Wednesday, October 12, 2022

"Baptism of Blood" in The Apostolic Tradition 19:2

  

Sahidic

Arabic

Ethiopic

If a catechumen (κατηχουμενος) is arrested for the name of the Lord, he is not to be double-minded concerning the testimony. For (γαρ) if it happens and they act violently against him and kill him during the forgiveness of sins, he will be justified, for (γαρ) he received baptism (βαπτισμα) in his own blood.

If they arrest a catechumen for the sake of the Lord, let him not be double-minded concerning martyrdom. If he is wronged and killed before gaining forgiveness of his sins, he will be vindicated because he will have been baptized in his own blood.

If they arrest a catechumen on account of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is not to be double-hearted about the testimony. For if they overpower him and harm him and kill him before he receives baptism for the forgiveness of his sin, he is justified because he was baptized by his own blood.

 

. . .

 

References to baptism by martyrdom or blood do occur in some third-century documents. Tertullian (De bapt. 16) refers to a "baptism by blood," but it is by no means clear whether martyrdom is intended there. More obviously parallel is the description of the death of Saturus in the famous Passion of St. Perpetua (21.2; see also 18.3), sometimes ascribed to Tertullian himself: "And immediately at the conclusion of the exhibition he was thrown to the leopard; and with one bite of his he was bathed with such a quantity of blood, that the people shouted out to him as he was returning, the testimony of his second baptism, 'Saved and washed, saved and washed."' Other references come from the mid-third century in the context of the Decian persecution. Cyprian writes that catechumens who suffer martyrdom before they have received baptism with water "are not deprived of the sacrament of baptism. Rather, they are baptized with the most glorious and greatest baptism of blood, concerning which the Lord said that he had another baptism with which he himself was to be baptized. " In a similar way Origen writes in his Exhortation to Martyrdom 30: "Let us also remember the sins that we have committed, and that it is impossible to receive forgiveness of sins apart from baptism, that it is impossible according to the laws of the Gospel to be baptized again with water and the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins, and that the baptism of martyrdom has been given to us." (Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L. Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary [Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002], 102, 103)

Blog Archive