"The candidate for baptism is to present himself before God in true repentance and humility, making sincere confession of his sins, and in the knowledge that there is one God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who together with the Holy Spirit, is the rewarder of those who diligently seek. Him. At baptism the sins of the believer are remitted; he receives the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and symbolically he shares in the burial and Resurrection of the Lord."
That's a brief summary of 28 lectures given by Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, titled "Catechetical Lectures." Eighteen of the lectures are addressed to persons desiring baptism, and 5 are addressed to the newly baptized. Our own baptism and confirmation were not that challenging, but they do have a history, and God does the heavy lifting. This is from the 4th century.
It seems the candidate also had an exorcism to be cleaned of evil spirits and it involved some nakedness to symbolize Christ who was naked on the cross. The candidate also went into the pool 3 times as a symbol of Christ's death, burial and Resurrection. He was then anointed with oil as Christ's gift of grace and the soul was sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Then the new believer was ready for the Eucharist which is no longer bread and wine, but the real body and blood of Christ. That was topped off by commemoration of the patriarchs, prophets, Apostles, and martyrs and the Lord's Prayer with a benediction.
There is very little agreement among Christians on anything--certainly not baptism or communion. But most of us can find elements of our own baptism in this ancient description. I was baptized on Palm Sunday of 1950 (April 2), and still find elements in that service and the baptisms I see at our Lutheran church in the 21st century.
This information about Cyril's baptismal instructions is from p. 93-95 of Magill's Masterpieces of Christian Literature in Summary Form (1963).
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