On Baptism 20
Summary: Candidates should prepare for baptism with prayer, fasting, vigils, and confession of sins; after baptism they should pray for spiritual gifts and remember Tertullian in their prayers.
Latin text · CSEL 20:217–219
Ingressuros baptismum orationibus crebris, ieiuniis et geniculationibus et peruigiliis orare oportet et cum confessione omnium retro delictorum, ut exponant etiam baptismum Iohannis. tinguebantur, inquit, confitentes delicta sua. nobis gratulandum est, si nunc publice confitemur iniquitates aut turpitudines nostras. simul enim et de pristinis satisfacimus conflictatione carnis et spiritus et subsecuturis temptationibus munimenta praestruimus. uigilate et orate, inquit, ne incidatis in temptationem. et ideo, credo, temptati sunt, quoniam obdormierunt, ut adprehensum dominum destituerint, et qui cum eo perstiterit et gladio sit usus, ter etiam negauerit; nam et praecesserat dictum, neminem intemptatum regna caelestia consecuturum. ipsum dominum post lauacrum statim temptationes circumsteterunt quadraginta diebus ieiuniis functum. ergo et nos, dicet aliquis, a lauacro potius ieiunare oportet. et quis enim prohibet, nisi necessitas gaudii et gratulatio salutis? sed dominus, quantulum aestimo, de figura Israelis exprobrationem in ipsum retorsit. namque populus mare transgressus et in solitudinem translatus per quadraginta annos illic cum diuinis copiis aleretur, nihilominus uentris et gulae meminerat quam dei. deinde dominus post aquam segregatus in deserta quadraginta dierum ieiunia emensus ostendit non pane uiuere hominem dei, sed dei uerbo temptationesque plenitudini et immoderantiae uentris appositas abstinentia elidi. igitur benedicti, quos gratia dei expectat, cum de illo sanctissimo lauacro noui natalis ascenditis et primas manus apud matrem cum fratribus aperitis, petite de patre, petite de domino, peculia gratiae, distributiones charismatum subiacere. petite, et accipietis, inquit. quaesistis enim et inuenistis; pulsastis et apertum est uobis. tantum oro, ut, cum petitis, etiam Tertulliani peccatoris memineritis.
English · Claude translation
Those about to enter baptism ought to pray with frequent prayers, fasts, kneelings, and vigils, and with the confession of all their past sins, so that they may also display the baptism of John: “They were dipped,” it says, “confessing their sins.” We have cause for thankfulness if we now confess our iniquities or disgraces publicly. For at the same time we both make satisfaction for our former sins by the struggle of flesh and spirit, and build defenses beforehand against temptations to come. “Watch and pray,” he says, “that you may not fall into temptation.” And so, I believe, they were tempted because they fell asleep, so that they deserted the Lord when he was arrested; and he who stood by him and used the sword even denied him three times. For the saying had gone before that no one untempted would attain the heavenly kingdom. The Lord himself, immediately after his washing, was beset by temptations, having kept a fast of forty days. “Then,” someone will say, “we too ought rather to fast after the washing.” And who forbids it, except the necessity of joy and thanksgiving for salvation? But the Lord, as far as I judge, turned back upon himself the reproach arising from the figure of Israel. For the people, having crossed the sea and been brought into the wilderness, though fed there for forty years with divine abundance, were nonetheless more mindful of belly and gullet than of God. Then the Lord, set apart in the desert after the water, completed a forty days' fast and showed that the man of God lives not by bread but by the word of God, and that temptations incident to fullness and immoderation of the belly are crushed by abstinence. Therefore, blessed ones, whom the grace of God awaits, when you come up from that most holy washing of the new birth and for the first time spread out your hands with your mother, together with your brothers, ask from the Father, ask from the Lord, that the special gifts of grace, the distributions of spiritual gifts, may be granted you. “Ask,” he says, “and you shall receive.” For you have sought and have found; you have knocked and it has been opened to you. Only this I ask: that when you ask, you also remember Tertullian, a sinner.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- “With your mother” means in the church. Some editors insert a negative (“if we do not now confess … publicly”); the text followed here has none. “Make satisfaction” renders satisfacimus, Tertullian's term for penitential amends. The saying that “no one untempted would attain the heavenly kingdom” is an unwritten saying (agraphon) not found in the canonical Gospels. The quotations are Matt 3:6 (Mark 1:5), Matt 26:41, and Matt 7:7; the allusions are Matt 26:40–56, 26:51 (John 18:10), 26:69–75, Matt 4:1–4 (Deut 8:3), and Israel in the wilderness (Exod 16; Num 11).
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Bapt. 20 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-baptismo/20/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Bapt. 20 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-baptismo/20/).
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