Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

256 Dimensions of Baptism

sermon, and others in Scripture were not baptized at Easter.^6 However,

Easter is the right time to be baptized, for a series of reasons: first, Easter

is the day we celebrate the victories Christ won, over the demons, sin and

death. It is fitting, argues John, that there are those waiting to receive a

reward from the King on the day of his victory feast, and that we share in

Christ's death and resurrection in baptism at the season of his death and

resurrection (10.5-7). So baptism should take place at Easter not because it

is wrong or ineffective at other times but because at Easter all that baptism

is and does and symbolizes is made most luminously clear.

So, the normal pattern of baptism in Chrysostom's day began at the

beginning of Lent. It seems that this was a response to the threat to Chris-

tian values posed by the influx of the semi-converted after the Constantin-

ian settlement.^7 Those who sought baptism would be taught the discipline

required of members of the Church and would be expected to live accord-

ing to it. 'I shall say it again and again,' insists Chrysostom, 'unless a man

has corrected the defects of his character and has developed a faculty for

virtue, let him not be baptized. For the bath can do away with sins previ-

ously committed; but there is no small fear or insignificant danger that we

may fall again into the same sins... For those who sin after baptism, the

punishment is proportioned to the greatness of the grace we received in it'

(12.21).

Those about to be baptized, then, must understand both the doctrines

and duties of the faith. The former are summed up in the great credal points

of Trinity and Incarnation (1.20-23), with particular warning against the

major heresies of the day, Arianism and Sabellianism (1.22). The duties of

the faith are more varied: on the negative side, John borrows lists of sins

from Scripture that are to be avoided ('if one is a fornicator, or an adul-

terer, or effeminate, or unnatural in his lust, or has consorted with pros-

titutes, or is a thief, or has defrauded others, or is a drunkard, or an

idolater...' 1.25); positively, the 'yoke of Christ' is easy and light (1.27-

29), and can be summed up by meekness and humility, which is spelt out

in rules concerning anger, envy, theft, unnecessary adornment, and so on

(1.30-38). False religious practice, endemic in the society still in the form

of reading omens and similar, is nonetheless to be avoided (1.39-40), as is

the lewdness of the theatre and the arena (1.43). 'Avoid, then', finishes

John, 'all these wicked snares of the devil and hold nothing in greater

6. See Harkins, St John Chrysostom, pp. 305-306, for this quotation and reference.


7. So Finn, Liturgy of Baptism, p. 44.