Hebrews 6:2
Of the doctrine of baptisms, and imposition of hands, and of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
Open Hebrews 6:2 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- baptismatum doctrinæ, impositionis quoque manuum, ac resurrectionis mortuorum, et judicii æterni.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- βαπτισμῶν διδαχὴν ἐπιθέσεώς τε χειρῶν, ἀναστάσεώς τε νεκρῶν καὶ κρίματος αἰωνίου.
Haydock's commentary
On verses 1 to 2
Wherefore leaving the word, &c. This is to be taken as connected with what he had said in the last chapter, (ver. 12.) of the elements, or rudiments of Christian faith, concerning which, though some seemed not sufficiently instructed, yet he thinks it here enough to name them, and pass them over: to wit, 1. Penance, or the dispositions of a sincere repentance. 2. Faith, when they are come to the years of being instructed. 3. The doctrine of baptisms, which he expresseth in the plural number, either because all the faithful must be baptized once, if we speak of Christian baptism; or he means that persons ought to know they cannot receive Christ's baptism over again. Or, in fine, he means that the baptisms used by the Jews, which they so frequently repeated, could not make them justified. 4. The doctrine of imposition of hands, by which is commonly expounded that which was given in the sacrament of confirmation. 5. Of the resurrection of the dead. 6. Of the judgment, by which God would judge all mankind. Of these things he supposeth them already instructed. (Witham)
We see here the order in which the apostles taught the Christian doctrine to the catechumens: 1. They excited them to sorrow for their sins. 2. They required of them acts of faith in God and his Son Jesus Christ. 3. They explained the nature of Christ's baptism, its virtue, and difference from the baptism of John the Baptist and others. 4. After baptism, they laid their hands on them, that they might receive the strengthening grace of the Holy Ghost in confirmation; and finally, they excited them to perseverance, by the hope of a glorious resurrection, and of eternal life, and by setting before their eyes eternal damnation as the consequence of apostacy.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, Chapter XVI. 12, 13 (continued)
5. But to those who are still babes in mind, and who as carnal, the apostle says, require to be nourished with milk, all discoursing on such a subject, wherein we deal not only with the believing, but also with the understanding and the knowing of what is spoken, must be burdensome, as being still unable to perceive such things, and be more fitted to oppress than to feed them. Whence it comes to pass that the spiritual, while not altogether silent on such subjects to the carnal, because of the Catholic faith which is to be preached to all, yet do not so handle them as, in their wish to simplify them to understandings that are still deficient in capacity, to bring their discourse on the truth into disrepute, rather than the truth that is in their discourse within the perceptions of their hearers. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Matthew III. 7
Seest thou how now in due order the mysterycame to be laid as a foundation, before the resurrection and judgment?