Regeneration is wrought by water and
the Spirit, likewise all generation, for: the Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the water’ (Gn. 1:2) (Clement of Alexandria, Eclogae VII, 1,
in Jean Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity: The Development of
Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicaea [trans. John A. Baker; London:
Darton, Longman and Todd, 1964], 109)
Ignatius writes: ‘our God, Jesus the
Christ . . . was born and was baptised that by his Passion he might cleanse
water’ (Eph. XVIII, 2). The most natural explanation of these
expressions is that Christ, by descending into the water destroyed the demonic
forces that dwelt in it, thus purifying them by his Passion, that is to say, by
his death, which is a descent into the world of death.
There is a conception closely related
to that of Ignatius in the Eclogae Propheticae of Clement of Alexandria.
Clement writes:
The Lord had himself baptised, not
that he had need of it for himself, but so that he might sanctify all water for
those that are regenerated in it. In this way not only are our bodies cleansed
but our souls also, and the sanctification of the invisible parts of our being
is signified by the fact that even the impure spirits which cleave to our soul,
are rooted out from the time of the new spiritual birth’ (7).
Here again the object of Christ’s
descent into the water is to purify it from the presence of demonic beings, and
so to make it able to purify from the same powers those who are baptised.
There is another line of development
which is related to the eschatological significance of Christ’s Baptism: this
is the imagery which links the baptism of water with baptism of fire. This
theme goes back to the pericope of Mt. 3:11: ‘I baptize you with water .
. . He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire’, which, of course,
is strongly eschatological in character. There seems to be an allusion here to
at least judgment by fire, and to the quality of judgment inherent in the
coming of the Messiah. Nevertheless, by the time of Mark 1:8 this
archaic feature has already disappeared from the New Testament, and only a
reference to Baptism with the Holy Spirit remains. (Jean Daniélou, The Theology
of Jewish Christianity: The Development of Christian Doctrine Before the
Council of Nicaea [trans. John A. Baker; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1964],
226-27)