Barlaam and Ioasaph · Chapter
XIX explained
Barlaam instructs Ioasaph in the doctrines of the Catholic Faith, teaches him the Nicene Creed, and baptizes him in a garden pool.
What happens
Barlaam instructs Ioasaph in the doctrines of the Catholic Faith, teaches him the Nicene Creed, and baptizes him in a garden pool. After the baptism, Barlaam offers the holy Mysteries and exhorts Ioasaph to live a virtuous life, warning against evil thoughts and habits.
Themes in this chapter
Conversion and Baptism
Ioasaph is baptized by Barlaam after thorough instruction in the faith, marking his formal conversion to Christianity.
Spiritual Warfare
Barlaam exhorts Ioasaph to war the good warfare, clad in the whole armor of God, and to resist evil thoughts and habits.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“Behold thou art moved to receive the seal of Christ, and be signed with the light of the countenance of the Lord: and thou becomest a son of God, and temple of the Holy Ghost, the giver of life.”
You are about to be marked with the sign of Christ and become a child of God and a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.
Barlaam explains the significance of baptism to Ioasaph.
“For faith without works is dead, as also are works without faith; even as I remember to have told thee afore.”
Faith and good deeds must go together; one without the other is worthless.
Barlaam reminds Ioasaph of the necessity of both faith and works.
“For if the evil affections, not being natural to us, but attacking us from without, be hard to alter when they become habits, how much harder shall it be to shift virtue, which hath been by nature planted in us by our Maker, and hath him for an helpmate, if so be, through our brief endeavour, it shall have been rooted in habit in the soul?”
If bad habits, which are not natural to us, are difficult to change, then good habits, which are planted in us by God and supported by Him, become even more firmly fixed through practice.
Barlaam encourages Ioasaph to cultivate virtue as a lasting habit.