John 5:3b-4 ...waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
Though the above text is in the majority of Greek manuscripts, the critical text and many modern translations omit it because it is not in early manuscripts such as א. However, notice that Tertullian, who lived circa AD 155 to 220 (before א), had this text in his Bible, and addressed it in his writing on baptism.
If it seems a novelty for an angel to be present in waters, an example of what was to come to pass has forerun. An angel, by his intervention, was wont to stir the pool at Bethsaida. They who were complaining of ill-health used to watch for him; for whoever had been the first to descend into them, after his washing, ceased to complain.
Tertullian, in De Baptismo (On Baptism, chapter 5)
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