Baptism
Cyril expounds the sixth chapter of
Romans in order to explain the early Christian liturgy of baptism: the sinner
was submerged in the water just as Christ was buried in the grave, and
following the example of the Lord, the baptized person came out of the water
and rose to a new life:
After that, you were led to the holy
font of divine baptism, as Christ was brought from the cross to the Sepulchre
which is before your eyes. And each of you was asked if he believed in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And you made the saving
confession, and descended three times into the water and came up again, here
also recalling by a symbol of the three-days burial of Christ. For as our
Saviour passed three days and three nights in the bosom of the earth, so you
also in your first ascent out of the water imitated the first day of Christ in
the earth, and by your descent, the night. For as he who is in the night no
longer sees, but he who is in the day remains in the light, so in the descent,
as in the night, you saw nothing, but in ascending again, you were as in the
day (Cat. Myst. 2, 4).
Combining the theology of St. Paul
(Rom. 6, 3-5; Colossians 2, 10, 12) and St. John 1, 12-13; 3, 3-5) he presents
baptism both as a grave and a mother:
You died and were born at the same
time. The saving water became for you both a tomb and a mother. And what
Solomon spoke of others will suit you also; for he said, ‘There is a time to
bear and a time to die’ (Eccl. 3, 2). But with you it is the opposite: The time
to die is also the time to be born. One and the same season brings about both
of these, and your birth went hand in hand with your death (Cat. Myst.
2, 4).
Baptism is a sharing in the death and
resurrection of Christ by way of imitation and image. It is more than remission
of sins and adoption:
O strange and inconceivable thing! we
did not really (αληθως) die, we were not really buried, we
were not really crucified and raised again, but our imitation was but in a
figure (εκ εικονι η μιμησις), while our salvation is reality. Christ was
actually crucified, and actually buried, and truly rose again and all these
things have been vouchsafed to us, that we, by imitation communicating in His
sufferings, might gain salvation in reality. O surpassing loving-kindness!
Christ received nails in His undefiled hands and feet, and endured anguish;
while to me without suffering or toil, by the fellowship of His pain He
vouchsafes salvation.
Let no one then suppose that Baptism
is merely the grace of remission of sins, or further, that of adoption; as
John’s baptism bestowed only the remission of sins, or further, that of
adoption; as John’s baptism bestowed only the remission of sins. Nay we know
full well, that as it purges our sins, and conveys to us the gift of the Holy
Ghost, so also it is the counterpart of Christ’s sufferings. For, for this
cause Paul, just now read, cries aloud and says, ‘Know ye not that as many of
us as were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into death’ (Rom. 6, 3).
These words he spoke to them who had settled with themselves that Baptism
ministers to us the remission of sins, and adoption, but not that further it
has communion also in representation with Christ’s true suffering.
In order therefore that we may learn,
that whatsoever things Christ endured, He suffered them for us and our
salvation, and that, in reality and not in appearance, we also are made
partakers of His sufferings, Paul cried with all exactness of truth, ‘For if we
have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in
the likeness of His resurrection’ (Rom. 6, 5). Well has he said, ‘planted
together’. For since the true Vine was planted in this place, we also by
partaking in the Baptism of death, ‘have been planted together with Him’. And
fix thy mind with much attention on the words of the Apostle. He has not said,
‘For if we have been planted together in His death’, but, ‘in the likeness of
His death’. For upon Christ death came in reality, for His soul was truly
separated from His body, and His burial was true, for His holy body was wrapt
in pure linen; and every thing happened to Him truly; but in your case only the
likeness of death and sufferings, whereas of salvation, not the likeness, but
the reality (Cat. myst., 5-7 Church)
In his Procatechesis (16) Cyril
calls Baptism the ‘Holy indelible seal’ (σφραγις
αγια ακαταλυτος)
and mentions as it effects ‘ransom for the captives, remission of offences,
death of sin and regeneration of the soul’. He is firmly convinced that nobody
can be saved except by baptism or martyrdom:
Unless a man receive baptism, he has
no salvation, excepting only martyrs, who receive the kingdom through they have
not entered the font. For when the Saviour was redeeming the universe by means
of His cross and His side was pierced, ‘forthwith came there out blood and
water’ (John 19, 34), to show that in times of peace men should be baptized in
water, and in times of persecution in their own blood. For the Saviour
purposely spoke of martyrdom as baptism when He said ‘Can you drink the cup
that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’
(Mark 10, 38). Moreover, martyrs make their profession of faith, ‘Being made a
specific to the world, and to angels, and to men’ (1 Cor. 4, 9).
Cyril is familiar with a blessing of
the baptismal font in the form of an epiclesis. In order to explain the
effectiveness and power of this invocation he refers to pagan parallels:
Do not think of the font as filled
with ordinary water, but think rather of the spiritual grace that is given with
the water. For just as the sacrifices on pagan altars are in themselves
indifferent matter and yet have become defiled by reason of the invocation (επικλησει) made over them to the idols, so but in the
opposite sense, the ordinary water in the font acquires sanctifying power when
it receives the invocation of the Holy Spirit, of Christ and the Father. (Cat.
3, 3 LCC)
He speaks of the baptismal font as the
‘Christ-bearing waters’ (Procat. 15) and sates that Christ ‘imparted of
the fragrance of His divinity to the waters when He was washed in the river
Jordan’ (Cat. myst. 3, 1). (Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols.
[Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, Inc., 1992], 3:372-74)