thousand. (Acts ii.) When the Holy Ghost fell on all who heard his preaching in the house of Cornelius, Peter said: "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" (Acts x. 47.) When the eunuch requested to be baptized by Philip, his answer was: "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." (Acts viii. 37.) Thus was fully established Christian baptism, which implied, not only repentance and the washing away of sins, but also faith in a risen Saviour and allegiance to Him. It was an outward and visible sign that the convert took upon himself the profession of Christianity. By this act, he renounced his Jewish or heathen opinions and practices, and adopted the principles of the Christian faith.

Instituted by our Lord as a perpetual ordinance of His religion, baptism is the symbol of His death, burial, and resurrection. It represents, as regards the believer, death to sin and the world, and resurrection to a new life. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even SO we also should 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." (Romans vi. 3-5.) In his comments upon these passages, Justin Martyr (Apolog. ii.) says: "We celebrate in baptism the symbol and sign of His death and resurrection." Gregory of Nyssa,* in his sermon on repentance, remarks: "The old man is buried in water, the new man is born again, and grows in grace." (De Pænitentia.)

* Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, born in A.D. 330. He is the author of several homilies, orations, and letters. His Twelve Books against Eunomius are his best works.

Chrysostom" says, in one of his celebrated Homilies: "In this symbol (baptism) are fulfilled the pledges of our covenant with God: death and burial, resurrection and life; and these take place all at once. For when we immerse our heads under the water, the old man is buried as in a tomb below, and wholly sunk for ever; then, as we raise them up, the new man rises again. As it is easy for us to dip and lift our heads again, so it is easy for God to bury the old man and show forth the new; and this is done three times, that you may learn that the power of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, fulfilleth all this."+ In a Homily on the Epistle to the Romans, Chrysostom says: "For as His body (Christ's), by being buried in the earth, brought forth as the fruit of it the salvation of the world, thus ours also, being buried in baptism, bore as fruit righteousness, sanctification, adoption, countless blessings; and it will bear also hereafter the gift of the resurrection. Since, then, we were buried in the water, He in the earth; we in regard to sin, He in regard to His body; this is why he (Paul) does not say, 'We were planted together in His death, but in the likeness of His death." "‡

Chrysostom, Bishop of Antioch (354-407), a judicious, eloquent, and energetic expositor of Scripture.

† Θεῖα τελεῖται ἐν ἀυτῷ σύμβολα, τάφος καὶ νέκρωσις, καὶ ἀνάστασις καὶ ζωὴ, καὶ ταῦτα ὁμοῦ γίνεται πάντα. Καθάπερ γὰρ ἔν τινι τάφω, τῷ ὕδατι καταδυόντων ἡμῶν τὰς κεφαλὰς, ὁ παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος θάπτεται, καὶ, καταδὺς κάτω, κρύπτεται ὅλος καθαπαξ· εἶτα ἀνανευόντων ἡμῶν, ὁ καινὸς ἄνεισι πάλιν. Ὥσπερ γὰρ εὔκολον ἡμῖν βαπτίσασθαι καὶ ἀνανεῦσαι, οὕτως εὔκολον τῷ θεῷ θάψαι τὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν παλαιὸν, καὶ ἀναδεῖξαι τὸν νέον. Τρίτον δὲ τοῦτο γίνεται, ἵνα μάθης, ὅτι δύναμις πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ καὶ πνεύματος ἁγίου ἅπαντα ταῦτα πληροῖ. (Hom. xxv. In Joannem.)

† Καθάπερ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ταφὲν ἐν τῇ γῆ καρπὸν τῆς οἰκουμένης τὴν σωτηρίαν ἤνεγκεν· οὕτω καὶ τὸ ἡμέτερον ταφὲν ἐν τῷ βαπτίσματι, καρπὸν ἤνεγκε τὴν δικαιοσύνην, τὸν ἁγιασμὸν, τὴν υἱοθεσίαν, τὰ μυρία ἀγαθά· οἴσει δὲ καὶ τὸ τῆς ἀναστάτεως ὕστερον δῶρον. Ἐπεὶ οὖν ἡμεῖς μὲν ἐν ὕδατι, αὐτὸς δὲ ἐν γῇ, καὶ ἡμεῖς μὲν κατὰ τὸν τῆς ἁμαρτίας λόγον, ἐκεῖνος δὲ κατὰ τὸν τοῦ σώματος ἐτάφη, διὰ τοῦτο οὐκ εἶπε Σύμφυτοι τῷ θανάτῳ, ἀλλὰ Τῷ ὁμοιώματι τοῦ θάνατου. (Hom. xl. In Epist. ad Rom.)

Ambrosius says in his De Officiis (iii. c. 4): "In the sacrament of baptism the whole outer man perishes." (In baptismatis sacramento interit homo totus exterior.)

Leo the Great,† in his fourth letter to the Bishops of Sicily, writes: "Trine immersion is an imitation of the three days' burial; and the rising again out of the water is like the rising from the grave. (Sepulturam triduanam imitatur trina demersio, et ab aquis elevatio resurgentis instar est de sepulchro.)

Theodulus, Presbyter of Colesyria (died about A.D. 490), in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, says: "As the body of our Lord was buried in the earth, so our body is buried by baptism." Then, referring to the custom in his time of immersion repeated three times, he adds: "The three burials and resurrections, typified by the threefold dipping, symbolise His death and resurrection."+ Maximus,§ in his Homilia de Juda traditore, says: Baptism is to us burial with Christ, in which we die to sin and iniquity; and, the old man being destroyed, we rise again to new life. It is a burial, by which we lay down our life, and receive it anew that we may live. Great, therefore, is the grace of this sepulture, through

Ambrosius (340-397), Archbishop of Milan, a bold defender of the faith, and one of the most celebrated Fathers of the Church. He raised his See to such a power that it dared to resist Rome herself, up to the twelfth century. Ambrosius published annotations on Scripture, discourses, and miscellaneous treatises.

↑ Leo the Great was elected Pope of Rome in 440, and is at the head of the writers of the Latin Church in the fifth century. The most important of his works are his Letters and Sermons, of which there are two volumes.

Theodulus: "Adeo corpus Christi Domini in terra sepultum, sic et nostrum corpus per baptisma sepultum. Nam tres obitus et ortus, hoc est, triplex illa tinctura, mortem et resurrectionem significant."-Comment. in Epist. ad Rom.

§ Maximus, Bishop of Turin in the fifth century, and a wellknown Latin writer.

which a useful death is brought to us, and a still more useful life freely bestowed. Great is the grace of this sepulture with Christ, which purifies the sinner and gives life to the dying."

Gregory the Great:† "We also, when we immerse three times, symbolise the three days of Christ's burial."‡ Alluding to the words of our Saviour: "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the earth" (Matt. xii. 40), Alcuinusg says, in his Sixty-ninth Epistle : "The three immersions may represent the three nights."||

Theodulphus, an ecclesiatical writer of the ninth century, writes in his De Ordine Baptismi: "We die to sin when we renounce the devil and all his works; we are buried with Christ when we descend into the font of washing, as into a sepulchre, and are immersed three times in the name of the Holy Trinity; we rise with Christ when,

"Baptismum igitur Christi nobis est sepultura, in quo peccatis moriemur, criminibus sepelimur, et veteris hominis conscientia resoluta, in alteram nativitatem rediviva infantia reparamur. Baptismum, inquam, Salvatoris nobis est sepultura, quia et ibi perdidimus antè quod viximus, et ibi denuo accipimus, ut vivamus. Magna igitur sepulturæ hujus est gratia, in qua nobis et utilis mors infertur, et vita utilior condonatur; magna, inquam, hujus gratia sepulturæ, quæ et purificat peccatorem et vivificat morientem."-Maximus, Hom. de juda traditore.

Gregory the Great was elected Pope in A.D. 590. His chief works are letters, of which there are more than eight hundred. He is also the author of a Commentary on Job, a Pastorale, or Treatise on Pastoral Duties, and several Homilies.

"Nos autem quod tertiò demergimus, triduanæ sepulturæ sacramenta signamus."-Gregorius, Eib. i. Ep. xl.

§ Alcuinus, or Albinus, the most distinguished scholar of the eighth century, the confidant and adviser of Charlemagne, and author of numerous works, which consist principally of poems, elementary treatises on the different sciences, letters on a variety of theological subjects, and other works, some of which are lost.

"Possunt tres noctes tres mersiones designare."-Epist. lxix.

purified of all our sins, we come out of the font as from a tomb."*

Several allusions to baptism are found among some of the paintings of what Signor De Rossi, in his work "Roma Sotterranea," calls the "Ciclo Biblico," that is, the series of purely scriptural subjects which are represented in many of the Catacombs of Rome, and which belong to an earlier period of Christian Art than those of special saints, martyrs, Bishops of Rome and of other Sees, which are also found there. Thus the Deluge and the Ark of Noah are represented in the Catacombs as symbols of baptism, according to the words of the Apostle Peter: "The ark, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water; the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter iii. 21.) Tertullian expresses himself on this subject, in the following terms: 'As after the waters of the Deluge, in which the old iniquity was purged away, as after that baptism (so to call it) of the old world, a dove sent out of the ark and returning with an olive branch, was the herald to announce to the earth peace, and the cessation of the wrath of heaven; so, by a similar disposition with reference to matters spiritual, the dove of the Holy Spirit sent out from heaven, flies to the earth, that is, to our flesh as it comes out of the bath of regeneration after its old sins, and brings to us the peace of God." (De Baptismo, viii.) †

'Moriemur ergo peccato, quando abrenuntiamus diabolo et omnibus quæ ejus sunt, consepelimur Christo cùm sub invocatione Sanctæ Trinitatis sub trina mersione, in fontem lavacri quasi in quoddam sepulcrum descendimus; consurgimus Christo, cùm exuti omnibus peccatis, de fonte quasi de sepulchro egredimur."

† Quemadmodum enim, post aquas diluvii, quibus iniquitas antiqua purgata est, post baptismum (ut ita dixerim) mundi, pacem cœlestis iræ præco columba terris annuntiavit demissa ex arca, et cum olea reversa; quod signum etiam apud nationes paci prætend