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Baptism, Angel of.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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Tertullian speaks of an angel who is present at baptism, and who prepares the waters of the font, and under whose auspices men are prepared by the cleansing of the font for the following gift of the Holy Spirit. His language is not inconsistent with a belief that this may have been a mere individual speculation of his own rather than a doctrine generally accepted in his time. No parallel to this language has hitherto, so far as the writer knows, been alleged from any other early writers. But in more than one of the early Ordines Baptismi there will be found expressions derived, in all probability, from this very passage of Tertullian.