Monday, May 30, 2022

Ignatius and Cyprian on the Holy Spirit Operating Through the Instrumentality of Water Baptism

  

Operation and indwelling of the Spirit as distinguished from the gift of the Spirit.—In the early Christian writers, as in the New Testament, the negative and positive effects of baptism are ascribed to the operation of God, and in particular, of the Holy Spirit. This is expressed by the causal dative πνευματι in Clement of Alexandria, who calls the baptismal forgiveness of sins the work of the Spirit: οι βαπτιζομενοι, τας . . . . αμαρτιας τω θειω πνευματι . . . . αποτριψαμενοι Paed. 1.28.1, or, with reference to Jn. 3.5, the preposition εξ is changed to δια in the heretical interpretation of Theodotus: το βαπτισμα ουν διπλουν . . . . το μεν αισθητον διυδατος . . . . το δε νοητον δια πνευματος Exc. 81.2, by Clement: το βαπτισμα γινεται διυδατος και πνευματος Ecl. 8.1, and by Origen: sordes peccati, quae per aquam et spiritum ablui deberent In Rom 5.9. Christians are convinced that water by itself cannot sanctify; this only becomes possible by divine operation. Thus Ignatius perhaps intends to say that by His baptism (παθος) Jesus purified the water: εβαπτισθη, ινα τω παθει το υδωρ καθαριση Eph. 18.2, and Cyprian clearly states: peccata enim purgare et hominem sanctificare aqua sola non potest nisi habeat spirtium sanctum Ep. 74.4. (Joseph Ysebaert, Greek Baptismal Terminology: Its Origins and Early Development [trans. M. F. Foran Hedlund; Nijmegen, The Netherlands: Dekker and Van De Vegt N.V., 1962], 70)