I’m enjoying the thread, everyone!
A couple of other thoughts from Augustine:
“I ask, therefore, if sins were remitted by the baptism of John, what more could the baptism of Christ confer on those whom the Apostle Paul desired to be baptized with the baptism of Christ after they had received the baptism of John? But if sins were not remitted by the baptism of John, were those men in the days of Cyprian better than John, of whom he says himself that they ‘used to seize on estates by treacherous frauds, and increase their gains by accumulated usuries,’ through whose, administration of baptism the remission of sins was yet conferred? Or was it because they were contained within the unity of the Church? What then? Was John not contained within that unity, the friend of the Bridegroom, the preparer of the way of the Lord, the baptizer of the Lord Himself? Who will be mad enough to assert this? Wherefore, although my belief is that John so baptized with the water of repentance for the remission of sins, that those who were baptized by him received the expectation of the remission of their sins, the actual remission taking place in the baptism of the Lord,— just as the resurrection which is expected at the last day is fulfilled in hope in us, as the apostle says, that ‘He has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus’ (Ephesians 2:6); and again, ‘For we are saved by hope’ (Romans 8:24); or as again John himself, while he says, ‘I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, for the remission of your sins’ (Matthew 3:11), yet says, on seeing our Lord, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29) — nevertheless I am not disposed to contend vehemently against any one who maintains that sins were remitted even in the baptism of John, but that some fuller sanctification was conferred by the baptism of Christ on those whom Paul ordered to be baptized anew (cf. Acts 19:3-5)” (
, Bk. 5, Ch. 10On Baptism, Against the Donatists).
“[T]here is the circumstance, which is not incredibly reported, that the thief who then believed as he hung by the side of the crucified Lord was sprinkled, as in a most sacred baptism, with the water which issued from the wound of the Saviour’s side. I say nothing of the fact that nobody can prove, since none of us knows, that he had not been baptized previous to his condemnation. However, let every man take this in the sense he may prefer; only let no rule about baptism affecting the Saviour’s own precept be taken from this example of the thief… what if he had been baptized in prison, as in after times some under persecution were enabled privately to obtain? Or what if he had been baptized previous to his imprisonment? If, indeed, he had been, the remission of his sins which he would have received in that case from God would not have protected him from the sentence of public law, so far as appertained to the death of the body. What if, being already baptized, he had committed the crime and incurred the punishment of robbery and lawlessness, but yet received, by virtue of repentance added to his baptism, forgiveness of the sins which, though baptized, he had committed? For beyond doubt his faith and piety appeared to the Lord clearly in his heart, as they do to us in his words. If, indeed, we were to conclude that all those who have quitted life without a record of their baptism died unbaptized, we should calumniate the very apostles themselves; for we are ignorant when they were, any of them, baptized, except the Apostle Paul (cf. Acts 9:18). If, however, we could regard as an evidence that they were really baptized the circumstance of the Lord’s saying to St. Peter, ‘He that is washed needs not save to wash his feet’ (John 13:10), what are we to think of the others, of whom we do not read even so much as this—Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Silas, Philemon, the very evangelists Mark and Luke, and innumerable others, about whose baptism God forbid that we should entertain any doubt, although we read no record of it?” (
On the Soul and its Origin,
Bk. 1, Ch. 11 &
Bk. 3, Ch. 12)
In Christ,
Pete
…and here is what it meant in the past 
Good observations / conclusions … N.W.
) before they baptized each other, because they didn’t know about the Trinitarian Formula until Christ’ ascension.