THE AUTHOR OF THE QUESTIONS UPON THE SCRIPTURE, UNDER THE NAME OF
ATHANASIUS
(On the Epistles of Paul, Rom. 6:5, Prop. 92.)
“We
have been planted together; that is, made fellow heirs. For as the body of the
Lord when buried in the earth gave life to the world, so our bodies also buried
in baptism guarantee our justification. But the similitude consists in this: as
Christ died, and rose again on the third day, so we also dying in baptism rise
again. For the plunging of the child three times into the bath and the raising
him out of it again, symbolize the death, and the resurrection of Christ on the
third day.” (James Chrystal, A History of the Modes of Christian Baptism [Philadelphia:
Lindsay and Blakiston, 1861], 69)
Bishop Trower.
(On this passage, in his remarks on the Epistle for the sixth Sunday after
Trinity.)
"The Apostle's reasoning,
and the symbolical meaning of holy baptism, must have been better understood (as
was observed on considering the Epistle for Easter day) when baptism was performed
by immersion; that is, when the person to be baptized was wholly dipped or buried
in the water, as is still the rule of our Church, though from various
circumstances the alternative which is allowed, of pouring water on the candidate
for baptism, is now generally adopted. The symbolical meaning, however, of this
sacrament is ever the same. It represents a death, and burial, and resurrection.
And to understand the Apostle's language, we should remember, that sin is compared
in holy Scripture to a body, and our sinful nature is called ' the old man,' as
our renewed and holy nature is called 'the new man.' The death, then, and burial,
which are symbolized in baptism, are the death and burial of 'the old man,' which
is also here said to be ' crucified' with Christ, 'that the body of sin might be
destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.' The resurrection symbolized
by the reappearance of the baptized person from the water, is the ' newness of life,'
in which he is henceforth pledged to ' walk.' (James
Chrystal, A History of the Modes of Christian Baptism [Philadelphia:
Lindsay and Blakiston, 1861], 50-51)
Dr. Whitby.
(In loc.)
"It being so expressly declared here, and Col. 2:12, that 'we are buried with Christ in baptism,' by being buried underwater; and the argument to oblige us to a conformity to his death, by dying to sin, being taken hence, and this immersion being religiously observed by all Christians for thirteen centuries, and approved by our Church, and the change of it into sprinkling, even without any allowance from the author of this institution, or any license from any council of the Church, being that which the Romanist still urgeth to justify his refusal of the cup to the laity, it were to be wished that that custom might be again of general use, and aspersion only permitted as of old, in case of the clinici or in present danger of death."
It should be observed that the
references to the symbolism of the sacrament in the early Christian writers are
to trine, not single immersion, which they expressly condemned. So some later
writers are as specific
The sacrament of the Lord's Supper
sets forth Christ's death in a manner peculiar to itself. But it should not be forgotten
that there is a deep significance in baptism, in shadowing forth the same truth
in connection with the burying of the baptized in the liquid grave.
In the early Church, its symbolism
better expressed that idea than is now done:
1. By the anointing of the candidate's
body as for burial.
2. By the total immersion itself.
3. By the number of the immersions—three—to
represent the
abode of Christ in the grave, and
his resurrection thence al\er three
days.
4. By the times of baptism,
Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany. V. Bingham, bk, xi, chapters 1 : G-I I. Bp.
Kaye's Clem, of Alex. p. 441. Justini Martyri, Qua3st. et Respons. ad Orthodox.
Quaest. 137, c. Respons. (Ibid., 51)
It will be well to notice, in
this connection, a mistake sometimes made by persons inexperienced in the language
of the early writers. Some of the Fathers speak of the ancient Jewish and
heathen purifications as typical of baptism. Some say, that as these purifications
were often by sprinkling, that therefore the early writers deemed these modes
comprehended in the term to baptize. But the slightest knowledge will refute this.
For to say of a thing that it is typical or figurative of another, and that
it is exactly the same, are two very different things. It is not essential
that the figure and that of which it is a figure should be in all respects alike.
It is enough that there be likeness in a single point. When, therefore, the Fathers
speak of heathen lustrations, or Jewish sprinklings, as figurative of baptism, we
must not so understand them as to make them contradict their repeated statement
that βαπτιζω is
expressive of mode. The point usually aimed at by them is, that as both these
are symbolical of expiation, of cleansing and of purifying, in this respect they
are figurative or typical of that divine baptism which washes away sins. (Acts 22:16.)
That which prefigures baptism may be a rite in which no water is used. St. Augustine
asks, “Who that is even moderately versed in the Scriptures, can be ignorant that
the sacrament of circumcision in figure preceded that of baptism." St. August.
Cont. Julianum Pelagianum, cap. G, 18, ed. Venet., 1783, "Quod sacramentum
circumcisionis in figura praecessisse baptismatis, quis vel mediocriter sacris litteris
eruditus ignoret." This tendency to find a figure, wherever there is even a
slight similarity, is a characteristic of much that is said by even the earlier
Fathers. (James Chrystal, A History of the Modes of Christian Baptism [Philadelphia:
Lindsay and Blakiston, 1861], 87)
