Saturday, November 25, 2023

Travis W. Proctor on the Relationship Between Exorcism and Water Baptism in Tertullian's Theology

  

. . . some Christians, including Tertullian, held that the expulsion of demons took place not only in exorcism, but also as part of baptism, the primary initiatory rite of the Christian community. According to Tertullian, one of the important functions of baptism lay in its removal of demons from the soul and insertion of the Holy Spirit in their stead:

 

When the soul embraces the faith, it is regenerated by this new birth in water and virtue celestial; the veil of its former corruption is removed and it at last perceives the full glory of the light. When is it welcomed by the Holy Spirit as, at its physical birth, it was met by the evil spirit (sicut in pristina nativitate a spiritu profano). (On the Soul 41, emphasis mine)

 

Casting off the “evil spirit,” therefore, cleanses the baptizand of their psychic corruption and enables them to take on the Holy Spirit, and thus forge a new Christian identity. In Tertullian’s thought, “baptism is the second birth, on which occasion the Holy Spirit pushes away the evil spirit that might have associated itself with one’s soul.” The exorcistic nature of baptism seems to have been refected in the baptismal practice of the Carthaginian community. In his treatise On the Shows, for example, Tertullian emphasizes that the expulsion of Satan and his demonic minions is an important aspect of baptismal recitation formulas: “When we go into the water and profess the Christian faith through expressions decreed by its law, we testify with our speech [or ‘mouth’ that we have rejected the Devil and his entourage and his angels” (renuntiasse nos diabolo et pompae et angelis eius ore nostro contestamur) (On the Shows 4). Later in the same treatise, Tertullian emphasizes again the connection between the demon-inspired Roman entertainment spectacles and the activities that Christians forsake at their baptism: “we have demonstrated that all these things [i.e., the spectacles] were established for the sake of the Devil . . . thus here is the ‘entourage of the Devil’ that we swear against when we are sealed in the faith” (hoc erit pompa diaboli, adversus quem in signaculo !dei eieramus) (24). Anyone who engages in activities typical of Roman “idolatry,” according to Tertullian, will in fact undo the work of their Christian salvation: “But what we swear against (eieramus), we ought not to have a share in . . . What is more, do we not renounce and annul (eieramus et rescindimus) the seal by rescinding its testimony?” (24).

 

We should not read Tertullian’s language of “renouncing” or “annulling” the seal of baptism as purely metaphorical; rather, Tertullian ostensibly understands these terms to indicate the actual physical status of the Christian body. Elsewhere in the same treatise, for example, Tertullian warns his readers that failure to uphold the high standard of behavior demanded of baptized Christians will result in the re-infiltration of demons: “why then might not such people also become liable to penetration by demons?” (Cur ergo non eiusmodi etiam demoniis penetrabiles fiant)? (26). Interestingly, Tertullian’s language here does not call to mind the “possession” of the human body such as is characteristic of catabolic spirits (discussed previously), but the “piercing” or “penetrating” of the body typical of “attendant” demons. It is this type of demonic spirit that Christians cast o0 at their baptism, and thus the kind of evil spirit that Christians must eschew by avoiding Roman cultural activities. If they do not, the “seal” of baptism will be broken, and the Christian body will lie vulnerable to its insidious undoing. (Travis W. Proctor, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Church [New York: Oxford University Press, 2022], 153-54)