Tertullian, On Baptism 12

When it is laid down that no one can attain salvation without baptism, the rule rests on the Lord's own pronouncement: "Unless someone is born of water, he will not have life" (John 3:5). From that very text certain people raise scrupulous -- or rather reckless -- objections: how can the prescription apply to the apostles, whom we do not find baptized in the Lord except for Paul? Since Paul alone of them "put on the baptism of Christ," either the danger of the others who lack Christ's water must be prejudged so the rule stands, or the rule must be rescinded if salvation is also established for the unbaptized. I have heard such talk, with the Lord as my witness, so that no one may think me so lost as to voluntarily stir up scruples in others by a lust for writing. Now I will answer, as best I can, those who deny the apostles were baptized.

If they underwent the human baptism of John and desired the Lord's, since the Lord himself defined one baptism by telling Peter, who resisted washing, "He who has been washed once has no need to be washed again" (Matthew 3:14-15) -- words he certainly would not have spoken to an unbaptized man -- this is evident proof against those who strip the apostles even of John's baptism in order to destroy the sacrament of water. Can it be believed that the very persons destined to open the Lord's way throughout the world -- the way that was John's baptism -- did not undergo it? The Lord himself, who owed no repentance, was baptized; was it not necessary for sinners? What then? Were others baptized? Not the companions of Christ, but the rivals of faith, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. Hence it is also suggested that when the Lord's opponents refused baptism, those who followed him were baptized and did not share their rivals' mind, especially when the Lord to whom they clung extolled John with the testimony: "No one is greater among those born of women than John the Baptist" (Matthew 11:11).

Others crudely force the idea that the apostles then fulfilled baptism's role when they were sprinkled and covered by waves in the boat, and that Peter was sufficiently immersed when he walked on the sea. But in my judgment it is one thing to be sprinkled or overtaken by the violence of the sea, another to be baptized by the discipline of religion. Besides, that boat represented the figure of the Church, tossed in the sea -- the world -- by waves of persecution and temptation while the Lord seems asleep through patience, until, roused by the prayers of the saints in the last times, he restrains the world and gives his own tranquility.

Now, whether they were baptized in some way or remained unbaptized, and whether the Lord's saying about one washing, spoken in Peter's person, pertains only to us, it is nevertheless very reckless to pronounce on the apostles' salvation. For they could have received the privilege of baptism by the prerogative of their first election and their subsequent intimate familiarity with him. They followed the one who promised salvation to every believer, saying: "Your faith has saved you" and "Your sins are forgiven" -- certainly to the believer, not necessarily to the baptized. If the apostles lacked this, I do not know what their faith was: at one word of the Lord the tax collector rose and left his booth; he deserted his father, his boat, and the trade that sustained his life; he despised his father's funeral; he fulfilled the Lord's supreme commandment -- "He who prefers father or mother to me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37) -- before he even heard it.