THE SACRAMENTS

The Saving Waters of Baptism


by Paul S. Czarnota

    In instituting the sacraments, Jesus did not hand the Apostles a sacramentary or other liturgical book as a “how-to” manual. Rather, Christ directed the twelve simply to act: “do this for a commemoration of me” (Lk 22:19);1 “baptiz[e] them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19); “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23).

With regard to the sacrament of baptism, Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be “born again” (John 3:3). To clarify matters for Nicodemus and all others, Christ further says that “unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:5). Thus does Jesus establish the use of water in the sacrament of initiation, what the Scholastics would call the “matter” of the sacrament. Yet Jesus does not explain to Nicodemus why water is selected. How then can we understand the first sacrament more deeply, and see the liturgical roots of the symbolism of the water?
    A most appropriate means would be to study the teachings of the Fathers of the Church. The Fathers wrote in the early period of the Church, following the apostles, a time generally reckoned to end in the west with St. Isidore of Seville (d. 636) and in the east with St. John Damascene (d. 749).2 By a survey of these works, commonly called patristic writings, one should expect to see the understanding of the early Christians as to the symbolism of the baptismal water, including the types prefiguring it in the Old Testament.
    The Church Fathers do not restrict themselves to seeing only one symbol in the sacrament of baptism. Rather, one author sees in patristic literature as many as seven biblical images in the sacrament.3 The patristic writers were able to both affirm the real, grace-filled action of the sacrament while seeing in the elements thereof deep symbols. Concerning the imagery of the element of water in baptism, the following are the major types that can be identified in the patristic writings:

1.    the baptismal water is a grave;
2.    the baptismal water is the Red Sea;
3.    the baptismal water accomplishes regeneration; and
4.    the baptismal water is the Great Flood.

    Additionally, some other symbolisms can be identified, although not treated beyond identification.4
    The primary Scriptural foundation for seeing baptism as a grave is found in St. Paul.

For we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin (Romans 6:2-7).

    St. Paul elsewhere repeats that the Christian is: “Buried with him in baptism, in whom also you are risen again by the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him up from the dead” (Colossians 2:12). The practice of baptism by immersion shows St. Paul’s concept of the grave most clearly. This form of baptism was common in the early Church, as attested to in writings such as the Didache.5
    The first Church Father to see the symbolism of the grave in the baptismal water was Origen (184-254).6 In Homilies on Exodus, Origen reviews and parallels the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt with the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Citing Hosea (6:2)7 concerning the third day as the day God will raise us up, Origen states that St. Paul is correct in Romans 6:3-4 to say we must die in baptism to share in the new life of the resurrection. Origen also uses this symbolism in homily 14 of Homilies on St. Luke.8 Both Romans 6:8 and Colossians 2:9-12 are cited by Origen to explain that baptism replaces circumcision:

Just as, therefore, “we have been buried with him” by his death and also risen with him by his resurrection, so also we have been circumcised with him and, after circumcision, cleansed by solemn purification. ... And thus it is that his death and resurrection and circumcision have been accomplished for us.9

    St. Basil the Great (329-379) specifically states that baptism is the grave. “Do you adore the one who died for you? Then accept burial with Him in baptism. For if you are not planted with Him in the likeness of death, how can you share in his resurrection?”10 St. Basil’s younger brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa (330-395), explained the matter by comparing the dirt of the physical grave with the liquid grave of baptism:

And we in receiving baptism, in imitation of our Lord and teacher and guide, are not indeed buried in the earth(for this is the shelter of the body that is entirely dead, covering the infirmity and decay of our nature), but coming to the element akin to earth, to water, we conceal ourselves in that as the Savior did in the earth: and by doing this thrice we represent for ourselves that grace of the resurrection which was wrought in three days: ...11

    St. Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386) refers to the waters of baptism as being “at once your grave and your mother”.12 St. Cyril sees an imitation of the death, burial and the resurrection of Christ in the dipping in the water.13 The symbolism is clear: we die to sin in the immersion into the water; we rise out of the water to new life, as Christ did from the tomb. St. John Chrysostom (347-407) saw several types in the water of baptism, including baptism as a burial and a resurrection.
Divine symbols are perfected [in baptism]: burial and death, resurrection and life and all these happen at the same time. As we submerge our heads in the water as in a tomb, the old man is buried, and as he goes down he is once and for all and entirely hidden; then, as we lift up our heads, the new man comes forth. Just as it is easy for us to be immersed and to lift up our heads again, so it is easy for God to bury the old man and show forth the new. This takes place three times, that you may know that the power of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit brings all these things to fulfillment.14

    Further, St. John Chrysostom states in the tenth instruction of the Baptismal Instructions that “in baptism there are both burial and resurrection together at the same time. He who is baptized puts off the old man, takes the new, and rises up, just as Christ has arisen through the glory of the Father.”15 In commenting on the Roman 6:5 text, this renowned Patriarch of Constantinople writes:

His body was buried in the earth and brought forth salvation as its fruit for the world; so also our adoption, and countless blessings. And it will bring the final gift of resurrection. Since we were buried in water, He in the earth, we in the nature of our sin, He in the nature of His flesh, Paul did not say ‘in death’ but ‘in the likeness of death.’ Both the one and the other are death, but not of the same thing.16

    St. Ambrose of Milan (339-397) sees clearly the relationship of baptism and the imparting of the Holy Spirit to the soul. For this to occur, the soul must die to sin to be born into a new life of grace. St. Ambrose in one work describes three types of death, one of which is “mystical, when someone dies to sin and lives to God”.17 By this, he sees the baptismal waters as a grave to the old life of sin:

Yet there are many who, because we are baptized in water and in the Spirit, do not think that there is any difference in the offices of water and the Spirit, and so do not think that there is any difference in nature. Nor do they notice that we are buried in the element of water that renewed through the Spirit we may rise again. For in the water is the representation of death, in the Spirit the pledge of life, that through water the body of sin may die, which as in a kind of tomb envelops the body, and through the power of the Spirit we may be renewed from the death of sin, reborn in God.18

    The anonymous work The Apostolic Constitutions, dated about 375, contains in Chapter 17 thereof the teaching, by that time common: “This baptism therefore is given into the death of Jesus: the water is instead of the burial ...”.19 St. Augustine (354-430) states starkly that St. Paul does not say “‘We symbolize burial’, but says plainly: ‘We are buried with Him.’ Therefore, he calls the sacrament, which is the sign of so great an effect, by the same name as the effect.”20
    St. Leo the Great (390-461) attests to the fact that, by the time of his pontificate, that the understanding of the baptismal waters as a grave for the rebirth of the new man was commonly understood. This is seen in his instruction to the bishops of Sicily to baptize during Easter and Pentecost:

For in the baptismal rite, death ensues through the slaying of sin; threefold immersion initiates the lying in the tomb three days, and the raising out of the water is like him that rose again from the tomb. The very nature, therefore, of the act teaches us that that is the recognized day for the general reception of the grace, on which the power of the gift and the character of the action originated.21

    Thus we see that the symbolism of the baptismal waters, as set forth by St. Paul, was stressed first by Origen. From this Egyptian Father, the same emphasis spread, in both east and west, through the 300s until it was commonly accepted and understood, as attested to by Pope St. Leo the Great. It is still a major symbolism of water.
    The Book of Exodus 14:15-31 recounts the parting of the Red Sea and the crossing over of the Israelites from Egypt. The episode prefigures our redemption: the Israelites escape from the clutches of Pharaoh when his troops are engulfed by the Red Sea; similarly, the Christian escapes from sin and from the power of Satan by the waters of baptism. This type of escape from slavery is part of a second symbolism patristic writers see. The symbolism is most striking in St. Paul, who exhorts the Corinthians with a warning not to fall like so many of the Israelites:

For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our Fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: And did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.) But with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the desert. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them .... (1 Cor. 10:1-7).

    One critical link established by the Church Fathers is the analogy of the freedom from Pharaoh to the freedom from the power of the demons. Thus, the waters of the sea through which the Israelites passed are similar in symbol to those waters through which the baptized passes. This would explain passages in the patristic sources to secure flowing water if possible.22

Pass, pray, from the old to the new, from the figure to the reality. There Moses sent by God to Egypt; here Christ sent from the Father into the world. Moses’ mission was to lead out from Egypt a persecuted people; Christ’s to rescue all the people of the world who were under the tyranny of sin. There the blood of a lamb was the charm against the destroyer; here, the blood of the unspotted Lamb, Jesus Christ, is appointed your inviolable sanctuary against demons. Pharaoh pursed that people of old right into the sea; this outrageous spirit, the impudent author of all evil, followed you, each one, up to the very verge of the saving streams [of the baptistery]. That other tyrant is engulfed and drowned in the Red Sea; this one is destroyed in the saving water.23

    St. Gregory of Nyssa likewise sees Satan quashed like the Egyptian chariots:

[T]he people itself, by passing through the Red Sea, proclaimed the good tidings of salvation by water. The people passed over, and the Egyptian king with his host was engulfed, and by these actions this sacrament was foretold. For even now, whensoever the people is in the water of regeneration, fleeing from Egypt, from the burden of sin, it is set free and saved. But the Devil with his own servants (I mean of course, the spirits of evil), is choked with grief, and perishes, deeming the salvation of men to be his own misfortune.24

    St. John Chrysostom wrote at length on this typology; only a few examples can be given:

The Jews saw miracles. Now you shall see greater and much more brilliant ones than those seen when the Jews went forth from Egypt. You did not see the Pharaoh and his armies drowned, but you did see the drowning of the devil and his armies. The Jews passed through the sea; you have passed through the sea of death. They were delivered from the Egyptians; you are set free from the demon. They put aside their servitude to barbarians; you have set aside the far more hazardous servitude to sin.25

Where, then, is the relationship between the type and the truth? Because there all went forth as do all here; there they went through water, as do all here; there they went through water, as do all here; because they were freed from bondage as we are freed from bondage, but not the same kind; they were set free of the Egyptians, we are set free of the demons; they were released from the bondage of barbarians, we from the bondage of sin.26

    Origen explains succinctly what Paul understood in the cloud and the water relating to the initiation under the new covenant:

Do you see how much Paul’s teaching differs from the literal meaning? What the Jews supposed to be a crossing of the sea, Paul calls a baptism; what they supposed to be a cloud, Paul asserts is the Holy Spirit. He wishes that to be understood in a similar manner to this which the Lord taught in the gospels, “Unless a man be born again of the water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” [John 3:5].27

    Tertullian also saw the Exodus prefiguring baptism:

... when the people, set unconditionally free, escaped the violence of the Egyptian king by crossing over through water it was water that extinguished the king himself, with his entire forces. What figure more manifestly fulfilled in the sacrament of baptism? The nations are set free from the world by means of water, to wit: and the devil, their old tyrant, they leave quite behind, overwhelmed in the water.28

    It is to be expected that the signal event of Moses’ mission should also be associated with the baptism in Christ. Since Jesus is the supreme lawgiver and surpasses Moses, as shown at the transfiguration, the crossing of the Red Sea would be seen as a prefigurement of baptism.
    The symbolism of the baptism waters necessarily includes the image of washing. Indeed, this has been referred to already by the Fathers, if to distinguish that the types already seen are not a washing. But what is evident upon review of the Church Fathers is that the washing of baptism accomplishes a regeneration of the soul; the person is made anew in Christ. The type is so broad as to defy easy summary; thus, a review of Scripture will precede a survey of patristic quotes.
    St. Paul writes that in baptism “you are washed”(1 Cor. 6:11). He also teaches this rebirth is a gift from God:

But when the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared, not by the works of justice, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost, whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour that, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs, according to hope of life everlasting (Titus 3:4-7).

    The entire concept of the creative force in the water recalls the creation narrative from Genesis 1:1-2, where the spirit hovered over the water, and the waters were a wellspring of all holiness.29 The prophet Ezekiel refers to a ritual washing which will purify the soul:

And I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness, and I will cleanse you from all your idols. And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:25-26).

    The image of cleaning can be seen again in St. Paul’s writing to the Ephesians, which hints at Jesus the bridegroom being a new Adam in the symbolism of the husband and wife:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and delivered himself up for it that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy, and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27).

    Other Scriptural references are germane to this typology, but can only be identified. One powerful image is the water and blood which flow forth from the side of Christ and which witness to the world.30 Another theme is the purification of the water with wood, as Moses did with the tree dipped into the waters of Mara to make the waters sweet (Exodus 15: 22-27). Additionally, there is the water which flowed from the rock, which Moses did strike with his staff (Exodus 17: 1-7).
    St. John Chrysostom presents various interpretations of this symbolism in his baptismal works. He affirms the type generally, and then broadens the analogy to metalworking:

And why, someone will say, if the bath takes away all our sins, is it not called the bath of the remission of sins, or the bath of cleansing, rather than the bath of regeneration? The reason is that it does not simply remit our sins, nor does it simply cleanse us of our faults, but it does this just as if we were born anew. For it does create us anew and it fashions us again, not molding us from earth, but creating us from a different element, the nature of water.

This bath does not merely cleanse the vessel but melts the whole thing down again. Even if a vessel has been wiped off and carefully cleaned, it still has the marks of what it is and still bears the traces of the stain. But when it is thrown into the smelting furnace and is renewed by the flame, it puts aside all dross and, when it comes from the furnace, it gives forth the same sheen as newly-molded vessels.

When a man takes and melts down a gold statue which has become filthy with the filth of years and smoke and dirt and rust, he returns it to us all-clean and shining. So, too, God takes this nature of ours when it is rusted with the rust of sin, when our faults have covered it with abundant soot, and when it has destroyed the beauty He put into it in the beginning, and he smelts it anew. ... He has broken the old man to pieces but has produced a new man who shines brighter than the old.31

   In another passage, St. John Chrysostom explains the symbolism of the water and the blood.

... there came out water and blood. The one was a symbol of baptism, and the other of the mysteries. Therefore, he did not say: There came out blood and water (John 19:34), but first water came forth and then blood, since first comes baptism and then the mysteries.32

    Tertullian refers to Moses and the cross of Christ in sweetening the waters:

Again water is restored from its defect of “bitterness” to its native grace of “sweetness” by the tree of Moses. That tree was Christ, restoring, to wit, of himself, the veins of sometime envenomed and bitter nature into the all-salutary waters of baptism. This is the water which flowed continuously down for the people from the “accompanying rock”; for if Christ is the Rock, without doubt we see baptism blest by the water in Christ.33

    The work, The Shepherd of Hermas, touches upon the sealing in new life effected by the water.

A man is dead before he receives the Name of the Son of God, but, when he receives the seal, he puts off death and receives life. The seal, therefore, is water. The dead go down into the water and come out of it living.34

    St. Cyril of Jerusalem states the two-fold nature of the sacrament:

Since man is of a two-fold nature, composed of body and soul, the purification also is two-fold: the corporeal for the corporeal and the incorporeal for the incorporeal. The water cleanses the body, and the Spirit seals the soul. ... When you go down into the water, then, regard not simply the water, but look for salvation through the power of the Spirit. For without both you cannot attain to perfection. It is not I who says this, but the Lord Jesus Christ, who has the power in this matter. And he says, “Unless a man be born again” and he adds the words “of water and of the Spirit” he cannot enter the kingdom of God. He that is baptized with water, but not found worthy of the Spirit, does not receive the grace in perfection. Nor, if a man be virtuous in his deeds, but does not receive the seal by means of the water, shall he enter the kingdom of heaven. A bold saying, but not mine; for it is Jesus who has declared it.35

    Although voluminous references can be made to the Fathers on the passages in John 3, this last reference should serve to be an exemplar of the rest. The Fathers seem to stand with unanimity on the fact that water baptism is necessary for life in Christ and salvation. This is something being forgotten today by many Christians, particularly by our Fundamentalist brothers. An understanding of the symbolism of baptism as a true regeneration in the washing would help remove that idea.
    The symbolism of baptismal waters as a cleansing finds a prefigure in the Flood of Genesis 6. In the salvation of Noah and his family is seen the prefigurement of the saving waters of baptism.36 In his first epistle, the Prince of the Apostles sets forth the analogy:

Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, in which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison; which had been some time incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noe, when the ark was a building wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. Whereunto baptism being of the like form, now saveth you also, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the examination of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Who is on the right hand of God, swallowing down death, that we might be made heirs of life everlasting, being gone into heaven, the angels and powers and virtues being made subject to him (1 Peter 3:18-22).

    Often, the Fathers follow this type to show that the Church is the vehicle of salvation. Many theological controversies raged in the early Church, and the patristic literature is replete with warnings and condemnations of the baptism of heretics.
    St. Cyprian gives one such an instruction:

And Peter, showing that there is one Church and that those alone who are in the Church can be baptized, asserted and said [quote of 1 Peter 3:20-21], proving and testifying that one ark of Noe was the type of the one Church. If in that baptism of the purged and purified world, he who was not in the ark of Noe could then be saved by water, he who is not in the Church to which alone baptism has been granted can now be vivified through baptism!37

    St. Ambrose relates baptism and the flood more closely:

We began to discuss that in the flood, also, a figure of baptism had preceded. What is the flood except where the just is reserved for the seminary of justice, and where sin dies? So the Lord, seeing that the sins of men were flourishing, reserved the just man alone with his progeny, but ordered the water to go out even above the mountains. And thus in that flood all corruption of the flesh perished; only the stock and the kind of the just remained. Is not this a flood, which baptism is, which all sins are washed away, only the mind and grace of the just are raised up again?38

    These two examples show the symbolism generally attached to the Flood and the passage from Peter, when treated in patristic literature. The first deals with the controversy of heretical baptism, which is eschewed by the earlier Fathers. In as much as this type deals with the image of the Church as a ship, it is not truly germane to the present study, and will receive no further treatment.
    The second type, as shown in the quotation from St. Ambrose by way of example, treats baptism as a washing. This evidently follows the cleansing of the earth from its sinfulness, and thus the association to the regeneration and new creation in baptism, which previously was wrought by God in the renewed earth after the deluge. In this manner, there is a close correlation to the previous treatment on the power of the water. Yet this symbolism of the water is different from the power, as it seems here to be the sheer amount that obliterates the previous sin and allows a new growth to occur.

    This would seem to be borne out in the writings of St. Basil:

“The Lord maketh the flood to dwell.” (Psalm 28:10) A flood is an overflow of water which causes all lying below it to disappear and cleanses all that was previously filthy. Therefore, he called the grace of baptism a flood, so that the soul, being washed well of its sins and rid of the old man, is suitable hence-forward as a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.39

    In reviewing these major symbolisms in the waters of baptism, it must be noted that some types were not mentioned or treated in depth. These include the crossing of the Jordan led by Joshua, the cleansing of the leper Naaman in the Jordan, the dousing of the sacrifice three times with water by Elijah, the baptism of Jesus, and the baptisms done by John. Further water symbolisms, such as the many uses of water by Christ and the water-related stories such as those with Agar, and with Isaac and Jacob, could not be dealt with. Much is worthy of reflection in these biblical accounts, and the patristics are rich in comment on these. However, these were not directly on point with the narrow focus of this study, and therefore could not be addressed.
    The patristic literature is replete with powerful meanings associated with the waters of baptism. Especially poignant are the references to the types seen in the Flood and in the Exodus. Yet as important as these types are, these types pale in comparison with the reality of the sacrament. The regenerative effect of the water, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is what brings new life. It is a great thing that the Church has seen fit to blend all of these types and prefigurements to teach us the wondrous happening in the rebirth of baptism. A remembrance of these themes, so evidently important to the early Fathers and to the early Church, will no doubt increase in us the desire to continue in our new life in God through the waters of baptism, so that as little fish we may live with our big fish, Jesus Christ, in the waters of holiness.40

Paul S. Czarnota is a lawyer in Detroit, Michigan.


End Notes

1    All Scripture quotations are taken from the Douay-Rheims reprint by Tan Books and publishers of an 1899 version by the John Murphy Company of Baltimore, MD.
2    John A. Hardon, S.J. Modern Catholic Dictionary. (New York:Doubleday, 1979). p. 208. All dates for the Fathers will be taken from the listing in this source.
3    Lorna Brockett, RSCJ. The Theology of Baptism. Number 25 in the “Theology Today” series. (Notre Dame, IN:Fides Publishers, Inc., 1971). p. 25.
4    See, for example, Catechism of the Catholic Church. English Edition for the United States of America. (New Hope, KY:Urbi et Orbi Communications, 1994) at P. 313, #1222, referring to the crossing of the River Jordan. Note that the other symbolism cited in this essay are identified in the Catechism at # 1218-1221 on p. 313.
5    Didache. 7:1-4. This can be found in The Faith of the Early Fathers. Ed. and Trans. W. A. . Vol. 1. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1970). p. 2.
6    Thomas M. Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate: Italy, North Africa and Egypt. Vol. 6 of the “Message of the Fathers of the Church” series. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1992). pp. 8-9.
7    The full text of Hosea 6:1-2: “In their affliction they will rise early to me: Come, and let us return to the Lord: for he hath taken us, and he will heal us: he will strike, and he will cure us.”
8    Finn, pp. 202-203.
9    Ibid.
10    Basil the Great, Protreptic on Holy Baptism. Quotation from Baptism: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts. Ed. André Hamman, OFM. Trans. Sup. Thomas Halton. (Staten Island,NY:Alba House, 1967). p. 78.
11    Thomas M. Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate: West and East Syria. Vol. 5 of the “Message of the Fathers of the Church” series. (Collegeville, MN:The Liturgical Press, 1992). pp. 65-66.
12    Cited from the Cat. Mys. at 2.4. Quoted from Brockett, p. 39.
13    Ibid.
14    St. John Chrysostom: Baptismal Instructions. Trans. and annotated by Paul W. Harkins. (Westminster, MD:The Newman Press, 1963). p. 227.
15    Ibid, p. 152
16    Ibid, p. 307.
17    St. Ambrose, Death as a Good. Quotation taken from Saint Ambrose: Seven Exegetical Works. Vol. 65 of the “Fathers of the Church” series. Trans. Roy J. Deferrari. (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 1972). p. 71.
18    St. Ambrose, The Holy Spirit. Book 1, Chapter 6, # 76. Quotation taken from Saint Ambrose: Theological and Dogmatic Works. Vol. 44 of the “Fathers of the Church” series. Trans. Michael P. McHugh. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963). pp. 62-63.
19    The Apostolic Constitutions, Chap. 17:1. Taken from E.C. Whitaker, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy. Second ed. revised and supplemented. (London:Holden Street Press, Ltd., 1970). p. 31.
20    Baptism: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts, p. 228.
21    Ibid, pp. 232-233.
22    Cf. Didache.
23    St. Cyril of Jerusalem Baptismal Catechesis, 1:3. Taken from Finn, Vol. 6, p. 24.
24    St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Baptism of Christ: A Homily for the Feast of Lights. Taken from Finn, vol. 5, p. 67.
25    St. John Chrysostom: Baptismal Instructions, p. 64.
26    Ibid, p. 240 at n. 52.
27    Finn, vol. 6, pp. 195-196, quoting from Homily on Exodus.
28    Baptism: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts, p. 38
29    See Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1218 at p. 313.
30    See John 19:34; 1 John 5:5-7.
31    St. John Chrysostom: Baptismal Instructions, pp. 138-139.
32    Baptism: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts, p. 169.
33    Ibid., p. 38.
34    Quoted from The Teachings of the Church Fathers. Ed. John R. Willis, SJ. (New York:Herder and Herder, 1967). p. 425.
35    St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures. 3:4. (350 AD).
36    New Jerusalem Bible, p. 25, footnote c.
37    Baptism: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts, p. 51
38    Saint Ambrose: Theological and Dogmatic Works. Vol. 44 of the “Fathers of the Church” series. Trans. Michael P. McHugh. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963). p. 279.
39    St. Basil: Exegetic Homilies. Trans. Sr. Agnes Clare Way, CDP. Vol. 46 of the “Fathers of the Church: series. (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 1963). p. 210.
40    This symbolism was used by Tertullian in his work Baptism at 1 thereof, and can be found in Volume 1 of Jurgens’ Faith of the Early Fathers, supra. It is from this teaching that the symbol of the fish was associated with our Lord. The Modern Catholic Dictionary, p. 214, explains that the Greek word ichthus means “fish”. Further, the Greek for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” is represented by ichthus through the first letter of the Greek words, as indicated by the underlining: Iesous, CHristos, THeos, Uios, Soter. Tertullian sees the waters of baptism as the waters of life, out of which we will die. We are removed from these living waters by grave sin.

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