Tertullian, On Baptism 5
Foreign nations, devoid of any spiritual understanding, ascribe the same power to their idols, but they delude themselves with empty water. They even undergo initiation through a bath—dedicated to some Isis or Mithras—and they actually wash their own gods. Moreover, they sprinkle villages, houses, temples, and entire cities with water; at the Apollinarian and Eleusinian games they drench themselves thoroughly. They presume this earns them rebirth and immunity from their perjuries. Among the ancients, anyone who had defiled himself with homicide would expiate his guilt with purifying water. So if they boast of water's natural property alone—claiming it is the proper material for cleansing in the rites of purification—how much more truly will water deliver that power through God's authority, since He established its very nature? If they think religion sanctifies water, what religion surpasses that of the living God? Once that is acknowledged, we recognize here the devil's mimicry, aping the works of God, because he too practices a baptism among his followers. What a resemblance: the unclean one cleanses, the destroyer liberates, the condemned one absolves. He will inevitably wreck his own work, washing away the very sins he inspires. These facts stand as testimony for those who reject the faith: if they refuse to believe the things of God, why do they credit their counterfeits in the devil's camp? Do not unclean spirits also, without any sacrament, brood over waters at other times, mimicking that primordial brooding of the divine Spirit? Everyone knows the dark springs, the remote streams, the pools in baths, the channels in houses or cisterns, and the wells said to be seized—surely by the force of a harmful spirit. They call the drowned, the frenzied, and the hydrophobic—those whom waters have killed or driven to madness and terror. Why recount all this? So that no one may find it harder to believe the holy Angel of God attends the waters to temper them for human salvation, when the evil angel habitually exploits the profane use of the same element for human destruction. If an angel's intervention in water seems novel, it anticipated a future pattern. An angel descending stirred the pool of Bethesda; those seeking healing watched for it. Whoever managed to step in first ceased his suffering after the washing (John 5:4). That figure of bodily cure foreshadowed spiritual cure, following the rule that carnal realities always prefigure spiritual ones. As God's grace advanced among humanity, something greater was added to the water and the angel: they once healed bodily ailments, now they heal the spirit; they once procured temporal safety, now they remake eternal salvation; they once freed a single person once a year, now they preserve multitudes daily, death having been abolished through the washing away of sins. With guilt removed, punishment is also removed. Thus man is restored to God in His likeness—he who was originally made in God's image; the image lies in the likeness, the likeness in eternity. For he receives the Spirit of God, which he first received from God's breath but later lost through sin.
Latin
Sed enim nationes extraneae ab omni intellectu spiritalium potestatem eadem efficacia idolis suis subministrant, sed, viduis aquis, sibi mentiuntur. Nam et sacris quibusdam per lavacrum initiantur, Isidis alicujus, aut Mithrae, ipsos etiam deos suos lavationibus efferunt. Caeterum villas, domos, templa totasque urbes aspergine circumlatae aquae expiant passim, certe ludis Apollinaribus et Eleusiniis tinguntur. Idque se in regenerationem et impunitatem perjuriorum suorum agere praesumunt. Item penes veteres quisquis se homicidio infecerat, purgatrice aqua se expiebat. Igitur si de sola natura aquis, quod propria materia sit abluendi in auspicia emundationis, blandiuntur, quanto id verius aquae praestabunt per Dei auctoritatem, a quo omnis natura earum constituta est? Si religione aquam medicari putant, quae potior religio, quam Dei vivi? quo agnito, hic quoque studium diaboli recognoscimus res Dei aemulantis, cum et ipse Baptismum in suis exercet. Quid simile? Immundus emundat, perditor liberat, damnatus absolvit. Suam videlicet operam destruet, diluens delicta quae inspirat ipse. Haec quidem in testimonium posita sunt repellentibus fidem, si minime credant rebus Dei, quarum affectationibus apud aemulum Dei credunt. Annon et alias sine ullo sacramento immundi spiritus aquis incubant, adfectantes illam in primordio divini spiritus gestationem? Sciunt opaci quique fontes, et avii quique rivi, et in balneis piscinae, et euripi in domibus vel cisternae, et putei, qui rapere dicuntur, scilicet per vim spiritus nocentis. Nam et enectos et lymphatos et hydrophobos vocant, quos aquae necaverunt, aut amentia vel formidine exercuerunt. Quorsum ista retulimus? Ne quis durius credat Angelum Dei sanctum aquis in salutem hominis temperandis adesse, cum Angelus malus profanum commercium ejusdem elementi in perniciem hominis frequentet. Angelum aquis intervenire si novum videtur, exemplum futuri praecucurrit. Piscinam Bethsaidam Angelus interveniens commovebat; observabant qui valetudinem querebantur. Nam si quis praevenerat descendere illuc, queri post lavacrum desinebat. Figura ista medicinae corporalis spiritalem medicinam canebat, ea forma, qua semper carnalia in figura spiritalium antecedunt. Proficiente itaque in hominibus gratia Dei, plus aquis et Angelo accessit: qui vitia corporis remediabant, nunc spiritum medentur: qui temporalem operabantur salutem, nunc aeternam reformant: qui unum semel anno liberabant, nunc quotidie populos conservant, deleta morte per ablutionem delictorum. Exempto scilicet reatu, eximitur et poena. Ita restituitur homo Deo ad similitudinem ejus, qui retro ad imaginem Dei fuerat; imago in effigie, similitudo in aeternitate censetur. Recipit enim illum Dei spiritum, quem tunc de afflatu ejus acceperat, sed post amiserat per delictum.