Sources for: What did the early Christians believe about baptism?

On Baptism - Chapter 10. Of John's Baptism

The baptism announced by John was, even at that time, the subject of a question. The Lord Himself indeed put it to the Pharisees, whether that baptism was heavenly, or truly earthly. About this they were unable to give a consistent answer, since they did not understand, because they did not believe. But we, with as small a measure of understanding as of faith, are able to decide that that baptism was indeed divine, yet in respect to the command, not also in respect to its efficacy. For we read that John was sent by the Lord to carry out this duty. But in its nature it was human. For it conveyed nothing celestial, but served beforehand for things celestial. That is, it was appointed over repentance, which is in man's power. In fact, the doctors of the law and the Pharisees, who were unwilling to believe, did not repent either. But if repentance is a human thing, its baptism must necessarily be of the same nature. Otherwise, if it had been celestial, it would have given both the Holy Spirit and remission of sins. But no one either pardons sins or freely grants the Spirit except God only. Even the Lord Himself said that the Spirit would not descend on any other condition, except that He should first ascend to the Father, John 16:6-7. What the Lord was not yet conferring, of course the servant could not furnish. Accordingly, in the Acts of the Apostles, we find that men who had Jo...

The First Apology - Chapter 61: Christian Baptism.

…Moses in a flame of fire from a bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," they still maintain that He who said this was the Father and Creator of the universe. Therefore, the Spirit of prophecy rebukes them, saying, "Israel does not know Me, my people have not understood Me." Again, Jesus, as we have shown, while He was with them, said, "No one knows the Father except the Son; nor the Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal Him." The Jews, consistently believing it was the Father of the universe who spoke to Moses, though it was indeed the Son of God, called both Angel and Apostle, are rightly charged by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ Himself with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. Those who claim that the Son is the Father are shown to be unfamiliar with the Father and do not know that the Father of the universe has a Son, who, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. In the past, He appeared to Moses and other prophets as fire and in the likeness of an angel. But now, in the time of your reign, having become Man by a virgin, according to the Father’s plan, for the salvation of those who believe in Him, He endured being scorned and suffering, so that by dying and rising again He might conquer death. What was said from the bush to Moses, "I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the Go...

Treatise on Re-Baptism - Chapter 1

14. And even up to this point, that whole heretical baptism may be amended, after some time has passed, if a man should survive and amend his faith. For our God, in the Gospel according to Luke, spoke to His disciples, saying, "But I have another baptism to be baptized with" (Luke 12:50). Also, according to Mark, He said with the same purpose to the sons of Zebedee, "Are you able to drink of the cup which I drink of, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" (Mark 10:38). For He knew that those men had to be baptized not only with water, but also in their own blood. So, being well baptized in this baptism only, they might attain the sound faith and the simple love of the laver. And, baptized in both ways, they might likewise, to the same extent, attain the baptism of salvation and glory. For what was said by the Lord, "I have another baptism to be baptized with," does not mean in this place a second baptism, as if there were two baptisms. Rather, it shows that there is also a baptism of another kind given to us, concurring to the same salvation. And it was fitting that both these kinds should first of all be initiated and sanctified by our Lord Himself, so that either one of the two kinds, or both kinds, might afford to us this one twofold baptism of salvation and glory. Thus certain ways of the one baptism were opened to us, so that at times one of them mi...

Treatise on Re-Baptism - Chapter 1

2. Therefore, for those who begin a discussion of saving and new baptism, that is, spiritual and evangelical baptism, the first thing that comes before them is the announcement that is known everywhere, made and begun by John the Baptist. He departed somewhat from the law, that is, from the most ancient baptism of Moses, and prepared the way for the new and true grace. By the baptism of water and of repentance, which he practiced for a time, he gradually prepared the Jews to listen. He also laid hold of them by announcing a spiritual baptism that was to come, urging them and saying, "He that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire," Matthew 3:11. For this reason, we also ought to begin this discussion from this point. For in the Acts of the Apostles, after His resurrection, the Lord confirmed this same word of John and commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for that promise of the Father, "which," He says, "you have heard from me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days from now," Acts 1:4-5. Peter also repeated these same words of the Lord when he explained his actions to the apostles, saying: "And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell upon them as on us at the beginning; and I remembered the word of t...

Treatise on Re-Baptism - Chapter 1

…baptism, might give no small advantage toward obtaining salvation for the one being baptized, as Peter says in the Acts of the Apostles: "For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved," Acts 4:12. The Apostle Paul also explains this, showing that God has exalted our Lord Jesus and given Him a name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, in the glory of God the Father. And if, when a man was baptized, invocation was made in the name of Jesus over him, then even if he received baptism while in some error, he still would not be prevented from at some time coming to know the truth, correcting his error, coming to the Church and to the bishop, and sincerely confessing our Jesus before men. So then, when hands were laid on him by the bishop, he might also receive the Holy Spirit, and he would not lose that earlier invocation of the name of Jesus. None of us may disallow this, although that invocation, if it stood bare and by itself, could not be enough to give salvation. Otherwise, on that principle, we would have to believe that even Gentiles and heretics, who misuse the name of Jesus, could attain salvation without the true and entire thing. Yet it is extremely useful to believe that this invocation of the name...

Commentary on John - Book VI

Now, someone who is not familiar with the different aspects of the Savior may very well stumble over the explanation given above about the Jordan. John says, “I baptize with water, but He who comes after me is stronger than I. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” To this we reply that the Word of God, in His character as something to be drunk, is to one group of people water, and to another wine, which makes glad the heart of man, and to others blood, since it is said in John 6:53, “Unless you drink My blood, you have no life in you.” And in His character as food, He is understood in different ways as living bread or as flesh. So also He, the same person, is baptism of water, and baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire, and for some, also, of blood. It is of this last baptism, as some hold, that He speaks in the words of Luke 12:50, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am distressed until it is accomplished!” And this agrees with what the disciple John says in his Epistle, in 1 John 5:8, about the Spirit and the water and the blood being one. Again, He declares Himself to be the way and the door. But clearly, He is not the door to those to whom He is the way, and He is no longer the way to those to whom He is the door. Therefore, let all who are being instructed in the first lessons of the oracles of God, and who come to the voice of him who cries in the wilde...

Treatises - Treatise 11

Moreover, beloved brothers, I have also thought it useful and beneficial, in an exhortation so necessary as one that can make martyrs, to cut off all delay and slowness in our words, to put aside the twists of human speech, and to set down only those things that God speaks, by which Christ urges His servants to martyrdom. Those divine commands themselves should be provided, as if they were weapons for the fighters. Let them be the call of the war trumpet. Let them be the battle cry for the warriors. Let the ears be stirred by them. Let the minds be made ready by them. Let the powers of both soul and body be strengthened by them for every endurance of affliction. Let us, who by the Lord's permission have given the first baptism to believers, also prepare each one for the second, urging and teaching that this is a baptism greater in grace, higher in power, more precious in honor—a baptism in which angels baptize—a baptism in which God and His Christ rejoice—a baptism after which no one sins anymore—a baptism that completes the growth of our faith—a baptism that, as we depart from the world, immediately joins us to God. In the baptism of water, the remission of sins is received; in the baptism of blood, the crown of virtues. This must be embraced and desired, and asked for in all the pleas of our prayers, so that we who are God's servants may also be His friends.

Epistles - Epistle 62

But whenever water is mentioned by itself in the Holy Scriptures, it refers to baptism, as we see hinted at in Isaiah: “Do not remember the former things, and do not consider the things of old. Look, I will do a new thing, which will now spring up, and you shall know it. I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the dry land, to give drink to my chosen people, my people whom I have purchased, so that they might show my praise.” Isaiah 43:18-21. There God foretold through the prophet that among the nations, in places that had previously been dry, rivers would afterward flow abundantly and would provide water for God’s chosen people. That is, they would provide it for those who were made sons of God by the birth of baptism. Moreover, it was also predicted and foretold earlier that the Jews, if they should thirst and seek after Christ, would drink with us; that is, they would receive the grace of baptism. “If they shall thirst,” he says, “He shall lead them through the deserts, shall bring forth water for them out of the rock; the rock shall be split, and the water shall flow, and my people shall drink.” Isaiah 48:21. This is fulfilled in the Gospel, when Christ, who is the Rock, is pierced by the stroke of the spear in His passion. He also, warning about what had been announced before by the prophet, cries out and says, “If any man thirst, let him come and drink. H...

Commentary on John - Book X

When He was raised from the dead, John 2:22, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. This tells us that after Jesus' resurrection from the dead, His disciples saw that what He had said about the temple had a higher meaning that applied to His passion and His resurrection. They remembered that the words, "In three days I will raise it up," pointed to the resurrection. "And they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said." We are not told that they had believed the Scripture or the word that Jesus had spoken before this. For faith in its full sense is the act of the person who accepts with his whole soul what is confessed at baptism. As for the higher meaning, since we have already spoken of the resurrection from the dead of the whole body of the Lord, we must now note that the disciples were reminded by the fulfillment of the Scripture, which, while they were alive before, they had not fully understood. Its meaning was now set before their eyes and made completely clear to them, and they knew of what heavenly things it was the pattern and shadow. Then they believed the Scripture, though before they had not believed it, and they believed the word of Jesus which, as the writer means to show, they had not believed before the resurrection. For how can anyone be said, in the full sense, to beli...

Treatise Concerning the Trinity - Chapter 30

…like me." And, "Who has measured heaven with a span, and the earth with a handful? Who has weighed the mountains in a balance, and the woods on scales?" And Hezekiah says: "That all may know that You alone are God." Moreover, the Lord Himself says: "Why do you ask me about what is good? God alone is good." Moreover, the Apostle Paul says: "Who alone has immortality, and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see." And in another place: "But a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one." But even as we hold, and read, and believe this, so we ought not to pass over any part of the heavenly Scriptures. For we must by no means reject those marks of Christ's divinity that are laid down in Scripture, so that by corrupting the authority of Scripture we may not be found to have corrupted the integrity of our holy faith. And therefore let us believe this also, since it is most trustworthy: that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our Lord and God. For "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. The same was in the beginning with God." And, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us." And, "My Lord and my God." And, "Whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forevermore." What then shall we say? Does Scripture set before us two Gods? How then does it say that God i...

Commentary on the Apocalypse - Chapter 30

…ke Me." And, "Who has measured heaven with a span, and the earth with a handful? Who has weighed the mountains in a balance, and the woods on scales?" And Hezekiah says, "That all may know that You alone are God." Moreover, the Lord Himself says, "Why do you ask Me concerning what is good? God alone is good." Moreover, the Apostle Paul says, "Who alone has immortality, and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see." And in another place: "But a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one." But while we hold, and read, and believe this, we should pass over no part of the heavenly Scriptures. For we must by no means reject those marks of Christ's divinity that are laid down in the Scriptures, so that by corrupting the authority of Scripture we may not be thought to have corrupted the integrity of our holy faith. Therefore let us also believe this, since it is completely trustworthy, that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our Lord and God. For "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. The same was in the beginning with God." And, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us." And, "My Lord and my God." And, "Whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forevermore." What then shall we say? Does Scripture set before us two Gods? How then does it say that God i...

On Prescription Against Heretics - Chapter 21. All Doctrine True Which Comes Through the Church from the Apostles, Who Were Taught by God Through Christ. All Opinion Which Has No Suc...

From this, then, we draw our rule. Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, our rule is that no others should be accepted as preachers except those whom Christ appointed. For no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him, as in Matthew 11:27. And the Son does not seem to have revealed Him to anyone other than the apostles, whom He sent out to preach, namely, what He revealed to them. Now, what they preached, in other words, what Christ revealed to them, can, as I must also state here, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches that the apostles themselves founded. They founded them by preaching the gospel to them directly, first by the living voice, as the phrase is, and afterward by their letters. If these things are so, then it is just as clear that all teaching which agrees with the apostolic churches, those patterns and original sources of the faith, must be regarded as true, since it certainly contains what those churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, and Christ from God. But all teaching must already be judged false if it has any flavor of opposition to the truth of the churches, and of the apostles, of Christ, and of God. It remains, then, for us to show whether this teaching of ours, for which we have now given the rule, comes from the tradition of the apostles, and w...

De Anima (On the Soul) - Chapter 3. The Soul's Origin Defined Out of the Simple Words of Scripture

If only, by God's will, heresies had never been necessary, so that those who are approved might be made known. 1 Corinthians 10:19 Then we would never need to test our strength in arguments about the soul with philosophers, those fathers of heretics, as they may rightly be called. Even in his own time, the apostle saw ahead that philosophy would do great harm to the truth. Colossians 2:8 He was moved to give this warning about false philosophy after he had been in Athens, had come to know that talkative city, and had there gotten a taste of its peddling wise men and debaters. In the same way, the teaching about the soul follows the clever doctrines of men who mix their wine with water. Isaiah 1:22 Some deny that the soul is immortal. Others say that it is immortal, and even more than that. Some argue about its substance. Others argue about its form. Others, again, argue about each of its various powers. One school of philosophers explains its condition from different sources, while another assigns its departure to different destinations. The different schools show the character of their founders, according to whether they have taken their shape from the dignity of Plato, the force of Zeno, the calmness of Aristotle, the dullness of Epicurus, the sadness of Heraclitus, or the madness of Empedocles. I suppose, then, that the fault of divine teaching is that it comes from Judea,...

Commentary on John - Book VI

…Christ which, compared with the greater things in Him, are least? Or should I speak of His transcendent Deity, greater than all the world? If I, who have received such grace as to be thought worthy of prophecy predicting my arrival in this human life, in the words, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” and, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face”; if I, whose birth Gabriel, who stands before God, announced to my father when he was so advanced in years, so much beyond his expectation; I, at whose name Zacharias recovered his voice and was enabled to use it to prophesy; I, to whom my Lord bears witness that among those born of women there is none greater than I; if I am not able so much as to bear His shoes, what can be said about His garments? Who is so great as to be able to guard His coat? Who can suppose that he can understand the meaning contained in His tunic, which is without seam from the top because it is woven throughout? It is to be observed that while the four represent John as declaring himself to have come to baptize with water, Matthew alone adds the words “to repentance,” teaching that the benefit of baptism is connected with the intention of the person baptized. To him who repents it is salutary, but to him who comes to it without repentance it will turn to greater condemnation. And here we must note that the wonderful works done by the Savior in...

We Can Know The Truth - Brothers On A Journey - Intro Part 2 - Jason Willis

Well, what about that first church? What about the apostolic fathers? What about those men who were there to receive direct teaching and revelation from the apostles themselves, studied under them for decades? I wonder if they left any records at all of what the apostles actually meant in these scriptures. It turns out the anti-Nicene fathers did have a little bit of something to say, and it's all right here. Follow me here. This is so important. This Bible is scripture. This is not scripture. This Bible is 100% inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is not. This Bible is direct revelation from God. This is commentary about how the early church, the historic church, understood the revelation of this Bible.

Why is Your Commentary Different Than Other Commentaries?

What did they believe in the beginning? And to do that, it meant the last three years I've been putting into research on this, rereading the ante-Nicene Fathers, rereading Josephus, Philo, primary sources like that so that the commentary will reflect real information and will reflect what Christians believed in the beginning. So really, I think what it sounds like is maybe your goal with this commentary isn't so much what David thinks it's saying, but trying to take already known historical information from the early church and their writings about this book, the Gospel of Matthew, and bringing those together as a commentary from their perspective, almost, to an extent, versus necessarily just from your perspective.

"Sacred Roots: Canonization of the New Testament" by Philip Hess

And they contain all the core doctrines of Christianity. So while I believe that all 27 books are apostolic and belong in the canon, if somehow we could somehow prove at some future time that one of them was not written by maybe 2 Peter was not written by Peter, we still would have the gospel message, and we would have the teachings of Jesus. Now, there were a number of books that were considered non-canonical. So an early church father, Athanasius, divided Christian books into three categories: canonical, meaning scripture; catechetical, which was useful for teaching; and apocryphal.