definite institutions, and that, above all, it has included the
traditional sacred ordinances, and adjusted itself to them as far as
that was possible.[279] This could only take effect under the idea of
the symbolical, and therefore this idea was most firmly attached to
these ordinances. But the symbolical of that time is not to be
considered as the opposite of the objectively real, but as the
mysterious, the God produced ([Greek: mysterion]) as contrasted with the
natural, the profanely clear. As to Baptism, which was administered in
the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, though Cyprian, Ep. 73. 16-18,
felt compelled to oppose the custom of baptising in the name of Jesus,
we noted above (Chap. III. p. 161 f.) that it was regarded as the bath
of regeneration, and as renewal of life, inasmuch as it was assumed that
by it the sins of the past state of blindness were blotted out.[280] But
as faith was looked upon as the necessary condition,[281] and as on the
other hand, the forgiveness of the sins of the past was in itself deemed
worthy of God,[282] the asserted specific result of baptism remained
still very uncertain, and the hard tasks which it imposed, might seem
more important than the merely retrospective gifts which it
proffered.[283] Under such circumstances the rite could not fail to lead
believers about to be baptized, to attribute value here to the
mysterious as such.[284] But that always creates a state of things which
not only facilitates, but positively prepares for the introduction of
new and strange ideas. For neither fancy nor reflection can long
continue in the vacuum of mystery. The names [Greek: sphragis] and
[Greek: photismos], which at that period came into fashion for baptism,
are instructive, inasmuch as neither of them is a direct designation of
the presupposed effect of baptism, the forgiveness of sin, and as
besides, both of them evince a Hellenic conception. Baptism in being
called the seal,[285] is regarded as the guarantee of a blessing, not as
the blessing itself, at least the relation to it remains obscure; in
being called enlightenment,[286] it is placed directly under an aspect
that is foreign to it. It would be different if we had to think of
[Greek: photismos] as a gift of the Holy Spirit, which is given to the
baptised as real principle of a new life and miraculous powers. But the
idea of a necessary union of baptism with a miraculous communication of
the Spirit, seems to have been lost