CROSS The Meaning of 'Baptisms' in Hebrews 6.2 181
right of) setting another free if I can by the second'^11 Hippolytus informs
catechumens that martyrs receive baptism in their own blood: 'If any [onebeing a] catechumen should be apprehended for the Name, let him not be
anxious about undergoing martyrdom. For (yap) if he suffer violence and
be put to death before baptism, he shall be justified having been baptised
in his own blood.'^72
The account of the Carthaginian catechumens, Perpetua and Felicitas,
who were martyred in 203, includes the record of the martyrdom of
Saturus, who, after exhorting the soldier Pudens to believe, was immedi-
ately thrown to the leopard, 'and with one bite of his he was bathed with
such a quantity of blood, that the people shouted out to him as he was
returning, the testimony of his second baptism, "Saved and washed, saved
and washed'".^73 W.H.C. Frend comments that Perpetua and Felicitas
'were set on one thing only, the imitation of their Lord through martyr-
dom. .. Their baptism by water was simply the preliminary to the real
baptism of blood.'^74
In his Exhortation to Martyrdom, Origen says, 'But according to the- Tertullian, On Modesty 22, in A.C. Coxe (ed.), ANF 4 (repr. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994), p. 100. Tertullian also links martyrdom
(though he does not mention the baptism of blood explicitly) with the forgiveness of
sins in his Apology 50, ANF 3, p. 55, and Scorpiace 6, ANF 3, p. 639. See also T.D.
Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971),
p. 174 n. 2, who adds that Tertullian instituted a second forgiveness of sins by the
baptism of blood, commenting, 'In other words, martyrdom indefeasibly guarantees
salvation', a common view which he also locates in the Shepherd ofHermas {Sim.
9.28) and was fully endorsed by Origen. - Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 19.2, in G. Dix (ed.), The Treatise on the
Apostolic Tradition of St Hippolytus of Rome, Bishop and Martyr (ed. H. Chadwick;
London: SPCK, rev. edn, 1968), p. 30. - The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas 6.4, ANF3, p. 705. The translator notes
(n. 4), that this shout was mocking what was known to be the effect of Christian
baptism. - W.H.C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of
a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981
[1965]), p. 364. P. Cramer, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages, c. 200-c.
1150 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993), p. 48, argues from the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas 'that
baptism is in a sense a martyrdom put into ritual, and, conversely, that martyrdom is
sacrament—above all baptism—acted out in its physical extreme. Sacrament and
martyrdom, in other words, are different expressions of the same desire\ italics his.
See his detailed discussion of the subject on pp. 73-86.