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SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM

I. DEFINITION AND HISTORY

1. The positive document: "The Decree for the Armenians”

2. The negative document: "De Baptismo"

A. Authoritative Statement of Doctrine

B. Etymology

GREEK WORD:βbaptoβαπτίζω = baptizo“to wash or to immerse”

C. Definition

General Definition:•“A rite of washing with water as a sign of religious purification and consecration.”

•the universal rite of initiation of an individual into the community of faith.

St. Thomas Aquinas"Baptism is the external ablution* of the body, performed with the prescribed form of words.“

Code of Canon Law Canon 849

“Baptism, the gateway to the sacraments and necessary for salvation by actual reception or at least by desire, is validly conferred only by a washing of true water with the proper form of words. Through baptism men and women are freed from sin, are reborn as children of God, and, configured to Christ by an indelible character, are incorporated into the Church.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 1214. This sacrament is called Baptism, after the central rite by which it is carried out: to baptize (Greek baptizein) means to "plunge" or "immerse"; the "plunge" into the water symbolizes the catechumen's burial into Christ's death, from which he rises up by resurrection with him, as "a new creature.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 1214. This sacrament is called Baptism, after the central rite by which it is carried out: to baptize (Greek baptizein) means to "plunge" or "immerse"; the "plunge" into the water symbolizes the catechumen's burial into Christ's death, from which he rises up by resurrection with him, as "a new creature.”

CCC 1215. This sacrament is also called "the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit," for it signifies and actually brings about the birth of water and the Spirit without which no one "can enter the kingdom of God.“

CCC 1216. "This bath is called enlightenment, because those who receive this [catechetical] instruction are enlightened in their understanding . . . ." Having received in Baptism the Word, "the true light that enlightens every man," the person baptized has been "enlightened," he becomes a "son of light," indeed, he becomes "light" himself:

Baptism is God's most beautiful and magnificent gift. . . We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift. It is called gift because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; clothing since it veils our shame; bath because it washes; and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God's Lordship

CCC 1263. By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam's sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God.

D. Pre – Christian History of Baptism

Baptism – A Passage from Darkness to Light

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)

CCC 1218. Since the beginning of the world, water, so humble and wonderful a creature, has been the source of life and fruitfulness. Sacred Scripture sees it as "overshadowed" by the Spirit of God:

At the very dawn of creation your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them the wellspring of all holiness.

Notice the pattern:

1) Darkness2) The Holy Spirit & water3) Light

Noah’s Flood – The First Baptism (Genesis 6 – 9)

God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him. (1 Peter 3:20-22)

Noah’s Flood – The First Baptism (Genesis 6 – 9)

CCC 1219. The Church has seen in Noah's ark a prefiguring of salvation by Baptism, for by it "a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water":

The waters of the great flood you made a sign of the waters of Baptism, that make an end of sin and a new beginning of goodness.

CCC 1220. If water springing up from the earth symbolizes life, the water of the sea is a symbol of death and so can represent the mystery of the cross. By this symbolism Baptism signifies communion with Christ's death.

Noah’s Flood – The First Baptism (Genesis 6 – 9)

Pattern:

1)Spiritual darkness (the world is covered in evil)

2)2) Water (the flood . . . also called "baptism")

3) Spiritual light (the new world begins with 8 people in covenant with God)

The Baptism of the Israelites

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. . . . Now these things occurred as examples . . . . (1 Corinthians 10:1-6)

CCC 1221. But above all, the crossing of the Red Sea, literally the liberation of Israel from the slavery of Egypt, announces the liberation wrought by Baptism:

You freed the children of Abraham from the slavery of Pharaoh, bringing them dry-shod through the waters of the Red Sea, to be an image of the people set free in Baptism.

The Exodus

Now consider the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, which is also explicitly called "baptism" in 1 Corinthians 10:2. Notice the pattern:

1)Bondage in Egypt (this is what I am calling their "darkness“)2)Crossing the Red Sea (water baptism)3)Freedom from Egypt (this is what I am calling their "light")

Crossing of the Jordan River

CCC 1222. Finally, Baptism is prefigured in the crossing of the Jordan River by which the People of God received the gift of the land promised to Abraham's descendants, an image of eternal life. The promise of this blessed inheritance is fulfilled in the New Covenant.

•The crossing of the Jordan River which was a type of entering the Kingdom of God followed by pulling down the strongholds of the enemy (Joshua 3:15-17; IICor 10:4).

OTHER BIBLICAL ACCOUNTS •The Bathing of Namaan in the Jordan (Old Testament)

→ the Syrian cured of leprosy by a "baptism" in the Jordan River→Elisha commanded the Syrian commander Naaman to dip himself in the Jordan River to be cleansed of leprosy (see 2 Kings 5)

•In the Blood of the Paschal Lamb (Old Testament)

•In ancient Babylon, according to the Tablets of Maklu, water was important as a spiritual cleansing agent in the cult of Enke, lord of Eridu.

•In Egypt, the Book of Going Forth by Day contains a treatise on the baptism of newborn children, which is performed to purify them of blemishes acquired in the womb.

Water, especially the Nile's cold water, which was believed to have regenerative powers, is used to baptize the dead in a ritual based on the Osiris myth. Egyptian cults also developed the idea of regeneration through water. The bath preceding initiation into the cult of Isis seems to have been more than a simple ritual purification; it was probably intended to represent symbolically the initiate's death to the life of this world by recalling Osiris' drowning in the Nile.

E. Background in Jewish Ritual

Before the 1st century AD, converts to Judaism were required to bathe (or baptize) themselves as a sign of entering the covenant (tebilath gerim). Some of the later prophets envisaged that Jewish exiles returning home would cross the Jordan and be sprinkled with its water to cleanse them of sins prior to the establishment of the kingdom of God (see Ezekiel 36:25).

Circumcision

•Toward the beginning of the Christian era, the Jews adopted (as a custom unrelated to Divine guidance) the custom of baptizing proselytes seven days after their circumcision.

•This procedure or sacramental system is performed in the Old Law by the Jews and Gentiles.

•Some of the Fathers called it as the washing of the blood.

•A series of specific interrogations made it possible to judge the real intentions of the candidate who wished to adopt the Jewish religion.

•After submitting to these interrogations, he was circumcised and later baptized before witnesses. In the baptism, he was immersed naked in a pool of flowing water; when he rose from the pool, he was a true son of Israel.

• Orthodox and Conservative rabbis require both male and female conversion candidates to immerse themselves in a ritual bath called a mikveh. This ceremony is called tevillah.

• Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis do not require the use of a mikveh, but some highly recommend it. The equipment used varies according to the mikveh.

• The immersion ceremony usually starts with cleaning the body as by a shower. The person is covered and the covering removed as the person enters the warm mikveh waters, which are usually about four feet deep. (When the ceremony is done in a public place such as a lake the candidate wears a loose-fitting garment).

The mikveh can be any body of natural water, though the term usually refers to a specific pool that is built for the purposes of ritual purification.

•Blessings are recited and the person goes bends into the water. According to traditional Jewish law, three male witnesses must be present, although this rule has been reinterpreted so that, in some movements, Jewish females can be witnesses.

•When there are male witnesses and the candidate is female, the witnesses wait outside the mikveh room and are told by a female attendant that the immersion has been completed and the blessings recited.

F. Baptism of Christ

CCC 1224. Our Lord voluntarily submitted himself to the baptism of St. John, intended for sinners, in order to "fulfill all righteousness.“ Jesus' gesture is a manifestation of his self-emptying. The Spirit who had hovered over the waters of the first creation descended then on the Christ as a prelude of the new creation, and the Father revealed Jesus as his "beloved Son.”

• When John the Baptist came on the scene in the first century Jewish world, his teaching included the necessity of baptism.

• John's baptism was not based on or authorized by the Jewish law or pagan religious customs and traditions.

• John was called to preach by God, armed only with the Word of God (Luke 3:2).

• When John preached a baptism for the remission of sins, the people heard and obeyed. John's baprosm is known as "baptism of repentance"

• Jesus was baptized by John at the beginning of his public ministry (see Mark 1:9-11).

• Jesus tells us that the baptism that John taught was from heaven, not from men ( Matt 21:25).

G. Baptism by Christ

CCC 1223. All the Old Covenant prefigurations find their fulfillment in Christ Jesus. He begins his public life after having himself baptized by St. John the Baptist in the Jordan. After his resurrection Christ gives this mission to his apostles: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

CCC 1225. In his Passover Christ opened to all men the fountain of Baptism. He had already spoken of his Passion, which he was about to suffer in Jerusalem, as a "Baptism" with which he had to be baptized. The blood and water that flowed from the pierced side of the crucified Jesus are types of Baptism and the Eucharist, the sacraments of new life. From then on, it is possible "to be born of water and the Spirit" in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

See where you are baptized, see where Baptism comes from, if not from the cross of Christ, from his death. There is the whole mystery: he died for you. In him you are redeemed, in him you are saved.

• When John the Baptist came on the scene in the first century Jewish world, his teaching included the necessity of baptism.

• John's baptism was not based on or authorized by the Jewish law or pagan religious customs and traditions.

• John was called to preach by God, armed only with the Word of God (Luke 3:2). • When John preached a baptism for the remission of sins, the people heard and

obeyed. John's baprosm is known as "baptism of repentance"• Jesus was baptized by John at the beginning of his public ministry (see Mark

1:9-11). • Jesus tells us that the baptism that John taught was from heaven, not from men

( Matt 21:25).