Baptism as Dying and Rising with Christ in the Teaching of Augustine

The symbolic action of baptism—washing or burial in water—became separated from its assigned effects as a result of continuing conflicts in African theology over the efficacy of the ritual. Augustine focused on the baptismal oath to Christ as the basis for an indestructible and unrepeatable dedication. The forgiveness of sins was accounted for by the baptizand's being joined into Christ's death, a destruction of the flesh bearing the "likeness of sin," and thus of the sin itself. The symbolic causality of Christ's sacrifice did not relate the liberation from sin to the water ritual.