Chapter VI.--The Angel the Forerunner of the Holy Spirit. Meaning Contained in the Baptismal Formula.
Not that in [8584] the waters we obtain the Holy Spirit; but in the water, under (the witness of) the angel, we are cleansed, and prepared for the Holy Spirit. In this case also a type has preceded; for thus was John beforehand the Lord's forerunner, "preparing His ways." [8585] Thus, too, does the angel, the witness [8586] of baptism, "make the paths straight" [8587] for the Holy Spirit, who is about to come upon us, by the washing away of sins, which faith, sealed in (the name of) the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, obtains. For if "in the mouth of three witnesses every word shall stand:" [8588] --while, through the benediction, we have the same (three) as witnesses of our faith whom we have as sureties [8589] of our salvation too--how much more does the number of the divine names suffice for the assurance of our hope likewise! Moreover, after the pledging both of the attestation of faith and the promise [8590] of salvation under "three witnesses," there is added, of necessity, mention of the Church; [8591] inasmuch as, wherever there are three, (that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, ) there is the Church, which is a body of three.
[8584] Compare c. viii., where Tertullian appears to regard the Holy Spirit as given after the baptized had come out of the waters and received the "unction."
[8585] Luke i. 76.
[8586] Arbiter. [Eccles. v. 6, and Acts xii. 15.]
[8587] Isa. xl. 3; Matt. iii. 3.
[8588] Deut. xix. 15; Matt. xviii. 16; 2 Cor. xiii. 1.
[8589] Sponsores.
[8590] Sponsio.
[8591] Compare de Orat. c. ii. sub fin.
[8592] Compare the de Orat. quoted above, and de Patien. xxi.; and see Matt. xviii. 20.
Chapter VII.--Of the Unction.
After this, when we have issued from the font, [8593] we are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction,--(a practice derived) from the old discipline, wherein on entering the priesthood, men were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn, ever since Aaron was anointed by Moses. [8594] Whence Aaron is called "Christ," [8595] from the "chrism," which is "the unction;" which, when made spiritual, furnished an appropriate name to the Lord, because He was "anointed" with the Spirit by God the Father; as written in the Acts: "For truly they were gathered together in this city [8596] against Thy Holy Son whom Thou hast anointed." [8597] Thus, too, in our case, the unction runs carnally, (i.e. on the body,) but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism itself too is carnal, in that we are plunged in water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from sins.
[8593] Lavacro.
[8594] See Ex. xxix. 7; Lev. viii. 12; Ps. cxxxiii. 2.
[8595] i.e. "Anointed." Aaron, or at least the priest, is actually so called in the LXX., in Lev. iv. 5, 16, ho hiereus ho Christos: as in the Hebrew it is the word whence Messiah is derived which is used.
[8596] Civitate.
[8597] Acts iv. 27. "In this city" (en te polei taute) is omitted in the English version; and the name 'Iesoun, "Jesus," is omitted by Tertullian. Compare Acts x. 38 and Lev. iv. 18 with Isa. lxi. 1 in the LXX.
Chapter VIII.--Of the Imposition of Hands. Types of the Deluge and the Dove.
In the next place the hand is laid on us, invoking and inviting the Holy Spirit through benediction. [8598] Shall it be granted possible for human ingenuity to summon a spirit into water, and, by the application of hands from above, to animate their union into one body [8599] with another spirit of so clear sound; [8600] and shall it not be possible for God, in the case of His own organ, [8601] to produce, by means of "holy hands," [8602] a sublime spiritual modulation? But this, as well as the former, is derived from the old sacramental rite in which Jacob blessed his grandsons, born of Joseph, Ephrem [8603] and Manasses; with his hands laid on them and interchanged, and indeed so transversely slanted one over the other, that, by delineating Christ, they even portended the future benediction into Christ. [8604] Then, over our cleansed and blessed bodies willingly descends from the Father that Holiest Spirit. Over the waters of baptism, recognising as it were His primeval seat, [8605] He reposes: (He who) glided down on the Lord "in the shape of a dove," [8606] in order that the nature of the Holy Spirit might be declared by means of the creature (the emblem) of simplicity and innocence, because even in her bodily structure the dove is without literal [8607] gall. And accordingly He says, "Be ye simple as doves." [8608] Even this is not without the supporting evidence [8609] of a preceding figure. For just as, after the waters of the deluge, by which the old iniquity was purged--after the baptism, so to say, of the world--a dove was the herald which announced to the earth the assuagement [8610] of celestial wrath, when she had been sent her way out of the ark, and had returned with the olive-branch, a sign which even among the nations is the fore-token of peace; [8611] so by the self-same law [8612] of heavenly effect, to earth--that is, to our flesh [8613] --as it emerges from the font, [8614] after its old sins flies the dove of the Holy Spirit, bringing us the peace of God, sent out from the heavens where is the Church, the typified ark. [8615] But the world returned unto sin; in which point baptism would ill be compared to the deluge. And so it is destined to fire; just as the man too is, who after baptism renews his sins: [8616] so that this also ought to be accepted as a sign for our admonition.
[8598] [See Bunsen, Hippol. Vol. III. Sec. xiii. p. 22.]
[8599] Concorporationem.
[8600] The reference is to certain hydraulic organs, which the editors tell us are described by Vitruvius, ix. 9 and x. 13, and Pliny, H. N. vii. 37.
[8601] i.e. Man. There may be an allusion to Eph. ii. 10, "We are His worksmanship," and to Ps. cl. 4.
[8602] Compare 1 Tim. ii. 8.
[8603] i.e. Ephraim.
[8604] In Christum.
[8605] See c. iv. p. 668.
[8606] Matt. iii. 16; Luke iii. 22.
[8607] Ipso. The ancients held this.
[8608] Matt. x. 16. Tertullian has rendered akeraioi (unmixed) by "simplices," i.e. without fold.
[8609] Argumento.
[8610] Pacem.
[8611] Paci.
[8612] Dispositione.
[8613] See de Orat. iv. ad init.
[8614] Lavacro.
[8615] Compare de Idol. xxiv. ad fin.
[8616] [2 Pet. i. 9; Heb. x. 26, 27, 29. These awful texts are too little felt by modern Christians. They are too often explained away.]