Tractates on the Gospel of John
TRACTATE 6 143 may begin to benefit you. For, outside,^' you had baptism to your ruin; if you have it within, it begins to benefit for salvation.
15. For baptism was not merely not beneficial to you, but not injurious also. Even holy things can injure; for in good men holy things exist for their salvation, but in evil men for their judgment. For surely, brothers, we know what we receive, and what we receive is, indeed, holy, and no one says that it is not holy. And what does the Apostle say? "For he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself." *^ He does not say that the thing is evil, but that that evil man, by receiving evilly, receives the good which he receives for judgment. For the morsel of bread which was handed over to Judas by the Lord was not evil, was it?^^ Far from it. The physician would not give poison; the physician gave health. But by receiving unworthily, he who received it without peace received to his ruin.
(2) So, then, it is the same for him who is baptized. "I have it," he says, "for myself." I admit, you have it. Consider what you have; by that very thing which you have you will be condemned. Why? Because you have what belongs to the dove outside the dove.^^ If you have what belongs to the dove within the dove, you have it securely. Suppose you are a soldier.
If you should have the mark^^ of your general within [the army], you serve as a soldier securely. If you have it outside
[the army], ifbt only does that mark not benefit you for military service, but you will also be punished as a deserter.
41. I.e., outside the Catholic church and within the Catholic church. 42. Cf. 1 Cor 1 1.29. 43. Cf. Jn 13.26. 44. Christ always gives baptism, but it is also a possession of the Church, as the Church is the spouse of Christ; see De Baptismo 1.15.23 (PL 43.121-122; and CSEL 51.167-168) and Berrouard, Homelies I-XVI, 881-882. Cf. section 16. A soldier belongs to both the king through whose power he is commissioned and the army into which he is commissioned; once he is commissioned, he is a soldier but he can only operate effectively as a soldier in the army.
45. In the later Empire the Roman soldier upon induction was given two means of identification, the signaculum, a seal worn on a chain about the neck, and the character, a brand, normally on the back of the right hand. The latter