In his “Disputation between a Christian and a Saracen” John of Damascus discussed the “Baptism” of pre-Christian figures thusly:
Section 1f: Baptism
and the will of God
And the opponent:
“But was there baptism before Christ? For Jeremiah was born before Christ.”
The Christian:
“There was, according to the testimony of the holy apostle, some who were
baptized in the cloud and others in the sea. And the Lord said in the gospels.,
“He who is not born of the water and the Spirit will not enter the kingdom of
heaven.” Therefore, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the other saints who
preceded Christ have entered the kingdom of God have entered the kingdom of
heaven have been baptized before, since, according to the testimony of Christ,
if they had not been baptized, they would not have been saved. . . . Therefore we
proclaim that all who were and are saved through baptism, were or are saved by
the grace of God. (Daniel J. Janoski, John of Damascus First Apologist to
the Muslims: The Trinity and Christian Apologetics in the Early Islamic Period [Eugene,
Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2016], 272)
So, for John of Damascus, Old Testament
figures must have received the salvific grace of water baptism in some
way, perhaps by a type of baptism itself or at least some form of “baptism of
desire.”
