Churches made on Holy Thursday, according to Canon 46 of the Synod of Laodicea: “Those
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to be baptized must learn the Creed by heart, and recite it to the Bishop or Presbyters on
the fifth day of the week.” But in the Apostolic Constitutions, c. xli., Candidate is required
to recite the whole Creed immediately after the Renunciation: “And after his renunciation
let him in his consociation (συντασσόμενος) say: ‘And I associate myself to Christ, and
believe and am baptized into One Unbegotten Being, the Only True God Almighty, the
Father of Christ,.…and into the Lord Jesus Christ.…and I am baptized into the Holy
Ghost,.…into the resurrection of the flesh, and into the remission of sins, and into the
kingdom of heaven, and into the life of the world to come.’ And after this vow he comes in
order to the anointing with oil.”
Such appears to have been the custom of the Eastern Churches in general and of Jerus-
alem in Cyril’s time, although he mentions only those articles of the Creed which were
commonly held to be indispensable to a valid profession of Christian belief.
Dr. Swainson174 represents the matter somewhat differently: “When we come to the
profession of his own personal faith which was made at Jerusalem by the Candidate for
Baptism, we find that this was far briefer not only than the collection of ‘necessary things’
(Cat. iv.), but also than the Creed of the Church of Jerusalem.” Then after quoting the short
form in Cyril, Myst. i. § 9, “I believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost,
and in one Baptism of repentance,” Dr. Swainson adds: “The words are clear and definite.
In these words each answered the question of which we read elsewhere, ‘Did he believe in
the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit?’ In this his reply the Candidate
‘confessed’ what Cyril called ‘the saving confession.’”
It is evident that two separate parts of the Baptismal Service are here confused: the
question to which Dr. Swainson alludes, and “the saving confession” of which Cyril speaks
in Mystag. ii. § 4, belong, as we shall presently see, to a later stage of the ceremony.
§ 3. First Unction. On passing from the outer to the inner chamber of the Baptistery,
the Candidate who had made his renunciation and profession barefoot and wearing his tunic
(Χιτών)175 only, now put off this inner garment also, as an emblem of putting off the man
with his deeds176. A further significance is ascribed by Cyril to this unclothing of Candidate,
as being an imitation both of Christ, who hung naked177 on the Cross, and by His nakedness
174 Creeds of the Church, p. 17.
175 Pseudo-Dionysius Areopag. Eccl. Hierarch. iii.
176 Mystag. ii. § 2.
177 This passage has recently (1891) acquired a special interest from the controversy concerning Mr. Calderon’s
picture, representing St. Elisabeth of Hungary as kneeling naked before the altar. The word “naked” (γυμνός,
nudus) is not in itself decisive, but here in St. Cyril’s account of Baptism absolute nakedness seems to be implied;
for though women sometimes wore an under-tunic (χιτώνιον), men had nothing beneath the tunic proper
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Ceremonies of Baptism and Chrism.