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Against Heresies
St Irenaeus of Lyons, ANF 1
Fragments, Fragment 34 · “And dipped himself,” says [the Scripture], “seven times in…
XXXIV
“And1 dipped himself,” says [the Scripture], “seven times in Jordan.”2 It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but [it served] as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: “Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”3
Notes
- This and the next fragment first appeared in the Benedictine edition reprinted at Venice, 1734. They were taken from a ms. Catena on the book of Kings in the Coislin Collection.
- 2 Kings v. 14.
- John iii. 5.