Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Ethical/On Baptism/XVI

by Tertullian

Chapter XVI.—Of the Second Baptism—With Blood.

We have indeed, likewise, a second font,^[1] (itself withal one with the former,) of blood, to wit; concerning which the Lord said, “I have to be baptized with a baptism,”^[2] when He had been baptized already. For He had come “by means of water and blood,”^[3] just as John has written; that He might be baptized by the water, glorified by the blood; to make us, in like manner, called by water, chosen^[4] by blood. These two baptisms He sent out from the wound in His pierced side,^[5] in order that they who believed in His blood might be bathed with the water; they who had been bathed in the water might likewise drink the blood.^[6] This is the baptism which both stands in lieu of the fontal bathing^[7] when that has not been received, and restores it when lost.

Footnotes

1. Lavacrum. [See Aquinas, Quæst. lxvi. 11.]
2. Luke xii. 50, not given in full.
3. 1 John v. 6.
4. Matt. xx. 16; Rev. xvii. 14.
5. John xix. 34. See c. ix. ad fin.
6. See John vi. 53, etc.
7. Lavacrum. [The three baptisms: fluminis, flaminis, sanguinis.]