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Office Of Readings | Eastertide Week 3, Wednesday | A Reading From The First Apology Of Saint Justin Martyr In Defence Of The Christians
‘Baptism – the bath of rebirth.’
Illumined In Christ | Saint Justin Martyr On Baptismal Regeneration
In the season of Eastertide, when the Church celebrates the Risen Christ and the new life Jesus brings, the Office of Readings offers a passage from the First Apology of Saint Justin Martyr that invites us to return to the wellspring of that life—Holy Baptism. In this passage, Saint Justin, writing in the mid-2nd century, provides one of the earliest extra-biblical descriptions of Christian baptism. His account is not only historically significant but theologically rich, revealing how the early Church understood baptism as a conscious, transformative rebirth through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Baptism As New Life In Jesus Christ
Justin begins by affirming that through Christ, Christians ‘received new life and consecrated ourselves to God’. This statement echoes the language of the Pauline epistles, where baptism is consistently associated with dying and rising with Christ (cf. Romans 6:3–4). For Justin, baptism is no mere ritual; it is an existential transition from death to life, from sin to righteousness, from ignorance to truth. This new life is not imposed but embraced. Those who seek baptism must first believe the truth of Christian teaching and express a desire to live in accord with it. In Justin’s time, this meant a period of catechesis, prayer, and fasting, in which the convert prepared spiritually and morally for the grace to come.
This preparation speaks volumes about the nature of the sacrament. While God is the actor in baptism, the human person must freely respond. Justin insists on the convert’s personal assent—an awareness that baptism is not simply a physical washing but a conscious entry into the life of God. In this, we see a remarkably mature theological anthropology: human beings are created to respond freely to God’s call, and baptism is the moment when that freedom meets divine grace.
Scripture And The Meaning Of Baptism
To articulate the theological significance of baptism, Justin turns to Scripture. He cites both the Gospel of John and the prophet Isaiah, grounding the sacrament in the twin sources of New Testament revelation and Old Testament prophecy. From John’s Gospel, he invokes the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: ‘Unless you are born again, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Justin interprets this not as metaphor but as a divine command, fulfilled in the waters of baptism.
From Isaiah, he draws a passage that urges the people of Israel to ‘wash yourselves and be clean… remove the evil from your souls’. For Justin, this passage—originally a moral exhortation—finds its deepest fulfilment in the sacrament, where the washing of the body signifies and effects the cleansing of the soul. By linking these texts, Justin not only affirms the necessity of baptism but frames it as the fulfilment of God’s ancient promise to cleanse His people and restore them to righteousness.
This is not merely allegory. It is a sacramental hermeneutic: a reading of Scripture that sees Christ and the sacraments as the key to understanding all that God has spoken. For Justin, baptism is where prophecy and promise converge with divine action.
Freedom, Knowledge And Enlightenment
One of Justin’s most striking insights is his reflection on the difference between natural birth and spiritual rebirth. Our first birth, he notes, occurred without our consent and brought us into a world of ignorance and sin. Baptism, by contrast, is chosen. It is the moment when a person, having been taught and illumined by the truth, freely seeks regeneration. In this light, baptism becomes not only a spiritual cleansing but a moment of liberation and self-possession. The baptized Christian is no longer defined by necessity or ignorance but by grace and truth.
It is in this context that Justin introduces the concept of ‘illumination’. He writes that baptism is called illumination because of the ‘mental enlightenment’ that the recipient experiences. This term—photismos in Greek—was commonly used in the early Church to describe baptism, highlighting its role in dispelling the darkness of sin and ignorance. It was more than a moral awakening; it was a participation in divine knowledge, a new capacity to perceive spiritual reality.
Justin’s use of this term reveals the integration of his philosophical background into his theology. As a former pagan philosopher who found in Christianity the ‘true philosophy’, Justin understood salvation not only as moral restoration but as intellectual transformation. For him, to be baptized is to be given the light of Christ’s truth—the Logos who enlightens every person coming into the world. The sacrament opens the eyes of the soul, enabling one to see God and reality rightly.
Trinitarian Mystery
In describing the rite of baptism, Justin affirms that the sacrament is performed ‘in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the whole universe, of our Saviour Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit’. This is a clear and early testimony to the Church’s Trinitarian faith. Even in this pre-Nicene period, the Church worships and baptizes in the name of the Triune God, as Jesus commanded.
Yet Justin adds a profound theological note: the one who baptizes invokes only the name of God, for God ‘so far surpasses our powers of description that no one can really give a name to him’. This reveals Justin’s awareness of the divine mystery. While the Father, Son, and Spirit are named and invoked, their essence remains beyond human comprehension. In this tension—between the revelation of God’s name and the mystery of God’s being—lies the heart of Christian worship.
By baptizing in the Triune name, the Church does not claim to comprehend God fully but submits to the way God has revealed Himself. Baptism is thus both a confession of faith and an act of reverent awe.
Prophetic Spirit And The Fulfilment Of History
Justin concludes by affirming that the Holy Spirit, invoked in baptism, is the same Spirit who ‘through the prophets foretold everything concerning Jesus’. Here we see a pneumatology that unites the Old and New Covenants. The Spirit is not a new actor on the stage of salvation history but the eternal breath of God, active from creation to Pentecost. In the act of baptism, the Spirit who inspired the prophets now brings their words to fulfilment in the soul of the believer.
This continuity of the Spirit reveals a unified divine economy. Baptism is not a rupture with the past but the flowering of God’s plan, hidden in types and shadows, now revealed in Christ and made present through the sacraments of the Church.
A Reading From The First Apology Of Saint Justin Martyr In Defence Of The Christians
Through Christ we received new life and we consecrated ourselves to God. I will explain the way in which we did this. Those who believe what we teach is true and who give assurance of their ability to live according to that teaching are taught to ask God’s forgiveness for their sins by prayer and fasting and we pray and fast with them. We then lead them to a place where there is water and they are reborn in the same way as we were reborn; that is to say, they are washed in the water in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the whole universe, of our Saviour Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit. This is done because Christ said: Unless you are born again you will not enter the kingdom of heaven, and it is impossible for anyone, having once been born, to re-enter his mother’s womb.
An explanation of how repentant sinners are to be freed from their sins is given through the prophet Isaiah in the words: Wash yourselves and be clean. Remove the evil from your souls; learn to do what is right. Be just to the orphan, vindicate the widow. Come, let us reason together, says the Lord. If your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as wool; if they are like crimson, I will make them white as snow. But if you do not heed me, you shall be devoured by the sword. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.
The apostles taught us the reason for this ceremony of ours. Our first birth took place without our knowledge or consent because our parents came together, and we grew up in the midst of wickedness. So if we were not to remain children of necessity and ignorance, we needed a new birth of which we ourselves would be conscious, and which would be the result of our own free choice. We needed, too, to have our sins forgiven. This is why the name of God, the Father and Lord of the whole universe, is pronounced in the water over anyone who chooses to be born again and who has repented of his sins. The person who leads the candidate for baptism to the font calls upon God by this name alone, for God so far surpasses our powers of description that no one can really give a name to him. Anyone who dares to say that he can must be hopelessly insane.
This baptism is called ‘illumination’ because of the mental enlightenment that is experienced by those who learn these things. The person receiving this enlightenment is also baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets foretold everything concerning Jesus.
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
Psalm 65 is a song of gratitude and praise to the Divine. In this beautiful hymn, the psalmist reflects on the majesty and mercy of God, expressing a deep sense of awe and thanksgiving for the bountiful blessings bestowed upon the earth. The psalm opens with a resounding declaration that praises are reserved for God in Zion, the sacred city, and vows made to the Almighty will be fulfilled [ … ]
This is among the most perfect of the parables to listen to during Lent – indeed, it has resonances that must extent to each and every time we receive the Eucharist. We are simply not worthy. And God’s mercy extends to us nonetheless. The prayer of the Pharisee is false. It is not true prayer. We see him, standing there in the presence of God and congratulating himself, as if he does not need God for his redemption, as if he can redeem himself [ … ]
