and he who is about to be illuminated lies there differing nothing from a corpse, what is the profit of initiation in a case of such insensibility? 2. For he who is about to approach these holy and dread mysteries must be awake and alert, must be clean from all cares of this life, full of much self-restraint, much readiness; he must banish from his mind every thought foreign to the mysteries, and on all sides cleanse and prepare his home, as if about to receive the king himself. Such is the preparation of your mind: such are your thoughts; such the purpose of your soul. Await therefore a return worthy of this most excellent decision from God, who overpowers with His recompense those who show forth obedience to Him. But since it is necessary for his fellow servants to contribute of their own, then we will contribute of our own; yea rather not even are these things our own, but these too are our Master’s. “For what hast thou,” saith He, “that thou didst not receive? but if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?”495 I wished to say this first of all, why in the world our fathers, passing by the whole year, settled that the children of the Church should be initiated at this season; and for what reason, after the instruction from us, removing your shoes and raiment, unclad and unshod, with but one garment on, they conduct you to hear the words of the exorcisers. For it is not thoughtlessly and rashly that they have planned this dress and this season for us. But both these things have a certain mystic and secret reason. And I wish to say this to you. But I see that our discourse now constrains us to something more necessary to say what baptism is, and for what reason it enters into our life, and what good things it conveys to us. But, if you will, let us discourse about the name which this mystic cleansing bears: for its name is not one, but very many and various. For this purification is called the laver of regeneration. “He saved us,” he saith, “through the laver of regeneration, and renewing of 161 the Holy Ghost.”496 It is called also illumination, and this St. Paul again has called it, “For call to remembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated ye endured a great conflict of sufferings;”497 and again, “For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and then fell away, to renew them again unto repent- ance.”498 It is called also, baptism: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ.”499 It is called also burial: “For we were buried” saith he, “with him, through baptism, into death.”500 It is called circumcision: “In whom ye were also circumcised, with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh.”501 495 1 Cor. iv. 7. 496 Titus iii. 5. 497 Heb. x. 32. 498 Heb. vi. 4–6. 499 Gal. iii. 27. 500 Rom. vi. 4. 501 Gal. ii. 11. 220 First Instruction.