The many names of baptism

For what do you have, Paul says, that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Corinthians 4:7). I wanted first of all to say: Why did our fathers pass over the whole year and ordain that the children of the Church be initiated at this season? And why, after our instruction, do they loosen your sandals and strip off your clothes, and send you barefoot and wearing only a tunic to the voices of those who exorcize? For they did not design this posture and this season for us simply or at random; both of these things hold a mystical and ineffable meaning. And I wanted to tell you this meaning. But I see that the argument now presses us toward something more necessary. For I must say what baptism is, and why it entered our life, and how many good things it brings us.

But if you wish, let us first discuss the name of this mystical cleansing. For it does not have one name, but many and varied. This purification is called the washing of regeneration: He saved us, Paul says, through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). It is also called enlightenment, and Paul himself called it this as well: Remember the earlier days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a great struggle of sufferings (Hebrews 10:32); and again: For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift, and then fell away, to be renewed again to repentance (Hebrews 6:4-6). It is also called baptism: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). It is called burial: You were buried with him, Paul says, through baptism into death (Romans 6:4). It is called circumcision: In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the stripping off of the body of the sins of the flesh (Colossians 2:11). It is called cross: Our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be brought to nothing (Romans 6:6). There are many other names I could mention besides these, but so that we do not spend the whole time on the titles of the gift, let us come to the first title, explain its meaning, and bring the discussion to rest. But first let us draw the teaching back a little.

There is a washing common to all people, the washing in the bathhouses, which is accustomed to wipe away the filth of the body. There is also a Jewish washing, more solemn than that one, but far inferior to the washing of grace. For it too wipes away bodily filth, but not simply bodily filth—it also touches a weak conscience. For there are many things that are not unclean by nature, but become unclean from the weakness of the conscience. And just as with children, masks and other bogeymen are not frightening by nature, but seem frightening to children because of the weakness of their nature, so it is with the things I mentioned. For example, touching dead bodies is not unclean by nature, but when it takes hold of a weak conscience, it makes the one who touches unclean. That the thing is not unclean by nature, Moses himself—the very one who ordained these things—made clear, for he carried with himself the whole corpse of Joseph and remained clean. For this reason Paul, speaking to us about this uncleanness that does not come by nature but through weakness of conscience, says something like this: Nothing is common in itself, except to the one who considers something common (Romans 14:14).