on Re-baptism, by an unknown author, published in connection with Cyprian’s writings, on page 402 of Clark’s edition Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xiii.
The Apostolic Constitutions clearly set forth the result of this perversion of New Testament doctrines concerning baptism. The late Baron Bunsen, one of the most eminent of German scholars and statesmen, has grouped the teachings of the Constitutions upon the question of baptism in such a way as to give the reader a better view than is possible by quoting these writings verbatim. Although these Constitutions are not the work of the apostles, they are of great historic value in presenting a picture of the practices of the early Church. Bunsen thinks that the Constitutions present “a genuine, though not textual, picture of the Ante-Nicene Church.” He says:
“As soon as we take away what belongs to the bad taste of the fiction, all the ethic introductions and occasional moralizing conclusions, and, in general, all which manifestly is re-written with literary pretension, and lastly, as soon as we expunge some easily discernible interpolations of the fourth and fifth centuries, we find ourselves unmistakably in the midst of the life of the Church of the second and third centuries.”[130]
The summary made by Bunsen is given below. By analyzing it the reader will see how much that is extra-scriptural, and anti-scriptural, was associated with baptism thus early. By comparison with the pagan water cultus, the source of these errors is plainly apparent.
“And at the time of the crowing of the cock let them first pray over the water. Let the water be drawn into the font, or flowing into it. And let it be thus if they have no scarcity. But if there be a scarcity, let them pour the water which shall be found into the font; and let them undress themselves, and the young shall be first baptized. And all who are able to answer for themselves, let them answer. But those who are not able to answer, let their parents answer for them, or one other numbered amongst their relations. And after the great men have been baptized, at the last the women, they having loosed all their hair, and having laid aside the ornaments of gold and silver which were on them. Let not anyone take a strange garment with him into the water.
“And at the time which is appointed for the baptism, let the bishop give thanks over the oil, which, putting into a vessel, he shall call the oil of thanksgiving. Again, he shall take other oil, and exorcising over it, he shall call it the oil of exorcism. And a deacon shall bear the oil of exorcism and stand on the left hand of the presbyter. Another deacon shall take the oil of thanksgiving and stand on the right hand of the presbyter.
“And when the presbyter has taken hold of each one of those who are about to receive baptism, let him command him to renounce, saying: ‘I will renounce thee, Satan, and all thy service, and all thy works.’ And when he has renounced all these, let him anoint him with the oil of exorcism, saying: ‘Let every spirit depart from thee.’
“And let the bishop or the presbyter receive him thus unclothed, to place him in the water of baptism. Also let the deacon go with him into the water, and let him say to him, helping him that he may say: ‘I believe in the only true God, the Father Almighty, and in his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, and in the Holy Spirit, the Quickener, [the Consubstantial Trinity]. One Sovereignty, one Kingdom, one Faith, one Baptism; in the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, in the life everlasting. Amen.’