Since we have spoken of His second nativity by which He
showed Himself to men in the flesh, let us come now to those wondrous works
which, because they were indices of celestial power, the Jews thought were the
works of magic. As soon as He began manhood, He was baptized in the river
Jordan by the prophet John, that by this spiritual washing He might put aside,
not His sins, which He certainly did not have, but sins of the flesh or human
nature which He was bearing; so that, just as He saved the Jews by their
undergoing of circumcision, thus also He might save the Gentiles through
baptism, that is, through the pouring of the purifying dew. Then a voice was
heard from heaven: 'Thou art My beloved son, this day have I begotten thee.'
This word is found predicted in David. And there descended upon Him the Spirit
of God formed in the likeness of a white dove. (Lactantius, The Divine
Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 15, in Lactantius: The Divine Institutes, Book
I-VII [trans. Mary Francis McDonald; The Fathers of the Church 49;
Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964], 280)
Here, however, there is no place for false and common
sin, and if anyone comes to the sacrifice with a conscience not clear, he hears
what God threatens, that God who sees the hidden places of the heart, who is
ever hostile to sins, who exacts justice, who demands faith. What place is
there here for an evil mind or an evil prayer? But those unhappy souls do not
understand from their crimes how that which they worship is evil, inasmuch as,
defiled with all manner of outrages, they come to pray and think that they have
piously offered sacrifice if they wash their skin, as if any rivers might wash
or any seas purify the wantonness enclosed in their hearts. How much more wise
it is rather to cleanse the mind which is defiled by evil and to dispel all
vices by the one washing of virtue and faith! (Lactantius, The Divine
Institutes, Book 5, Chapter 19, in Lactantius: The Divine Institutes, Book
I-VII [trans. Mary Francis McDonald; The Fathers of the Church 49;
Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964], 381)
The translator, Mary Francis
McDonald, offered the following helpful note:
No doubt the sacrament of baptism is being referred to
here. The Latin word lavacrum might have become the usual term, except
that the transliteration of the Greek word, baptism us, perhaps on the
authority of the great Tertullian, gained acceptance and consecrated usage.
However, the sacrament of penance might have been meant, but the significance
of the other, and the fact that in Lactantius' time it was received more
usually in adulthood, seem to warrant our interpretation of this section as a
reference to baptism. (Ibid., 381 n. 4)
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