There are three kinds of baptism:
first, the baptism by which the stains of sin are washed away through the
washing of regeneration. Second, the baptism by which one is baptized in his
blood through martyrdom. By this baptism also Christ was baptized so that both
in this, as in the others, he might give an example to the believers, as he was
saying to his disciples the sons of Zebedee: “Are you able to drink the cup
that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” [Mark
10:38]. Therefore water and blood symbolize a twofold baptism: the one by which
we are regenerated by a washing, the other by which we are consecrated by
blood. (3) There is also a third baptism, of tears, which is accomplished
laboriously, as the one who “every night … flood[s his] bed with tears” [Ps
6:7], who imitates the conversion of Manasseh and the humility of the people of
Nineveh through which mercy followed, who imitates the prayer of that publican
in the Temple, “who, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but
was beating his breast” [Luke 18:13].
For the water of baptism is that
which flowed from the side of Christ at the time of the passion, and there is
no other element that purges all things in this world, that enlivens all
things. Therefore, when we are baptized in Christ we are reborn through that
water so that, purified, we might be brought to life. (Isidore of Seville, De
Ecclesiasticis Officiis [trans. Thomas L. Knoebel; Ancient Christian
Writers 61; New York: The Newman Press, 2008], 109)
