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On the Sacraments
St Ambrose of Milan, tr. Thompson, 1919
Book 2, Further Illustration from the Story of the Flood. Of the Baptisms of Heathen and…
Yesterday we began to expound how in the flood also there was a prefiguring of baptism. What is the flood, but that in which the righteous is saved to be a seed-plot of righteousness, while sin dies? Therefore, when the Lord saw that the transgressions of mankind were multiplied, he saved the righteous one alone with his offspring, but he bade the water rise even above the mountains. And therefore, in that flood all corruption of the flesh perished, only the family and pattern of the righteous survived. Is not the flood the same thing as baptism, whereby all sins are washed away, only the mind and grace of the righteous is revived?1
There are many kinds of baptisms: but the Apostle cries, one baptism.2 Why? There are baptisms of the Gentiles, but they are no baptisms.3 They are baths, baptisms they cannot be. The flesh is washed, but guilt is not washed away; nay, it is contracted in that bath. There were, however, baptisms of the Jews, some superfluous, others figurative. And the mere figure helps us, since it is the herald of reality.
Notes
- For this paragraph cf. 1 Pet. iii. 20 f., and Gen. vi. vii. (T.).
- Eph. iv. 5.
- With this cf. de Myst. iv. 23, and note.