Not that in the waters we obtain
the Holy Spirit; but in the water, under (the witness of) the angel, we are
cleansed, and prepared for the Holy Spirit. In this case also a type has
preceded; for thus was John beforehand the Lord’s forerunner, “preparing His
ways.” Thus, too, does the angel, the witness of baptism, “make the paths
straight” for the Holy Spirit, who is about to come upon us, by the washing
away of sins, which faith, sealed in (the name of) the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Spirit, obtains. For if “in the mouth of three witnesses every word
shall stand:” —while, through the benediction, we have the same (three) as
witnesses of our faith whom we have as sureties of our salvation too—how much
more does the number of the divine names suffice for the assurance of our hope
likewise! Moreover, after the pledging
both of the attestation of faith and the promise of salvation under “three
witnesses,” there is added, of necessity, mention of the Church; inasmuch as,
wherever there are three, (that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, )
there is the Church, which is a body of three.
After this, when we have issued
from the font, we are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction,—(a practice
derived) from the old discipline, wherein on entering the priesthood, men were
wont to be anointed with oil from a horn, ever since Aaron was anointed by Moses.
Whence Aaron is called “Christ,” from the “chrism,” which is “the unction;”
which, when made spiritual, furnished an appropriate name to the Lord, because
He was “anointed” with the Spirit by God the Father; as written in the Acts:
“For truly they were gathered together in this city against Thy Holy Son whom
Thou hast anointed.” Thus, too, in our case, the unction runs carnally, (i.e.
on the body,) but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism
itself too is carnal, in that we are plunged in water, but the effect
spiritual, in that we are freed from sins.
In the next place the hand is laid
on us, invoking and inviting the Holy Spirit through benediction. Shall it be
granted possible for human ingenuity to summon a spirit into water, and, by the
application of hands from above, to animate their union into one body with
another spirit of so clear sound, and shall it not be possible for God, in the
case of His own organ,24 to produce, by means of “holy hands,” a sublime
spiritual modulation? But this, as well as the former, is derived from the old
sacramental rite in which Jacob blessed his grandsons, born of Joseph, Ephrem
and Manasses; with his hands laid on them and interchanged, and indeed so
transversely slanted one over the other, that, by delineating Christ, they even
portended the future benediction into Christ. Then, over our cleansed and
blessed bodies willingly descends from the Father that Holiest Spirit. Over the
waters of baptism, recognising as it were His primeval seat, He reposes: (He
who) glided down on the Lord “in the shape of a dove,” in order that the nature
of the Holy Spirit might be declared by means of the creature (the emblem) of
simplicity and innocence, because even in her bodily structure the dove is
without literal gall. And accordingly He says, “Be ye simple as doves.” Even
this is not without the supporting evidence of a preceding figure. For just as,
after the waters of the deluge, by which the old iniquity was purged—after the
baptism, so to say, of the world—a dove was the herald which announced to the
earth the assuagement of celestial wrath, when she had been sent her way out of
the ark, and had returned with the olive-branch, a sign which even among the
nations is the fore-token of peace; so by the self-same law of heavenly effect,
to earth—that is, to our flesh —as it emerges from the font, after its old sins
flies the dove of the Holy Spirit, bringing us the peace of God, sent out from
the heavens where is the Church, the typified ark. But the world returned unto
sin; in which point baptism would ill be compared to the deluge. And so it is
destined to fire; just as the man too is, who after baptism renews his sins: so
that this also ought to be accepted as a sign for our admonition. (Tertullian, On
Baptism 6-8 [ANF 3:672-73])