Sermon on Baptism

Contents

1. 1Pacian opens his baptismal sermon by describing the death and bondage in which humanity, descended from Adam, lay before baptism.
2. 2Pacian explains how Adam’s sin brought death on all, hidden before the law and exposed but not cured by it, until grace came through Christ.
3. 3Pacian explains grace as the gift of forgiveness and describes Christ, sinless from his birth, overcoming the devil’s temptations in the wilderness.
4. 4Pacian describes the passion as Christ’s victory: the devil, by condemning the sinless one, overstepped his power over sinners and was overcome, and Christ rose on the third day.
5. 5Pacian argues that as Adam’s sin passed to his whole race, so Christ’s righteousness passes to his.
6. 6Pacian explains that Christians are born of Christ’s union with the church through the Spirit in baptism, chrism, and the bishop’s ministry, and so are renewed for eternal life.
7. 7Pacian urges the newly baptized to keep the life they have received, renouncing the devil once for all, and warns that returning to sin brings a worse bondage.