228 Dimensions of Baptism
Here Gregory introduces those qualities that make earth and water kin-
dred elements: they alone of the four elements have weight, move down-ward, can exist in one another, and can be contained in one another. 'Since
then the death of him who is the Author of our life occasioned his burial
under the earth according to our common nature, the imitation of his death
that we perform is represented in the kindred element [of water].'^26 As
Christ was three days under the earth before returning to life again, so
those who are joined to him are put under the water by three successive
actions in imitation of the grace of the resurrection on the third day. Greg-
ory speaks of the person baptized as both 'being poured over with water
[TO liScop ETTiXEcxpevos] instead of earth' and 'being put under [UTTOSUS]
that element' ,^27 The descent into the water [KCX0O5OS] and coming up from
[avaPaxes CXTTO] the water^28 may in one or the other or both cases refer to
the action of entering and exiting the baptismal pool. The pouring over of
the person with water suggests water flowing over the person's body,
perhaps indicating water being scooped over the exposed part of the body
while the person stood in the font; but the word for 'pouring over' may
have been suggested by the action in burial whereby after the body is
lowered into the grave earth is 'poured' over it and so refers not to what
the administrator does with the water but to the water coming over the
body when it was plunged into the water by the administrator. In either
case the body was covered with water in imitation of a dead body buried
in the earth.^29
Death brings a dissolution of a human being. By this process, evil flows
out so that at the resurrection there may be a reconstitution of the human
being, purified of any evil mixture. The pioneer's death fulfilled its pur-
pose completely. The baptismal death, burial, and resurrection of his
followers is not an exact imitation; the complete likeness must await the
end time. In the water of baptism there occurs 'not a complete destruction
but a certain rupture of the connection of evil'. 'What then is imitated [by
baptism]? It is the bringing about by death's image in the water of the
- GNO 88.2-5 (PG, xlv, col. 88C). He made the same comparison for the same
purpose of connecting baptism in water with the burial of Christ in the earth in In diem
luminum (GNO 9.228-13.26 [PG, xlvi, col. 585B]). - GNO 88.10-11 (PG, xlv, col. 88D); also 89.20-21 (89C), quoted below.
- GNO 86.6 (PG, xlv, col. 85D) and 89.21 (PG, xlv, col, 89C).
- One meaning of ETTIXSCO (in the passive) is 'to be drowned'. H.G. Liddell and
R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (ed. H.S. Jones and R. McKenzie; Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 9th edn with revised supplement, 1996), p. 673.