It is often supposed that early Christians would have administered baptism as the first part of their regular Sunday Eucharist,1 largely on the basis of what Justin Martyr appears to indicate in the account of Christian worship in his First Apology, although it should be noted that Justin does not explicitly say that the baptismal Eucharist he describes in chapters 61 and 65 did take place on a Sunday. In any case, this supposition overlooks the fact that from the Didache onwards (7.4) a period of at least one or two days of fasting was generally prescribed prior to baptism. Except at Rome and in parts of North Africa, however, fasting was prohibited on all Saturdays apart from the day before Easter,2 and so Sunday baptisms elsewhere would normally have been impossible. Thus, we might expect that the conclusion of an already existing period of fasting, such as those that came to precede festivals, would quite naturally have become regular occasions for baptism, regardless of the specific meaning of that festival.
Tertullian in North Africa at the end of the second century is the first Christian writer to suggest that Easter was a particularly suitable occasion for the celebration of baptism:
The Pascha affords a more [than usually] solemn day for baptism, since the passion of the Lord, in which we are baptized, was accomplished [then] … After this, the Pentecost is an extremely happy period for conferring baptisms, because the Lord’s resurrection was celebrated among the disciples and the grace of the Holy Spirit was inaugurated and the hope in the Lord’s coming indicated.
However, he goes on to say that ‘every day is the Lord’s [day]; every hour and every time is suitable for baptism. If there is a question of solemnity, it has nothing to do with the grace.’3 He thus expresses a preference – but only a preference – for baptism at Easter.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the reference to being baptized into ‘our Lord’s passion’ is an allusion to Romans 6.3 (‘all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death’), especially as Tertullian expounds the baptismal theology of Romans 6 in his De resurrectione carnis 47, and appears to be alluding to it in the phrase symbolum mortis in De paenitentia 6. However, that is not to say that it was necessarily the influence of Paul’s theology that had initially given rise to the preference for baptism at Easter, as it would in any case have been a natural choice as an occasion for baptism because it was already preceded by at least two days of fasting, Friday and Saturday. It seems possible, therefore, that it was this practical consideration that led to Easter originally being adopted as one of the usual times in the year for the administration of baptism in North Africa, and what Tertullian was doing was giving a post factum reason for preferring this occasion to others. This notion is perhaps strengthened by the fact that Tertullian finds it necessary to add to the Lord’s Passion a second biblical justification for baptizing at this time – that when Jesus told his disciples to go and prepare a place to celebrate the Passover, they would meet a man carrying water (Mark. 14.13; Luke 22.10) – apparently implying that a paschal theology of baptism was as yet not so deep-rooted.
It is usually assumed that the provision for baptism during the season of Pentecost was intended to cater for those who for whatever reason (for instance, sickness or menstruation) had been unable to receive baptism at Easter, even though they had undergone the preparation for it at that time, as it is difficult to reconcile a 50-day season in which fasting was not permitted with a time of full baptismal preparation that included fasting. On the other hand, it is possible that baptism at Pentecost has much more ancient roots. James VanderKam has built upon the arguments of other scholars and argued that the day of Pentecost was already being kept as a time of covenant renewal and of the reception of new members by some Jewish communities in the first century and that this understanding of the feast underlies the account of the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.4 It appears conceivable, therefore, that baptism on the day of Pentecost might actually belong to an early stratum – even an Apostolic or at least a Jerusalem stratum – of the liturgical tradition,5 and that the continuing observance of an annual feast of Pentecost among some Christians may be as old as their observance of Pascha, even though we have no explicit references to it at an early date. If this were the case, then the emergence at the end of the second century of a 50-day season with provision for baptism during it may have been a partial appropriation of this tradition in churches that had not previously observed the day of Pentecost at all, just as a Sunday Pascha was adopted in churches that had not previously observed that feast. This would also explain why some churches apparently took up this season while others did not, and why some of them kept a fast before the day of Pentecost.6 Moreover, if the emergence of the feast of the Epiphany happened as early as is claimed by some scholars, then that too would also quite naturally have become another regular baptismal occasion before the priority of baptism at Easter began to assert itself more widely.7
Apart from Tertullian, the only other source to express a similar preference for paschal baptism at an early date is a commentary on the book of Daniel by a certain Hippolytus in the third century, traditionally associated with Rome although uncertainty surrounds the actual provenance of the author:
‘Once, while they were watching for an opportune day, she went in as before with only two maids, and wished to bathe in the garden, for it was very hot’ [Dan. 13.15 LXX]. What kind of day is opportune if not that of the Pascha? On that day the bath is made ready for those going to be burnt and Susanna while she is being bathed is presented to God as a pure bride …8
While no theological justification is given for the preference for baptism at Easter in this source, there is a possibly an allusion to the baptismal theology of Romans 6 in an earlier (mid-second-century) text from Rome, the Shepherd of Hermas, where mention is made of believers receiving ‘the seal’ by descending into the water dead and arising alive.9 On the other hand, while Carolyn Osiek is of the opinion this is ‘unmistakably a reference to baptism’, she points out that it differs significantly from Romans 6: ‘The language of death and life is similar to Pauline language but is not exactly the same: here, death is the pre-baptismal state, not the dying process that is symbolically enacted in the course of baptism.’10
Some would add to this the evidence of the church order known as the Apostolic Tradition and attributed to Hippolytus. Not only, however, is the authenticity of this document now seriously questioned, and hence its reliability as a witness to early Roman liturgical customs,11 but it is not explicit about the occasion of baptism: it only states that candidates are to bathe ‘on the fifth day of the week’ (Thursday), fast ‘on the day of preparation of the Sabbath’ (Friday), and assemble ‘on the Sabbath’ (Saturday) for a final exorcism by the bishop, before spending the whole night in vigil and being baptized at cockcrow.12 While these directions are consistent with baptism at Easter, they do not necessarily require that conclusion to be drawn, and because the paschal season is mentioned elsewhere in the document (ch. 33), there would seem to be no reason why Easter would not have been specified here as the occasion for baptism if that indeed was what was meant. Hence those scholars who understand the text to be referring to a vigil that took place whenever in the year baptism was administered may be correct,13 but if so, at least this part of the text must have originated in an ecclesiastical setting like Rome or parts of North Africa where it was permitted to fast on other Saturdays in the year besides Easter.
From time to time attempts have been made to argue that the early Quartodeciman celebration of Pascha included the administration of baptism.14 In an article published in 1973, however, while trying to present the most favourable case possible for an early date for the adoption of the paschal season for baptism, Stuart Hall was forced to admit how indefinite were the alleged allusions to paschal baptism in early sources,15 and some years later in his edition of the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis he concluded that the case for paschal baptism in the second century was an unproven supposition.16 Raniero Cantalamessa, too, expressed serious reservations about the suggestion that paschal baptism was practised among the Quartodecimans: the allusions to baptism in Quartodeciman sources dealing with Pascha do not refer explicitly to the actual administration of baptism on that occasion, and so that practice should not automatically be assumed to underlie them.17 And more recently Stewart-Sykes has reached similar negative conclusions.18
There are, therefore, only two firm witnesses to the existence of a preference for baptism at Easter rather than at other times of the year prior to the fourth century, one from North Africa and the other possibly from Rome – two centres of primitive Christianity which frequently resemble one another and differ from the rest of the Church with regard to their liturgical practices. Nevertheless, scholars have often tended to assume that paschal baptism became widespread (some would say universal) during the third century. Such a conclusion is unwarranted. Not only is there a complete absence of such testimony from other sources, but there is virtually nothing in the baptismal theology articulated by the Christian literature of this period which would have given any encouragement to such a practice. Christian writers tended to associate baptism with the concept of new birth, as in John 3, rather than with Romans 6. In such a theological climate, therefore, there would have been no reason to see Easter as any more appropriate for baptism than any other time of the year.
Besides North Africa and possibly Rome, only at Alexandria prior to the fourth century does any use seem to have been made of St Paul’s imagery of baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ. While Clement of Alexandria referred to death in connection with baptism, but not explicitly to Paul’s imagery,19 Origen frequently drew on it,20 and especially in his Peri Pascha, written after his move to Caesarea. Scholars have suggested that Origen’s use of Romans 6 may well have played some role in the emphasis on this text for interpreting baptism that arose in the fourth century.21 Buchinger similarly argues that Origen played a highly instrumental part in establishing a theological foundation to undergird the fourth-century trend towards the normativity of Easter baptism, although was not himself familiar with the actual practice of baptism at that festival.22
In any case, whatever may have been the case at Caesarea, one place where it appears that a preference for paschal baptism may well have been unknown before the middle of the fourth century is in the patriarchate of Alexandria. Talley, building upon the work of René-Georges Coquin, presented evidence for the existence in Egypt from early times of a 40-day fast in imitation of Jesus’ fasting in the wilderness, which did not take place immediately before Easter but began on the day after 6 January, observed by the Alexandrian church as the celebration of the baptism of Jesus, and thus was situated in the correct chronological sequence of the Gospel accounts. He argued that this season functioned as the final period of preparation for baptism in this region, with the rite itself being celebrated at the very end of the 40 days, whenever that happened to fall.23
There are even signs that a similar practice may once have existed in northern Italy. In the fourth century Ambrose refers to the enrolment of catechumens for paschal baptism at Milan as taking place at Epiphany,24 and the same day seems to have been chosen at nearby Turin: Maximus addresses two sermons preached on the days immediately after Epiphany to catechumens apparently preparing for baptism at Easter.25 Since elsewhere at this time candidates were enrolled at the beginning of Lent, is the northern Italian custom the vestige of an older tradition of baptizing 40 days after Epiphany?26
Testimony to a seemingly universal tradition of regarding Easter as the preferred occasion for baptism, therefore, emerges quite suddenly in the second half of the fourth century, much in the same way as does the evidence for the season of Lent a little earlier in the same century.27 This suggests the possibility that there might have been some link between the emergence of these two liturgical phenomena. Could it be that both alike are results of post-Nicene attempts to bring the divergent customs of different churches into some sort of conformity? As we shall see in a later chapter, Alexandria (and perhaps other places) appear originally to have observed a pre-baptismal fast of 40 days unconnected to Easter; in North Africa (and Rome?) there was a tradition that regarded Easter as the preferred occasion for baptism, but preceded only by a shorter fast, of perhaps three weeks’ duration; and other churches were familiar with the same three-week preparation for baptism but did not associate it with any particular period of the year. The arrangement which then became universal in the fourth century, of a preference for baptism at Easter preceded by 40-day season of fasting and preparation, would thus have been a post-Nicene amalgamation of these variant practices.
Nevertheless, paschal baptism does not seem ever to have become the normative feature of ancient Christianity that contemporary enthusiasts for liturgical reform would like it to have been. Even after its emergence in the fourth century, there were some significant differences in its status in different parts of the ancient world. In northern Italy, for example, it was apparently intended to be the one and only occasion in the year for the conferral of the sacrament. Ambrose reminded his hearers that in the Old Testament the high priest entered the inner sanctuary of the Temple only once a year. ‘What is the purpose of all this? To enable you to understand what this inner tabernacle is, into which the high priest led you, where the custom is for him to enter once a year: it is the baptistery …’28 Some confirmation of the exclusive character of paschal baptism in this region is provided by Maximus at Turin in the early fifth century. In a sermon preached on the feast of Pentecost he drew attention to the similarities between that feast and Easter, noting that both occasions were preceded by a Saturday fast and a vigil of prayer through the night, but made no mention of the celebration of baptism as being common to both;29 and in another Pentecostal sermon he took up the same theme and remarked that ‘at Easter all the pagans are usually baptized, while at Pentecost the apostles were baptized [with the Holy Spirit]30.’ In this sermon, however, he seems to contradict what he said in the previous sermon about fasting on the Saturday before the feast of Pentecost by affirming that there was an unbroken period of 50 days during which no fasting took place.31 It seems impossible to imagine, therefore, that Maximus can have been familiar with the practice of baptism at Pentecost and failed to refer to it here. Similarly, for both Ambrose and Maximus, a major theme of the feast of the Epiphany was the baptism of Christ, and yet neither ever alludes to a custom of baptizing converts on that occasion.32
At Rome, on the other hand, according to a letter of Pope Siricius to Himerius of Tarragona written in 385, both Easter and the day of Pentecost were the regular occasions for baptism. Siricius acknowledged that his fellow bishops elsewhere (probably in northern Spain, where the letter is directed) permitted the administration of baptism at Christmas, Epiphany, and on the feasts of apostles and martyrs. But ‘with us and with all the churches’(!) these two feasts were the only days in the year for the regular celebration of the sacrament.33 Pope Leo in 447 similarly wrote to the bishops of Sicily expressing astonishment that baptism could be celebrated at Epiphany, contrary to the tradition of the apostles: because of its connection with the resurrection, baptism belonged to Easter and also to the feast of Pentecost, which commemorated the coming of the Holy Spirit and was linked to Easter. Moreover, did not St Peter baptize 3,000 people on the day of Pentecost? And because, according to the Apostolic rule, baptism should be preceded by exorcism, fasting and instruction, only these two occasions should be kept.34 Leo’s sermons, however, make it clear that regular fasting was not resumed at Rome until the feast of Pentecost was over,35 which suggests that the preparation of baptismal candidates for Pentecost must have taken place during Lent together with that of the candidates for paschal baptism. In other words, Pentecost was still understood here as only an ‘overflow’ from Easter and not a baptismal day in its own right.
Nevertheless, we need to treat the Roman evidence for the normative character of baptism at Easter and Pentecost with some caution. The letters of Siricius and Leo both reveal that in other parts of the West Epiphany and other festivals were regarded as regular occasions for the conferral of the sacrament; and in another letter written in 459 Leo also referred to certain bishops from central Italy who celebrated baptism on the feasts of the martyrs.36 Augustine knew Easter and Pentecost as regular baptismal occasions, but also acknowledged the existence of baptismal celebrations at other times in the year.37 Thus, the alleged ‘Apostolic tradition’ did not apparently extend beyond Rome and northern Italy, and even at Rome itself it was certainly not absolute. For in the very same letter to Himerius, Siricius admitted that infants and those in danger of dying were not to wait until one of the two occasions but should be baptized with all haste; and Innocent I at the end of the fourth century claimed that not a day passed at Rome on which ‘the divine sacrifice or the office of baptism’ did not take place.38 Even after making allowance for some degree of exaggeration in this remark, it would seem that, whatever the theory, in actual reality the celebration of baptism must have been a fairly frequent occurrence in that city and by no means merely a single annual event.
We can also document similar traditions in the East to those in the West that were condemned by Siricius and his successors. Gregory of Nazianzus, in a sermon preached in 381, rejects excuses made by catechumens that they want to wait for Epiphany, Easter or Pentecost to be baptized on the grounds that it was better to be baptized close to the baptism of Christ, or to receive the new life on the day of Christ’s resurrection, or to honour the manifestation of the Spirit. Gregory himself recommends them not to delay their baptism and thereby avoid the risk of dying unbaptized.39 This passage reveals that not only was Epiphany an established occasion for baptism in Cappadocia along with Easter and Pentecost, but that there was here no limitation on baptism at any time in the year. Jerusalem also seems to have been familiar with a tradition of reserving baptism to these same three feasts in the first half of the fourth century,40 although the sources from later in the century – the baptismal catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem and the diary of the pilgrim Egeria – make mention only of Pascha as a baptismal occasion. Similarly, Basil of Caesarea, while acknowledging that every time was ‘opportune for being saved through baptism’, claimed that the day of Pascha was more opportune because it was ‘a memorial of the resurrection, and baptism is a power for resurrection’.41 We should also note that John Chrysostom 20 years later (c. 400/401) rejected Pentecost as a baptismal occasion at Constantinople.42 Because he was forced to argue the case, however, this may mean that the restriction was a relatively recent innovation, as Robert Cabié has suggested,43 or at least an attempt to stop a widespread custom from being adopted in that city.
Finally, we should note that baptism at the paschal season did not everywhere mean baptism within the Easter vigil itself. Indeed, Cantalamessa has warned against assuming that Tertullian was necessarily referring to the vigil when he spoke of baptism at Pascha.44 Moreover, when some time in the middle of the fourth century Alexandria finally transferred its older post-Epiphany 40-day fast culminating in the celebration of baptism to a location immediately before Easter, it apparently did not incorporate the baptismal rite within the paschal vigil. Although witnesses to the Alexandrian tradition are rather limited and not entirely reliable, it seems that the baptisms may have taken place at first on the Saturday morning before Easter, and later, when a further week was prefixed to the Lenten season, were moved back to the end of the previous week, so that they still came at the conclusion of 40 days.45
Something similar may once have been the case at Constantinople, although the evidence is far from clear. The ninth- and tenth-century sources there include provision for a full baptismal liturgy both on the morning of what was known as Lazarus Saturday (one week before Easter and at the end of the 40-day Lenten season) and also at the paschal vigil itself. Furthermore, one tenth-century typikon, Hagios Stavros 40, directs the patriarch to perform the baptisms after the morning office on Holy Saturday. Juan Mateos suggested that the two Saturday morning celebrations were introduced in order to reduce the numbers to be baptized at the vigil,46 but Talley thought it more probable that the Holy Saturday morning celebration had been added as a more convenient occasion for the baptism of infants, with the other two older celebrations being thereafter retained in the liturgical books but rarely, if at all, being found in practice.47 Even if Talley is correct, that still leaves the question as to which of the other two occasions – Lazarus Saturday morning and the paschal vigil – was the original, since it seems improbable that both can claim equal antiquity at Constantinople. If the custom of baptizing at the vigil was established first, then Mateos’s suggestion that a second baptismal occasion one week earlier was subsequently needed in order to cope with overwhelming numbers seems the only plausible explanation. The reverse possibility – that the custom of baptizing on Lazarus Saturday morning at the conclusion of the 40-day Lent was introduced first, in imitation of Alexandrian practice, but that later it was necessary to add the celebration of baptism at the Easter vigil in order to bring the Constantinopolitan church into line with liturgical practice elsewhere – is attractive, but open to objections. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the last day on which candidates for baptism at the paschal season were permitted to enrol in the catechumenate at Constantinople was exactly three weeks before Lazarus Saturday – and that is precisely the duration of the original period of final preparation for baptism found in many parts of the ancient church.48
In conclusion, therefore, it seems very probable that prior to the middle of the fourth century preference for paschal baptism was merely a local custom of the Roman and North African churches, and even when it was more widely adopted at that time, there is clear evidence that in many parts of the ancient world other festivals in the liturgical year challenged the exclusive claims of the paschal season, to say nothing of signs of the continuing acceptance of the legitimacy of baptisms at any time of the year. Whatever the theory may have been in some places, therefore, it looks as though baptism at Easter was never the normative practice in Christian antiquity that many have assumed. The most that can be said is that it was an experiment that survived for less than 50 years. Like the seed sown on rocky ground, it endured for a while but eventually withered away.
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1 See, for example, Willy Rordorf, Sunday (London: SCM Press/Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1968), pp. 264–71; Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo 1986; 2nd edn, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1991), p. 37.
2 See above, pp. 14–19.
3 Tertullian, De baptismo 19.1–3; ET from Cantalamessa, p. 91.
4 James C. VanderKam, ‘The Festival of Weeks and the Story of Pentecost in Acts 2’ in Craig A. Evans (ed.), From Prophecy to Testament: The Function of the Old Testament in the New (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 2004), pp. 185–205; ‘Sinai Revisited’ in Matthias Henze (ed.), Biblical Interpretation at Qumran (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2005), pp. 44–60. See also above, p. 71.
5 See further Maxwell E. Johnson, ‘Tertullian’s “Diem baptismo sollemniorem” Revisited: A Tentative Hypothesis on Baptism at Pentecost’ in M. E. Johnson and L. E. Phillips (eds), Studia Liturgica Diversa: Essays in Honor of Paul F. Bradshaw (Portland: The Pastoral Press 2004), pp. 31–44.
6 See above, pp. 72–4, and especially the references on p. 72 to the need for the Council of Nicaea to insist on standing throughout the season of Pentecost and for the Council of Elvira to require the celebration of the day of Pentecost.
7 See below, pp. 137–9, 146.
8 Hippolytus, Commentarium in Dan. 1.16; ET from Cantalamessa, p. 60. On the identity of Hippolytus, see J. A. Cerrato, Hippolytus between East and West: The Commentaries and the Provenance of the Corpus (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002).
9 Similitude 9.16.
10 Carolyn Osiek, The Shepherd of Hermas: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1999), p. 238.
11 See Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson and L. Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2002), pp. 1–6, 13–15.
12 Apostolic Tradition 20.5–21.1. See also Bradshaw, Johnson and Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary, pp. 110–11, 174–5.
13 See, for example, Cantalamessa, p. 158, note a.
14 See, for example, Karl Gerlach, The Antenicene Pascha: A Rhetorical History, Liturgia condenda 7 (Louvain: Peeters 1998), pp. 61–5.
15 Stuart Hall, ‘Paschal Baptism’ in E. A. Livingstone (ed.), Studia Evangelica 6, Texte und Untersuchungen 112 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1973), pp. 239–51.
16 S. G. Hall (ed.), Melito of Sardis: On Pascha and Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1979), p. xxviii.
17 Raniero Cantalamessa, L’Omelia ‘In S. Pascha’ dello pseudo-Ippolito di Roma (Milan: Vita e pensiero 1967), pp. 285–7.
18 Alistair Stewart-Sykes, The Lamb’s High Feast: Melito, Peri Pascha and the Quartodeciman Paschal Liturgy at Sardis (Leiden: Brill 1998), pp. 176–82.
19 Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta 77.
20 For example, in his Homilia in Exod. 5.2 (ET in Cantalamessa, p. 55), Origen links the three days of the Pascha with the threefold mystery of being baptized into Christ’s death, being buried with him, and rising with him on the third day. See also Origen, Contra Celsum 2.69; Commentarium in Evangelium Joannis 1.27; Homilia in Jer. 1.16; 19.14; In Jesu Nav. 4.2.
21 See Maxwell E. Johnson, Liturgy in Early Christian Egypt, Alcuin/GROW Joint Liturgical Study 33 (Cambridge: Grove Books 1995), p. 7, n. 8.
22 Harald Buchinger, ‘Towards the Origins of Paschal Baptism: The Contribution of Origen’, SL 35 (2005), pp. 12–31. See also Harald Buchinger, Pascha bei Origenes (Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag 2005).
23 See below, pp. 99–101.
24 Ambrose, in Expositio Evangelium S. Lucae 4.76.
25 Maximus, Sermones 13; 65.
26 See Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, p. 217.
27 See below, pp. 99ff.
28 Ambrose, De sacramentis 4.1–2; ET from E. J. Yarnold, The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation (2nd edn, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark/Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1994), p. 128 (emphasis added).
29 Maximus, Sermones 40.1.
30 Maximus, Sermones 44.4.
31 See Robert Cabié, La Pentecôte: L’evolution de la Cinquantaine pascale au cours des cinq premiers siècles (Paris: Desclée 1965), pp. 141–2.
32 See Hieronymus Frank, ‘Die Vorrangstellung der Taufe Jesu in der altmailändischen Epiphanieliturgie und der Frage nach dem Dichter des Epiphaniehymnus Illuminans Altissimus’, ALW 13 (1971), pp. 115–32.
33 Siricius, Ep. ad Himerium 1.2.3. Cabié, La Pentecôte, p. 120, argues that Pentecost is to be understood here as referring to the fiftieth day alone and not to the whole Easter season.
34 Leo, Ep. 16.
35 Leo, De Pentecoste 2.9; Sermones 78–81.
36 Leo, Ep. 168.
37 Augustine, Sermones 210.2. For baptism at Pentecost, see Augustine, Sermones 266, 272; and Cabié, La Pentecôte, p. 206. Ambrosiaster, In Eph. 4, also refers to baptism at other times of the year.
38 Innocent I, Ep. ad Victricium 9.
39 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio XL, In sanctum baptisma 24.
40 See Abraham Terian, Macarius of Jerusalem, Letter to the Armenians, A.D. 335, AVANT: Treasures of the Armenian Christian Tradition 4 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press 2008), p. 83.
41 Basil of Caesarea, Homilia 13.1; ET from Cantalamessa, p. 75.
42 John Chrysostom, In Acta Apostolorum homilia 1.6.
43 Cabié, La Pentecôte, pp. 202–3.
44 Cantalamessa, L’Omelia ‘In S. Pascha’ dello pseudo-Ippolito di Roma, pp. 283–4. See also Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, p. 35.
45 See Paul F. Bradshaw, ‘Baptismal Practice in the Alexandrian Tradition: Eastern or Western?’ in Paul F. Bradshaw (ed.), Essays in Early Eastern Initiation, Alcuin/GROW Joint Liturgical Study 8 (Nottingham: Grove Books 1988), pp. 5–17, here at pp. 8–9 = Maxwell E. Johnson (ed.), Living Water, Sealing Spirit: Essays on Christian Initiation (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1995), pp. 82–100, here at pp. 86–9.
46 Juan Mateos (ed.), Le Typicon de la Grande Église 2, OCA 166 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute 1963), p. 63, n. 2.
47 Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, pp. 188–9.
48 See Maxwell E. Johnson, ‘From Three Weeks to Forty Days: Baptismal Preparation and the Origins of Lent’, SL 20 (1990), pp. 185–200 = Johnson, Living Water, Sealing Spirit, pp. 118–36; and below, pp. 92–5.