Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] We have said as much as our own modest capacity has allowed about everything that builds up the religion of baptism. Now let me proceed, as best I can, to the rest of its standing, by way of a few small questions. The baptism proclaimed by John already, back then, raised a question — put by the Lord himself to the Pharisees — whether that baptism was from heaven or, instead, merely earthly. To this they were unable to give a firm answer, not understanding it, precisely because they did not believe it either. [2] We, for our part, with whatever small measure of faith we have, can with an equally small measure of understanding judge that it was indeed a divine baptism, but not one given by mandate or by full authority — since we likewise read that it was the Lord who dispatched John to this task, though on every other count it stood on merely human footing. For it furnished nothing heavenly, but rather served as an usher for heavenly things — being, of course, set over repentance, which lies in a man's own will. [3] In short, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, who refused to believe, also refused to undertake repentance. But if repentance is a human thing, then the baptism tied to it must necessarily have been of that same standing: it would have conferred both forgiveness of sins and the Holy Ghost together, had it truly originated from heaven. But no one forgives sins or bestows the Spirit except God alone. [4] Even the Lord himself declared that the Spirit would not come down unless he himself first ascended to the Father. So what the master was not yet bestowing, the servant certainly could not furnish. Indeed, further on, in the Acts of the Apostles, we discover that certain men, holding merely John's baptism, were altogether without the Holy Ghost — they had not so much as caught word that he existed. [5] So then it was not a thing from heaven, since it did not deliver heavenly things — seeing that even what was heavenly in John, the spirit of prophecy, after the whole of the Spirit had been transferred onto the Lord, so utterly failed that the very one he had preached, the very one he had pointed out as he arrived, John later sent to ask whether he was really the one. So the baptism of repentance was being carried out as a kind of candidate awaiting the remission and sanctification that would follow in Christ. [6] For as to what we read, 'He preached a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins' — this was announced as a remission still to come, since repentance comes first and remission follows, and this is what it means to prepare the way: for the one who prepares does not himself carry the thing through, but sees to it that another finishes what he began. [7] He himself professes that what he offers is not from heaven but Christ's, saying: 'He who is of the earth speaks of earthly things; he who comes from above is above all.' Likewise, that he himself baptizes with repentance alone, while one is soon to come who will baptize with Spirit and fire: because, that is, true and steady faith is baptized with the Spirit unto salvation, while a faith that is feigned and weak is baptized with fire unto judgment.