Friday, September 30, 2022

Baptismal Regeneration in the Writings of Theodoret of Cyrus (393-457)

  

Paul teaches us again that the Holy Spirit is God, saying 'you are washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God' (1 Cor. 6:11). On whose account we are called temples of God, receiving the grace of the Spirit through baptism, if the Holy Spirit is not God? Yet the same apostle teaches that believers are called the temples of the Spirit, saying, 'don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were brought with a price' (1 Cor. 6:19-20). The temple proclaims the indwelling God. That is why Paul said earlier: 'Don't you know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of dwells in you? If any one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him: for God's temple is holy, which temple you are' (1 Cor. 3:16-17). So, if believers receive the grace of the Spirit through baptism, and we—being honoured by this gift—are called the temple of God, it follows that the Holy Spirit is God. (On the Holy Trinity and Vivifying Trinity, 24, in Theodoret of Cyrus [trans. István Pásztori-Kupán; The Early Church Fathers; Oxford: Routledge, 2006], 133)

 

By enduring these things, he achieved our salvation. Because the servants of sin were liable to the punishment of sin, therefore he, who was immune from sin and pursued righteousness in all respects, accept the punishment of sinners. By the cross he repealed the sentence of the ancient curse, for [Paul] says: 'Christ had redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, "Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree" (Gal. 3:13 and Deut. 21:23). By the thorns he put an end to Adam's punishments, because after the fall it was heard: 'Cursed is the earth in your works, thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you' (Gen. 3:17-18). With the gall and passible human life, whereas with the vinegar he accepted for himself the changing of humankind for the worse, providing also the way of returning to the better. He signified his kingship by the scarlet and by the reed he alluded to the weakness and frailty of the devil's power. By the slaps [on his face] he proclaimed our deliverance, enduring our injuries, chastisements and lashings. His side was pierced like Adam's, yet showing not the woman coming forth from there, who by deceit begot death, but the fountainhead of life, which by [its] double stream vivifies the world. One of these renews us in the bath [i.e. the water of baptism] and clothes [us] with the garment of immortality, the other nourishes the (re)born at the divine table, as the milk nurtures the infants. (On the Inhumanation of the Lord, 28 [27], in Theodoret of Cyrus [trans. István Pásztori-Kupán; The Early Church Fathers; Oxford: Routledge, 2006], 165)

 

The slanderers who assert that we venerate two sons [are refuted by] the blatant testimony of the facts. To all those who come to the all-holy baptism we teach the faith laid forth at Nicaea. And when we celebrate the mystery of rebirth we baptise those who believe into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, pronouncing teach name by itself. (That Even After the Inhumanation Our Lord Jesus Christ is One, in Theodoret of Cyrus [trans. István Pásztori-Kupán; The Early Church Fathers; Oxford: Routledge, 2006], 193)