202. As the neophytes joined the community of the faithful, Augustine warned them against the models of bad behavior they would encounter. See Serm. Mai 94(260C).
203. Aug. Serm. 302.3.
204. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 14(352A).4.
205. Augustine invited the catechumens to put in their names for baptism; see Serm. Lamb. 26(335H).3. The death of an unbaptized catechumen was a particular occasion for warning against delay. Serm. Dolb. 7(142*).4.
206. Aug. Psal. 103.1.14; Serm. 49.8; Eu. Io. 96.3. Serm. 234.2; 235.3; 307.2.3 and Eu. Io. 11.3 all make clear that the catechumens did not understand references to the eucharistic celebration.
207. Aug. Serm. 132.1; Eu. Io. 11.1; Serm. Casin. 2.114(97A).3-4; Serm. Mai 94(260C).1.
208. Augustine recounted the baptism of a friend through the agency of his family. The man had lost consciousness in his illness and had earlier joined Augustine in mocking Christian practice. Yet he was baptized because he had been enrolled as a catechumen. See Conf. 4.4.8. Bru. Hipp. 32 specified that such persons should be baptized.
209. Aug. Serm. 210.1.2. No canonical legislation excluded other times for the preparation and administration of baptism, but the surviving literature does not witness an alternative practice.
210. Aug. Serm. 132; Serm. Lamb. 26(335H).3; Eu. Io. 10.10, 11.1-6.
211. Augustine does not mention a ritual used for this procedure but does indicate that some of the candidates were judged unworthy (Fid. 6.8, 17.31, 18.33). The term is explained in Serm. 216.1; 228.1; 392.1; Fid. 6.9.
212. Aug. Ep. 54.7.9; Mor. eccl. 2.13.39. Christ fasted after his baptism, but Christians fasted before baptism; Serm. 210.2.3, 4.5.
213. Serm. 207.2.
214. On bathing, see Aug. Ep. 54.7.9-10. As was indicated in the discussion of the kiss of peace in Tertullian, fasting placed a person in a position apart from normal social interaction. Augustine asserted that a Christian boycott would have ruined the theaters financially (Serm. Dolb. 26(198*).10; Serm. Denis 14(313A).3-4).
215. Aug. Psal. 25.2.9; 30.3.2; 147.7. On days when games were presented, the congregation was small (Serm. 51.1.1).
216. Augustine recommended that the results of fasting should be given in alms: Serm. 205.2; 206.2; 208.2; 209.2; 210.10.12.
217. Aug. Serm. 5; 352; 392. See Suzanne Poque, ed., Sermons pour la Pâque, SC (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1966), 116:25; Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 259.
218. Aug. Serm. 212-214.
219. Aug. Cur. 12.15.
220. Aug. Catech. 8.12, 9.13, 13.18, 16.24.
221. For evidence on the (disputed) timing of the scrutiny, see Poque, Sermons pour la Pâque, SC 116:26-27; Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 262; Thomas M. Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate: Italy, North Africa, and Egypt, Message of the Fathers of the Church 6 (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1992), 6-7. Serm. 216 is the only record of Augustine preaching at the scrutiny and seems to date before his episcopate. Quodvultdeus described the ritual itself in Symb. 1.1.5.
222. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 26(198*).5; Serm. 216.11.
223. Aug. Serm. 216.10-11. Poque, Sermons pour la Pâque, SC 116:28, argues that it was not a skin but a garment made from the hair.
224. Augustine referred to this part of the ritual in Symb. 2; Serm. 398.2. See also Ep. 194.46. For further interpretation of the significance of the ritual, see Tert. Idol. 11.7; Poque, Sermons pour la Pâque, SC 116:27-28; Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 264.
225. Poque, Sermons pour la Pâque, SC 116:28.
226. Serm. 216.11. For interpretation, see Benedictus Busch, “De Initiatione Christiana secundum Sanctum Augustinum,” Ephemerides Liturgicae, pars prior, analecta historico-ascetica 52 (1938): 159-78, 385-483; Albert Dondeyne, “La discipline des scrutins dans l’église latine avant Charlemagne,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 28 (1932): 5-33, 751-87; Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 263; Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate, 155; Frederik van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop: The Life and Work of a Father of the Church, trans. Brian Battershaw and G. R. Lamb (London: Sheed & Ward, 1962), 358.
227. Aug. Serm. Guelf. 18(260D).2; Serm. 286.8.7; 328.9.6 (Serm. Lamb. 13); Serm. Lamb. 6(335D).3, 5; Serm. Dolb. 26(198*).58.
228. C.Th. 16.10.12, 15. Pierre Chuvin, A Chronicle of the Last Pagans (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), and others make the point that, although traditional Roman religious rituals were outlawed and public cult was indeed rare, some ritual did continue.
229. The difficulty in dating this action would seem to indicate that it was performed more than once. See Aug. Serm. 215.1; Quodu. Symb. 1; van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop, 364; Poque, Sermons pour la Pâque, SC 116:29-30; Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate, 7.
230. Aug. Serm. 144.5.6; Serm. Lamb. 6(335D).4; Psal. 34.1.4; 79.13; 141.14; Eu. Io. 28.9; 52.7-10.
231. Aug. Ciu. 5.12-15.
232. Aug. Serm. 213.2; 214.1.
233. Aug. Serm. 215; Symb., reconstructed in J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (London: Continuum, 2006), 175-76.
234. See Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 172-81, for these creeds and several hypotheses on the relation of the African and the Roman creeds.
235. Children seven years and older were required to perform (Aug. Anim. 1.10.12).
236. Aug. Serm. 213.11; 215.1; 58.1.1, 11.13. For the effect of the rituals on the faithful, see Fid. 6.9, which provides indirect evidence that the faithful recited the creed regularly in private and could thereby help others with it.
237. Aug. Serm. 59.1.1 correlates the return of the creed and the giving of the prayer.
238. Aug. Serm. 56-59. See Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 286-89, for an attempt to specify the sequence of actions. The notes to the edition of Serm. 56 by L. DeConinck, B. Coppieters, and R. Demeulenaere, in CCSL 41Aa:150-51, provide a summary of the recent scholarship on the matter.
239. Aug. Ep. 54.7.10; they were joined by many of the faithful who had accompanied them in their fasting. They had not bathed during the Lenten fast. See above, p. 204.
240. Aug. Serm. Guelf. 7(229A).1; Serm. 228.3 specifies that sermons have already been given on the creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and baptism, and that one was owed now on the eucharist. The eucharistic sermon was generally on Easter day.
241. Aug. Serm. 221.2; Serm. Wilm. 7(223G).1.
242. The following discussion is based on the assumption that the baptistery excavated in Hippo was the facility used for the ritual in Augustine’s time. See above, p. 158.
243. Aug. Psal. 102.19. Psal. 80.19 refers to a renunciation of sin that might have been part of the baptismal ritual. The location of the basilica and its baptistery within a town did not always permit a clear east-west orientation. Nevertheless, the two directions were associated with the powers of good and evil (Serm. Dolb. 22(341*).9).
244. For Augustine’s comparison of baptism to a military induction, see, for example, Parm. 2.13.29; Psal. 39.1.
245. Aug. Psal. 41.1-3. In this sense, the psalm was appropriate for the whole period of baptismal preparation.
246. Aug. Eu. Io. 118.5; Serm. 352.1.3.
247. Aug. Bapt. 6.25.47 remarks on the limitations of the doctrinal knowledge and grammatical skill of the bishops, which did not hamper the effectiveness of this prayer of consecration.
248. New ceremonial clothing would be received immediately after baptism. The practice of nude baptism is fully attested elsewhere in the contemporary Christian world: Trad. apos. 21.3, 5, 11; Didasc. ap. 16; Cyr. Jer. Cat. myst. 2; Theo. Mp. Lib. bapt. 4; In. Chry. Cat. 2.24.
249. Aug. Serm. 125.6. Some baptisteries allowed the west-to-east movement. In Hippo, the font was on a north-west to south-east axis.
250. Aug. Bapt. 3.14.19; 6.25.46; Ep. 23.4; Petil. 2.80.178.
251. Aug. Serm. 223.1; Serm. Mai 94(260C).7.
252. Aug. Serm. Denis 4(376A).2.
253. Aug. Ep. 55.19.35.
254. Aug. Eu. Io. 56.3-5.
255. This may also have been the space used for training the catechumens in some basilicas. See examples of other likely consignatoria (cf. fig. 78), and discussion above, pp. 92, 153, 159.
257. Aug. Petil. 3.35.40.
258. Aug. Petil. 2.103.237. The grammatical construction of the sentence implies that the bishop did not himself apply the oil: “quorum capita oleo tuo perierunt” (CSEL 52:151.24-25). This anointing may have covered only the forehead rather than the whole body, as was the Roman bathing custom. However, the specification of the head in this text may have come from the verses of the psalms that were being used by Petilian and Augustine (Psal. 133.2; 141.5). Con. Carth. a. 390, 3 and Bru. Hipp. 34 restrict the making of chrism to the bishop.
259. Aug. Serm. Guelf. 15(229M).2. Serm. 324, which describes the baptism of an infant resuscitated through the intercession of St. Stephen, sets out the sequences of actions: continuo tulit illum ad presbyteros, baptizatus est, sanctificatus est, unctus est, imposita est ei manus, completis omnibus sacramentis, assumptus est (PL 38:1446-447). Note that this entire ritual was performed by the presbyters, presumably in the absence of the bishop. Neither of these texts, however, allows a determination of whether the imposition of hands was normally performed in the segregated space or in the presence of the entire congregation.
260. Tert. Bapt. 7.1, 8.2; Cypr. Ep. 70.2.2; Aug. Serm. Dolb. 26(198*).53; Qu. eu. 2.40.3. The African ritual of ordination did not contain an anointing that would distinguish the priesthood of the clergy from that of the faithful.
261. Aug. Serm. Guelf. 7(229A).3; Serm. 227.
262. Aug. Serm. Mai 94(260C).7.
263. Aug. Serm. 227; 229; 272; Serm. Guelf. 7 (229A).
264. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 27(360C).7. See also Ep. 34.2, in which Augustine described a similar Donatist ceremony.
265. Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (London: Dacre Press, 1945), 331. Aug. Serm. 260; 224-29; Serm. Denis 8(260A).
266. Aug. Serm. Denis 8(260A).4.
267. Aug. Serm. 353.1.1; 260; Serm. Mai 94(260C).7; Serm. Denis 4(376A).1.
268. Aug. Serm. 224.1; 228.1; Serm. Denis 8(260A).4; Serm. Mai 94(260C).7; Serm. Guelf. 18(260D).2.
269. Aug. Psal. 80.11.
270. Aug. Ep. 55.18.33.
271. Aug. Eu. Io. 56.3-5; 58.4-5.
272. Reg. Carth. 110.
273. Aug. Ep. 98.8.
274. Aug. Ep. 98.9-10.
275. Aug. Ep. 98.6-7.
276. Aug. Ep. 186.8.30.
277. Aug. Iul. 4.8.42-44.
278. Aug. Ep. 98.1; Nat. et grat. 4.4.
279. Aug. Pecc. merit. 1.21.29–22.32; Ep. 186.4.11–5.14.
280. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 7(142*).4.
281. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 7(142*).
282. Bru. Hipp. 32.
283. Aug. Conf. 4.4.8.
284. Aug. Serm. 393.1.
285. Aug. Serm. 323; 324.
286. Aug. Serm. 324.
287. Con. Carth. a. 390, 3 and Bru. Hipp. 34 restricted the making of chrism to the bishop. The restriction implies that presbyters sometimes used the chrism and might have been blessing it themselves.
288. Aug. Bapt. 7.53.101-102.
289. Aug. Gen. litt. 10.11.19; Petil. 2.101.232; Ep. Io. 4.11; Ep. 166.7.21, 8.23-24; Anim. 2.9.13; 3.11.15; Nupt. 2.2.4; Iul. 1.7.31; 6.7.17; Ciu. 13.4; Iul. op. imp. 1.52; Serm. 56.9.13; 174.7.8; 183.8.12; 246.5; 293.10.
290. The surviving sermons of Augustine contain no such instruction or exhortation. These represent a small, and possibly select, fraction of his preaching.
291. Act. Zeno. This is part of a dossier of documents now attached to Optatus of Milevis’s response to the Donatist leader Parmenian. It indicated that some of the founding generation of Donatist bishops were keenly aware of failures within their own ranks. For the innocence of Caecilian’s consecrator, see the Act. pur. Fel. in the same dossier.
292. Aug. Eu. Io. 5.6-11, 18.
293. Rebap. 6, 9. Augustine used the example of Judas in Petil. 2.44.104; 3.35.41, 55.67; Cresc. 2.19.24.
294. Aug. Bapt. 3.17.22, 18.23; 4.2.2-3; 5.10.12–14.16, 20.27; 6.12.19, 24.43, 26.50.
295. Rebap. 16-17; Aug. Eu. Io. 6.15; Psal. 39.1; Serm. Dolb. 3(293A).16; Serm. Denis 8(260A).2.
296. Thus, for example, in Aug. Eu. Io. 22.7; 50.12; 118.4; 124.5; the same interpretation of John 20:23 was offered in Bapt. 3.18.23; Eu. Io. 121.4; Serm. 99.9; 295.2.2.
297. That text is cited some 23 times, primarily in the writings against the Donatists. See, for example, Aug. Bapt. 6.24.45; Gaud. 1.12.13; Cresc. 2.12.15.
298. Aug. Bapt. 1.11.16–12.20; 3.13.18, 16.21–17.22.
299. Aug. Bapt. 1.11.15–1.12.20.
300. The baptism of infants was initially discussed in Aug. Ep. 98 and Bapt. 4.24.32. It later became an example of the gratuity of salvation: Ep. 186.4.11; Perseu. 11.25.
301. Cypr. Ep. 71.2.1-2.
302. Aug. Bapt. 2.13.18–14.19; 3.13.18, 16.21; 6.4.6–5.7.
303. Aug. Ciu. 22.24.
304. Aug. Bapt. 5.9.10–12.14; Petil. 2.37.86-87; Unic. bapt. 7.9-11.
305. Aug. Eu. Io. 5.15; Bapt. 7.53.101-2.
306. Aug. Ep. 98.5; Bapt. 3.17.22–18.23; 6.3.5–4.6.
307. Aug. Bapt. 3.17.22–18.23, 19.26; 5.21.29; 6.4.6–5.7; Eu. Io. 121.4; Serm. 99.9.
308. Aug. Bapt. 1.1.2–2.3; 7.52.100.
309. Aug. Serm. Caes. eccl. 5.
310. See below, pp. 282-83, 428-29, 617.
312. Other examples are at Lepti Minus and Naro (figs 44, 62).
313. Tert. Bapt. 1.3.
314. Optat. Parm. 3.2.1-12.
315. Cypr. Ep. 73.10.3.
316. On this, see Aug. Psal. 41.1.
317. Aug. Doct. Chr. 2.6.7.
318. Aug. Serm. Denis 15(313B).3. This sermon was preached at the Mensa Cypriani, which some scholars have tentatively identified with the basilica of Bir Ftouha and which had a monumental baptistery. See above, pp. 139-40.
319. Aug. Serm. Dolb. 26(198*).5; Serm. 216.11.
320. See Tert. Bapt. 8.3-5; Cypr. Unit. eccl. 6; Ep. 69.2.2; 74.11.3; Aug. Serm. 264.5; Catech. 20.32, 34.
321. See discussion above, pp. 108-10.
322. Aug. Ep. 55.13.23; Ciu. 22.30.
323. A poem (uncertainly) attributed to Ambrose which extols the octagonal shape of Milan’s baptistery has been published in several epigraphical collections, including the CIL 5:617.2 and the ICUR 2.1, 161 n. 2; Most recently, it has been published in Ambroise, Opere poetiche e frammenti, inni, iscrizioni, frammenti, ed. Gabriele Banterle, Sancti Ambrosii Episcopi Mediolanensis 22 (Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 1994), 145-66.
324. Pouring water would have been a bathing technique familiar to Africans.
325. During the Vandal period, the shrine of St. Agileus served as the Catholic cathedral. See above, p. 139.
326. The argument developed in Aug. Gen. litt. 10.4.7; 14.23-16.29; Pecc. merit. 1.23.33, 28.55, 30.58; 3.3.6. It was a commonplace by Iul. op. imp. 3.3.9.