XXXIV.

“And58 This and the next fragment first appeared in the Benedictine edition reprinted at Venice, 1734. They were taken from a ms. Catena on the book of Kings in the Coislin Collection. dipped himself,” says [the Scripture], “seven times in Jordan.”59 2 Kings v. 14. It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but [it served] as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: “Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”60 John iii. 5.