Opening the library…
On Baptism
Tertullian
An early Latin treatise defending Christian baptism, interpreting its biblical patterns, discussing preparation and administration, and warning against a teacher who rejected water baptism in the church.
They who are about to enter baptism ought to pray
Matt. iii. 6. [See the collection of Dr. Bunsen for the whole primitive discipline to which Tertullian has reference, Hippol. Vol. III. pp. 5–23, and 29.]
Perhaps Tertullian is referring to Prov. xxviii. 13. If we confess now, we shall be forgiven, and not put to shame at the judgment day.
See de Orat. c. xxiii. ad fin., and the note there.
What passage is referred to is doubtful. The editors point us to Luke xxii. 28, 29; but the reference is unsatisfactory.
Lavacrum.
Lavacro. Compare the beginning of the chapter.
Viz. by their murmuring for bread (see Ex. xvi. 3, 7); and again—nearly forty years after—in another place. See Num. xxi. 5.
Aquam: just as St. Paul says the Israelites had been “baptized” (or “baptized themselves”) “into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” 1 Cor. x. 2.
Lavacro.
In prayer: comp. de Orat. c. xiv.
i.e. the Church: comp. de Orat. c. 2.
Matt. vii. 7; Luke xi. 9; αἰτεῖτε, καὶ δοθήσεται, ὑμῖν in both places.
[The translator, though so learned and helpful, too often encumbers the text with superfluous interpolations. As many of these, while making the reading difficult, add nothing to the sense yet destroy the terse, crabbed force of the original, I have occasionally restored the spirit of a sentence, by removing them.]