The following comes from Justin’s First Apology:
Chapter
LXI.--Christian baptism.
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 mothers' wombs, 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 (τῷ ἑλομένῳ ἀναγεννηθῆναι καὶ μετανοήσαντι ἐπὶ τοῖς ἡμαρτημένοις),
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
any one 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.
(ANF 1:183)
Chapter LXVI.--Of the
Eucharist.
And this food is
called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to
partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and
who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and
unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as
common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus
Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh
and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food
which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh
by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was
made flesh.6 For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are
called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that
Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in
remembrance of Me, this is My body;" and that, after the same manner,
having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood;"
and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the
mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and
a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one
who is being initiated, you either know or can learn. (ANF 1:185)
Notice how Justin teaches man has a
genuine free will, one that chooses to be regenerated, and that the instrument
thereof is water baptism.
I just re-read the First and Second
Apologies and Dialogue with Trypho. I hope to do a few blog posts later this
month on Justin and his theology.
