Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Now since it is laid down that salvation belongs to no one without baptism — chiefly on the strength of that pronouncement of the Lord's, "Unless a man is born of water, he shall not have life" — certain people raise scrupulous, indeed reckless, objections as to how, on this rule, salvation can belong to the apostles, whom we find nowhere on record as baptized, Paul excepted. Indeed, since Paul alone of them put on the baptism of Christ, either the others' peril must be prejudged — that they lack the water of Christ, so that the rule stands intact — or the rule itself must be scrapped, if salvation is granted even to the unbaptized. I have heard this kind of thing, the Lord be my witness, lest anyone suppose me so far gone as to invent, out of some itch for writing, difficulties designed to trouble other people. And now I will answer these people as best I can, who deny that the apostles were baptized. For if they had obtained the merely human baptism of John, why would they still be longing for the Lord's, seeing that the Lord himself had fixed one baptism only, telling Peter, who wanted his whole body washed, "He who has once washed has no need to wash again" — words he certainly would not have spoken to a man not baptized at all? And this is a telling proof against those who would strip the apostles even of John's baptism, in order to demolish the sacrament of water. Or can it seem credible that in the very persons destined to open the Lord's way across the whole world, the way had, in their own case, not been prepared beforehand — that is, John's baptism? The Lord himself, owing no debt of repentance, was baptized; was it not necessary for sinners? So if others were not baptized, they were no longer companions of Christ but rivals of the faith — teachers of the Law and Pharisees. Which is exactly why it is suggested that, when those opposed to the Lord refused to be baptized, those who followed the Lord had been baptized, and did not think as their rivals did — especially since the Lord to whom they clung had praised John with this testimony: "No one," he said, "among those born of women is greater than John the Baptist." Others, straining rather too hard, throw in that the apostles fulfilled their baptism at the moment they were being swamped by the waves in the boat — and that Peter too, wading out into the sea, got thoroughly soaked. But as I see it, being splashed or caught by the violence of the sea is one thing, and being baptized by the rite of religion is quite another. As for that, the boat there was a figure of the church, which, on the sea — that is, in the world — is battered by waves, that is, by persecutions and temptations, while the Lord, as if asleep through patience, waits until, roused at the last by the prayers of the saints, he calms the world and restores tranquility to his own. Whether, then, they had by some means received the washing, or stayed unwashed, so that even that word of the Lord's touching the "single washing," uttered in the person of Peter, is to be applied only to ourselves — it is nonetheless quite reckless to pass judgment on the salvation of the apostles. For to them the privilege of being first chosen, and thereafter of unbroken intimacy with him, might well have supplied a shortcut around baptism, since it was, I think, that same one they were following who promised salvation to every believer: "Your faith," he would say, "has saved you," and, "Your sins are forgiven you" — to a believer, mind you, and not yet a baptized one. If the apostles lacked this, I do not know whose faith is secure. At one word from the Lord the tax-collector rose and abandoned his booth; he left father and boat and the trade that kept him alive; he scorned his father's funeral rites — fulfilling that supreme command of the Lord's, "Whoever puts father or mother before me is not worthy of me," before he had even heard it spoken.