ＩＲＥＮＡＥＵＳ： ”Ｎａａｍａｎ ｏｆ Ｏｌｄ”

Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

2 Kings 5:14

Irenaeus on Naaman in the Jordan River (2 Kgs 5:14)

Irenaeus (ca. 130 – ca. 202 AD) saw all scripture as interconnected and Christ as the center of it all. In the following excerpt, Irenaeus connected the curing of Naaman’s leprosy in the Jordan River with new covenant rite of baptism. Irenaeus commented:

“And dipped himself,” says [the Scripture], “seven times in Jordan” (2 Kgs 5:14).

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” (John 3:5).

Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenæus, XXXIV.