Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Baptismal Regeneration in the Theology of Mark the Hermit (360-430)

  

De baptismo

 

The tract On Baptism has a strong anti-Messalian tendency and in a series of questions and answers, deals with the effects of the sacrament of initiation. The exact title Responsio ad eos qui de divino baptismate dubitant refers to those who doubt that sin is actually taken away by baptism, since the Messalians maintained that even after its reception sin remains in the soul and must be destroyed by our own moral efforts. Mark declares against all such false doctrines that baptism not only takes away all sin but confers the Holy Spirit. The words ‘I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind’ (Rom. 7, 23) are spoken by the unbaptized, not by the baptized. Nevertheless, life after baptism remains a continuous warfare because of the unending temptations from within and without. But every sin is the result of our own free-will, not of our corrupted nature. (Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. [Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, Inc., 1992], 3:507)