We confess one baptism for the remission of sins and for life eternal. For baptism declares the Lord’s death. We are indeed “buried with the Lord through baptism Col. ii. 12.,” as saith the divine Apostle. So then, as our Lord died once for all, we also must be baptized once for all, and baptized according to the Word of the Lord, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit St. Matt. xxviii. 19., being taught the confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Those See Clem. Alex., Strom., bk. i; Basil, Ep. Ad Amphiloch. 2; Irenæus, i. 8; Theodor., Hær. fab. c. 12; Euseb., Hist. Eccles., vii. 9; Trullan Canon 95; Tertull., De Bapt., c. 1, &c., then, who, after having been baptized into Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and having been taught that there is one divine nature in three subsistences, are rebaptized, these, as the divine Apostle says, crucify the Christ afresh. For it is impossible, he saith, for those who were once enlightened, &c., to renew them again unto repentance: seeing they crucify to themselves the Christ afresh, and put Him to an open shame Heb. vi. 4.. But those who were not baptized into the Holy Trinity, these must be baptized again. For although the divine Apostle says: Into Christ and into His death were we baptized Rom. vi. 3., he does not mean that the invocation of baptism must be in these words, but that baptism is an image of the death of Christ. For by the three immersions See Basil, De Spir. Sanct., c. 28, and Ep. 39; Jerome, Contr. Lucif.; Theodor., Hær. III. 4; Socrates, Hist. c. 23; Sozomen, Hist. VI. 26., baptism signifies the three days of our Lord’s entombment Auct., Quæst. ad. Antioch.. The baptism then into Christ means that believers are baptized into Him. We could not believe in Christ if we were not taught confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Basil., De Bapt., bk. i. ch. 12.. For Christ is the Son of the Living God St. Matt. xvi. 16., Whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit Acts x. 38.: in the words of the divine David, Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows Ps. xlv. 7.. And Isaiah also speaking in the person of the Lord says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me Is. lxi. 1.. Christ, however, taught His own disciples the invocation and said, Baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit St. Matt. xxviii. 19.. For since Christ made us for incorruption Text, ἐπ᾽ ἀφθαρσίαν. Variant, ἐπ᾽ ἀφθαρσί& 139·; old interpretation, ‘in incorruption.’ Method., De Resurr., and we transgressed His saving command, He condemned us to the corruption of death in order that that which is evil should not be immortal, and when in His compassion He stooped to His servants and became like us, He redeemed us from corruption through His own passion. He caused the fountain of remission to well forth for us out of His holy and immaculate side St. John xix. 34., water for our regeneration, and the washing away of sin and corruption; and blood to drink as the hostage of life eternal. And He laid on us the command to be born again of water and of the Spirit Ibid. iii. 5., through prayer and invocation, the Holy Spirit drawing nigh unto the water Greg., Orat. 48.. For since man’s nature is twofold, consisting of soul and body, He bestowed on us a twofold purification, of water and of the Spirit: the Spirit renewing that part in us which is after His image and likeness, and the water by the grace of the Spirit cleansing the body from sin and delivering it from corruption, the water indeed expressing the image of death, but the Spirit affording the earnest of life.