Tertullian, On Baptism 20
Candidates for baptism must pray with frequent prayers, fasts, kneeling, all-night vigils, and a confession of all past sins, so that they may also reenact John's baptism—Scripture says, "They were baptized, confessing their sins" (Mark 1:5). We should count it a gain if we do not have to confess our injustices or shameful deeds in public; in doing so we simultaneously settle the old conflicts between flesh and spirit and lay up defenses against the temptations that will follow. "Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation" (Matthew 26:41). That, I think, is exactly why the disciples were tempted: they fell asleep, so that they abandoned the arrested Lord, and the one who stayed by him and even used a sword went on to deny him three times. After all, it had already been said: "No one untested will attain the heavenly kingdom." The Lord himself, immediately after his baptism, was hemmed in by temptations for forty days while he fasted. Someone will object, "Then we too ought to fast right after baptism." And who forbids it, except the necessity of joy and the celebration of salvation? But the Lord, as I see it, turned the reproach of the figure of Israel back on himself. The people crossed the sea and were driven into the wilderness for forty years; though they were fed with divine food, they still remembered their bellies and throats more than God. Then the Lord, led away from the water into the desert, spent forty days fasting and showed that man does not live on bread alone but on the word of God, and that temptations arising from gluttony and excess are cut down by abstinence. Therefore blessed are those whom the grace of God awaits: when you come up from that most holy washing of new birth and stretch out your first hands to the Mother together with the brothers, ask the Father, ask the Lord for your peculiar gifts, your thanksgivings, the distributions of charisms—since it is said, "Ask and you will receive." For you have sought and found; you have knocked, and it has been opened to you. I ask only this: that when you ask, you also remember the sinner Tertullian.
Latin
Ingressuros Baptismum, orationibus crebris, jejuniis et geniculationibus, et pervigiliis orare oportet, et cum confessione omnium retro delictorum, ut exponant etiam Baptismum Joannis, Tinguebantur, inquit, confitentes delicta sua. Nobis gratulandum est, si non publice confitemur iniquitates aut turpitudines nostras. Simul enim et de pristinis satisfacimus conflictatione carnis et spiritus, et subsecuturis tentationibus munimenta praestruimus. Vigilate et orate, inquit, ne incidatis in tentationem. Et ideo, credo, tentati sunt, quoniam obdormierunt, ut apprehensum Dominum destituerint, et qui cum eo perstiterit, et gladio sit usus, ter etiam negaverit: nam et praecesserat dictum: Neminem intentatum regna coelestia consecuturum. Ipsum Dominum post lavacrum statim tentationes circumsteterunt quadraginta diebus jejuniis functum. Ergo et nos, dicet aliquis, a lavacro potius jejunare oportet. Et quis enim prohibet, nisi necessitas gaudii et gratulatio salutis? Sed Dominus, quantum existimo, de figura Israelis exprobrationem in ipsum retorsit. Namque populus mare transgressus, et in solitudine translatus per quadraginta annos, illic cum divinis aleretur, nihilominus ventris et gulae meminerat, quam Dei. Deinde Dominus post aquam segregatus in deserto quadraginta dierum jejunia emensus, ostendit non pane vivere hominem Dei, sed Dei verbo: tentationesque plenitudini et immoderantiae ventris appositas abstinentia elidi. Igitur benedicti quos gratia Dei expectat. cum de illo sanctissimo lavacro novi natalis ascenditis, et primas manus apud Matrem cum fratribus aperitis, petite de Patre, petite de Domino, peculia, gratias, distributiones charismatum, subjiciente, Petite et accipietis, inquit. Quaesistis enim et invenistis; pulsastis, et apertum est vobis. Tantum oro, ut cum petitis etiam Tertulliani peccatoris memineritis.