"There is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has
repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe,
he who leads to the laver the person that is to be washed calling Him by
this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God, and
this washing is called Illumination (Gr. [Greek: photismos]), because they
who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the
name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the
name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about
Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed."
In ch. xiv. of the dialogue with Trypho, Justin asserts, as against Jewish
rites of ablution, that Christian baptism alone can purify those who have
repented. "This," he says, "is the water of life. But the cisterns which
you have dug for yourselves are broken and profitless to you. For what is
the use of that baptism which cleanses the flesh and body alone? Baptize
the soul from wrath, from envy and from hatred; and, lo! the body is pure."
In ch. xliii. of the same dialogue Justin remarks that "those who have
approached God through Jesus Christ have received a circumcision, not
carnal, but spiritual, after the manner of Enoch."
In after ages baptism was regularly called illumination. Late in the 2nd
century Tertullian describes the rite of baptism in his treatise _On the
Resurrection of the Flesh_, thus: