Transcription
This video is going to be a history of infant baptism in the early church. It will have four sections. First, a summary of the argument. Second, I'll explain the goal of this video. Third, we'll look at the New Testament. Fourth, we'll look at the early church data century by century going forward.
So, first let me summarize what I'm going to argue here. And I want to begin with a crucial clarification. I worry this will be missed even though I'm saying it. And that is this video is not addressing the question of the meaning of baptism. Questions of baptismal regeneration versus other views of baptismal efficacy. It will just be on the question of the subjects of baptism. Infant baptism versus credto baptism or pitobaptism which means infant baptism versus credto baptism which means baptizing those who make a credible profession of faith. So you delay baptism for the child of believers until that person can be willingly involved and aware of what's happening and articulate faith in Christ.
So these are uh separate topics. They're related, but they're separate. The question of the subjects of baptism and the meaning of baptism. They're two separate issues. Uh one concerns what baptism does. The other concerns to whom it should be administered. And on the second issue, these are the two views that you can see. I just defined them already. I'm off script already. Credtobaptism, paid baptism. Hopefully, you know those terms. Credtobaptism is a different term than the term Baptist with a capital B. So Baptist is a denominational term. Credtobaptist is a theological term that encompasses a whole range of groups and individuals more than are often recognized than just the Baptist tradition. You can be a credtobaptist while recognizing that infant baptism is valid though improper, like Carl Bart. You can be a credtoist while affirming baptismal regeneration, like the Churches of Christ. I'll be drawing from some Church of Christ scholars in just a moment.
So this is an important distinction because as we get into the early church data, we're going to look at figures who affirm that you should delay baptism for the children of believers until they are able to articulate faith. Sometimes until even adulthood, like age 30. A lot of church fathers were baptized around age 30. And and then the response will come, well, they're not a Baptist. And that is completely true. That is true. The theological position we call credo baptism is a broader category. And it is surprisingly common in the early church, as we'll document in this video, even if it looks different from some expressions of credtobaptism today. I'm starting with this clarification because I know that that will be a concern.
Now, earlier in the 20th century, there was a famous dispute about the evidence for infant baptism in the early church between two German scholars Joawakim Jeremas and Kurt Alland or Aland. And that was a you know, that kind of set the table for the scholarship. But more recently, more recent scholarship has made progress on this point that I want to draw attention to in this video. And broadly, I'm going to argue that there are about five phases for the development of infant baptism in the early church. This will be my case. I know some will disagree, and I'll explain the consiliatory goals here in just a second, but layout, I'm summarizing my case right now.
First, uh the first phase one is the apostolic practice into the second century, which I'm going to argue is suggestive of credtobaptism. Phase two is the late 2nd century where you have the first explicit evidence of pyobaptism beginning. Phase three is the third century where you see a significant expansion of pyobaptism. Phase four, most interesting one, the fourth century where you see a reversion back to adult baptisms as more common. And then phase five is the fifth and sixth centuries and moving forward where you have the post Austinian consensus with just a few exceptions in places like Ireland and so forth.
And so my overall thesis for what's really going on here can be summarized in the words of Everett Ferguson. I've got to bend over and get this book. I should have put these on my desk earlier. Dramatic pause there. So uh this is a 900-page book. He's a Church of Christ theologian and it is truly a no stone left unturned kind of book. It's an amazing work of scholarship, widely well-received. And his conclusion at the very end of the book is: "There is general agreement that there is no firm evidence for infant baptism before the latter part of the second century. This fact does not mean it did not occur, but it does mean that supporters of the practice have a considerable chronological gap to account for."
And his basic explanation, he he gives various arguments against the originality of infant baptism as something the apostles themselves taught and practiced. And then intriguingly suggests the most plausible explanation for the origin of infant baptism is found in the emergency baptism of sick children expected to die soon so that they would be assured of entrance to the kingdom of heaven. There was a slow extension of the practice of baptizing babies as a precautionary measure. It was generally accepted, but questions continued to be raised about its propriety into the fifth century. It became the usual practice in the fifth and sixth centuries. Ferguson argues that it was really the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius and the triumph of Augustine's account of original sin that really cemented uh infant baptism as the church's regular practice. In other words, there's a lot more in flux in the 3rd and fourth centuries.
Since that summary of my case may have already annoyed and ruffled feathers, let me go into the second portion of this video and explain what I'm hoping to accomplish in this video and the goal of this video because even up till this morning, I'm filming this very early in the morning. You can probably see my face looks tired. Um, even up till this morning, I was going back and forth on do I even want to do this? My at Truth Unites, I really want to focus on the gospel. But as I thought about this, one of my goals with that is to encourage consiliatory work amidst theological differences in the church. Last night I we had our first discussion of the mere Christianity book. We were doing a book club discussion this morning or this summer and uh we talked about you know CS Lewis being called to address mere Christianity because he felt it was lacking in that day. And I was thinking, we actually have a lot of mere Christianity apologetics right now, but we don't have as much careful triaging of these other issues and careful historical work and so forth. And so I thought, you know, I really think actually this is part of what God's calling me to do is to try to work through some of these secondary doctrines. But I'm trying to do it in a particular spirit. And I want to address that here just quickly.
Even though I fall short of this at times, this is my true goal is that basically we can have we can pursue clarity without condescension. That's a way to put it. In other words, that we can talk about these important secondary and tertiary doctrines without a dismissive or censorious or arrogant attitude toward the people on the other side. I have to be honest with you and say this may be the most important thing to talk through here right up front is that this dismissive attitude happens in both directions too often. No. So if if no other result happens from this video then that there's peaceable understanding um without anyone changing their mind, that's a good thing. Nothing makes me happier than if you see like a Baptist and an Anglican praying together, you know, and having unity amidst their differences. And so this this this thing where we we take doctrine seriously, we argue clearly. We we really value it. We don't have a dismissive attitude toward theology. We take it really seriously. We seek the truth. We argue about the truth, but we have love in our hearts for the people on the other side and humility to recognize the how many godly Christians are on each side of this that are far better Christians than any of us today. You know, that kind of humility to recognize that. You know, if you've had uncles or grandparents who fought in war and were war heroes, you know, you might disagree with them, but you're going to do so in a spirit of humility. We should have that in our disagreements in the body of Christ on an issue like this because there's godly Christians on both sides. Then it is complicated.
So, just to explain this, um, let me just not to belabor this point too much. To paid Baptist viewers, I will try not to be obnoxious. You are my betters. I am your servant. Uh, this video is an attempt to serve the discussion and seek peaceable understanding, not to shoot missiles at the other side or try to demolish it. It's a and I'll try to sort of recognize I'm even going to use that word suggestive for that first period of church history to try to acknowledge where the evidence is not ironclad uh in either direction. It's not ironclad. You can you can wrangle with it. There's an element of interpretation involved and so forth. Even though I'm going to argue for one side, I'm trying to be uh trying to leave allowance for sort of respecting each other's consciences on an issue like this. And I'm going to continue to advocate because I do see dismissiveness on the credto Baptist side. I've been a part of Baptist churches that just is not helpful. Um, so I want to advocate for greater unity uh amidst differences. I'll continue to argue for, as I did in this video, embracing Pitobaptists at the level of church membership and participation in the Lord's Supper. That's my position. I hold this is John Bunan's view. It's a minority view in the Baptist tradition, though it's more common today. The Lord's Supper is not an expression of unity about baptismal conviction. It's an expression of unity in the gospel. And I just feel that we should come together at that basic level of Christian identity. Even if those I I'm not arguing for that here. I did that in that video. Even if you disagree with me on that, at least attitudinally, those of us on the Credto Baptist side, we need to recognize the weight of the tradition that stands against us. Our view was either non-existent or very scattered like among the Waldenians for example for a millennium. We need to feel the weight of that and be humble to to consider why so many have seen this issue differently.
In the other direction, I think there can be condescension toward credtobaptism as if pitobaptism is the obvious historical view. Credtobaptism is this weird eccentricity thing. You know, pyobbaptism is this firm castle. Cretobaptism is this rickety little shack, you know, this way of thinking. And in this video, what I want to show is that the historical data really doesn't support that view either. It doesn't support triumphalism on either side. But actually, I want to show how complicated is the story of infant baptism. There's three points in particular to belabor uh to make that point.
Number one is the practice of infant baptism does have uncertain origins. That's going to come through as I talk about the New Testament and the apostolic fathers and the early 2nd century testimonies. Even if you think Christians were baptizing babies in the year 125 AD, I think you have to admit if you're honest, it's not a slam dunk case. We don't have anything explicit. And I'm going to argue actually it just doesn't look like they were. But we'll get there. I I'll make that case.
But second, and here's where it's more interesting, I think, is the decisive influence of Augustine in sort of cementing and regularizing a particular understanding of infant baptism, particular theology, and it even changed the liturgy. Augustine is an absolute juggernaut of a figure on so many issues including baptism. In one collection of petristic writings on baptism, the material from Augustine alone occupies 60 pages while the material from all the other Christian writings of the first four centuries of the church occupies only 44. So that's just one index of the massive output and influence of Augustine. He really set the table for a millennium. Prior to Augustine, baptismal practice is more diverse and colorful and surprising. You have these, you know, uh, not everywhere, it's not it's not uniform, but you have three-year catechetical preparation in many cases, nude baptisms, solemn renunciations of Satan, Eucharistic celebrations with milk and honey. It's absolutely fascinating to see the practice of the church. And then so many 4th century Christians are baptized as adults. Augustine himself, Ambrose and his siblings, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and his siblings, Ephraim the Syrian, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Rufinus, Pollenus and his brother and many others, and we'll name them all. So, you know, again, it really is in the wake of Augustine that you find a cementing and and crystallizing around one particular practice. It's not uniform until the fifth century.
The third thing I want to point out is the diversity of theological rationale for infant baptism even where there is continuity of practice. There is often diversity of rationale for that practice and appeals will often be made to a consensus without an appreciation of that complexity. That's why it might look like a paid baptism might look like a solid castle but actually if you look more closely it's more ambiguous. And this is where, you know, I'll have Presbyterians who will say to the Baptist that your view is novel, but they won't realize that one of the architects of their view, Zwingli, explicitly said that everyone got baptism wrong from the time of the apostles on uh after right after the apostles because Zwingli's argument for covenantal or reformed pytobaptism departed from precedent. It had a different rationale from the predominating practice leading up to the Reformation. Again, this is one of these complexities we want to work through.
David Wright is another fantastic scholar of baptism in the early church. Uh he himself, if I understand, as a part of the church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, and this is a collection of his essays, which is just amazing. Here's how he puts it: "The leaders of the Protestant Reformations in the 16th century perpetuated a rite which had first come into its own in the post Augustinian era and was sustained for virtually all its centuries long medieval life by doctrinal stipulations which they could no longer endorse."
In other words, what he what he what Wright is talking about is the strange aspects of Augustine's theology of baptism that nobody adheres to today or virtually nobody. Its relation to his doctrine of election, its role in propping up the doctrine of original sin in his anti-Pelagian writings, his doctrine of the uh damnation of unbaptized babies. Most people have departed from these aspects of Augustine's thought, but those aspects are what propped up his doctrine of infant baptism. And so, you know, combining these second and third points here, what I'm emphasizing is that you've got Augustine's influence and then you've got the loss of major strands of Augustine's baptismal theology. And what emerges is a sort of irony in the history of infant baptism. Here's how Wright puts it: "It was Augustine who finally set the necessity of pyobaptism on an impregnable basis. But here lies the rub. For if at last the rite had found its theological rationale, it was one that today's practitioners of infant baptism will scarcely be able to endorse, except perhaps to a very minor extent. We are left in the somewhat uncomfortable position of receiving the traditional observance from the early church while at the same time rejecting the main planks of the theology in which the church of the fathers found its conclusive justification."
In other words, what I'm trying to draw attention to here is some of the ambiguities and complexities in the unfolding history of infant baptism that are often overlooked. It might look like this solid castle that's always been there, but actually there's been incredible changes along the way in the theological understanding of it and even in the practice of it. So, I'm trying to uh call both sides to less condescension and more recognition of the complexity of this so that we approach it with humility. But here I do want to make my case uh hoping it won't annoy hoping it will serve peaceable understanding for why I think uh credto baptism is the is most plausible as the apostolic practice and and you see infant baptism rather as kind of a slow accretion to use the word.
Let's make the case here. Third section of the video. Let's look at the New Testament. And here stepping back and looking at the big picture before we get into the details, we can observe that in general, there does seem to be a pretty close link between baptism and repentance. And that comes not just from passages like the Great Commission and the language of "make disciples, baptizing them" or the New Testament epistles where baptism and union with Christ are simply co-extensive categories, "as many as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ." But it also draws from the background precedents that help us understand what is Christian baptism like: Jewish washing ceremonies and John the Baptist's baptism and also the meaning of the term baptizo and the nature of the act as a submersion in water. You can just put it simply by saying in general, it looks like baptism is associated with repentance, part of repenting. Uh baptism is a part of the process of repentance and faith in Christ.
Now, that does not rule out infant baptism, but it at least raises some questions and shows the need for a rationale for it. If infants are the proper recipients of this practice which is associated with faith and repentance, then we would need a reason for that and we need to know questions like, well, is it the same rationale for an infant as for an adult? And importantly, which infants are we talking about?
Now, let me say one thing about this. As a credtoist, I 100% affirm that God can regenerate infants. Sometimes credtoists are charged with sort of treating our children like pagans or not acknowledging that God can work in our children from a very young age. Not at all. Our children are not pagans. They're in a position of incredible blessing. They just may not be church members from birth automatically, but they're still blessed to be raised within the church. And God can regenerate infants. It looks like God does this with John the Baptist. Uh he's filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. From the Psalms and other portions of scripture, we we recognize God can work in infants. God can do anything and he's not restricted in any way by our age. But that does not necessarily resolve all the questions about infant baptism. We still need to know which infants does God regenerate? How do we know? And at what point does that constitute a warrant for baptizing them? In which cases, you know, so I'm just saying this doesn't the the fact that God can do that doesn't resolve all of these questions.
Now, in this video, the goal is not to give a full theological treatment of pyobaptism, but just to focus on the historical evidence. If you want a full theological argument against pital baptism, I've given a case in this article called "Why Not Grandchildren?" at Theios. That's really especially interacting with a reformed or covenantal argument with the parallel with circumcision and I'm trying to show circum infant circumcision infant baptism are not continuous. One is intergenerational and national. The other is familial and I make that case there, but that's a separate issue. The focus here is just what is the historical evidence for what actually happened. Regardless of what the theological rationale is for infant baptism, when did it actually begin? Regardless of why it's beginning, when when do we see it? Is this something the apostles did?
And perhaps the most significant testimony from the first century is household baptisms. By my reckoning, there are five major examples where a household baptism in the New Testament occurs. And I'll put these up on the screen and you can see them. And the first thing to observe and what I want to point out is that in four of these five cases, the text indicates that the entire household believes. Sometimes that is explicitly stated, like with Crispus in Acts 18 in Corinth, where we're simply told that his household believed. Uh similarly in the baptism of the household of Stephanas in 1 Corinthians 1, we're told that Paul baptized the household, but then in the last chapter of the book, he commends the Corinthians to be subject to them because the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia. So it's just explicit household conversion in those two cases.
In other cases, household conversion is implied. For example, in Acts chapter 10, Cornelius's household is baptized in verse 48, which you can see here in red. But this happens after they receive the Spirit, speak in tongues, and worship God, which you can see here in green on the screen. So, and all of this comes in response. So, the baptism comes in response to their hearing the gospel. And Peter's question, you know, how can we not baptize these people? They have the Spirit just like we have the Spirit. So, this also looks like a household conversion because if there's infant baptism here, there must be infants speaking in tongues. The entire household receives the Holy Spirit and it says they're all speaking in tongues. Um, the the text explicitly says the Spirit fell on all who heard the word. Okay. Um, and the rationale there is well, if they got the Spirit, they should get baptism.
It's similar with the Philippian jailer's household in Acts 16. Uh, let's what you see in red here is that the entire household is invited to believe. Verse 31. They have the the word of God spoken to them. Verse 32. And then they rejoice that salvation has come to them in verse 34. The whole household is rejoicing in verse 34 there. You can see that in red on the screen. Now, it doesn't seem plausible that the family, a member of the family would hear the word of God, hear the summons to believe, not respond to that, but then rejoice that salvation has come to them. If you're rejoicing at salvation having come to you, this implies that you responded and and you experienced that salvation and so forth. So, this looks like a household conversion as well.
The only case where household conversion is not uh implied or explicitly stated would be Lydia. Earlier in Acts chapter 16 in Philippi, where we're not told what happens in detail because we have narrative compression here, which often happens in Acts. Luke tells us that the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to Paul and then he just skips ahead to what you see emboldened here in red, where after she had been baptized and her household as well, Paul and his companion stayed at her home. Uh, that what's in red there though is the baptism. So, we're just not told what her coming to faith looked like between the opening of her heart to hear and then the baptism. What did that response look like? Uh, there's narrative compression there. Uh, we don't know who's in her household, what her household looked like. Some people, by the way, have suggested that it would just have been female servants with her potentially because only women are present on this spot um near the river outside the city gate according to verse 13. So based on the context there in the location, some have said this would have been females only and potentially female servants. So the households included servants as well. Um, but we just don't know and we can't put too much weight on a text where we're not given any sort of details. Household conversion would fit the pattern here that would that would correspond to the pattern we've already recognized, but we can't say for sure. And so this text is not determinative. So let's just not wield this text to push real strongly in either direction.
One of the things I'm going to try to do throughout this video is just weigh the evidence fairly as much as I can. I know people on the pyabaptic side will certainly feel I'm not doing that at points, but I'm going to try to weigh the evidence as fairly as I can and not overspeak. Now, some people struggle with this idea of household conversion, but we have to remember that in the first century world, where there's it's far less individualistic than our culture. It's not hard to imagine that when the head of the household converts to a new religion, those other others in the household, both children and servants, would also join in in embracing personally that new religion. And you see household conversions in the Gospels as well as in Acts. For example, in the healing of the royal official's son in John 4, we read that the father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live," and he himself believed and all his household. It's interesting that the father's recognition of the timing of Jesus's miracle leads not only to his conversion but to the household's conversion. And this speaks not only to the influence that the head of the household would have had over his family, but also the ability of the New Testament to tack on "and his household" for as a kind of brief summary for what was probably a little bit more of a lengthy process. Again, narrative compression.
So to sum up here, household baptisms in Acts look generally like household conversions in every case but one. And that one just doesn't give us enough information to know whether there were members of the household that were too young to articulate faith and yet were still baptized nonetheless.
But some point to Peter's assertion in Acts chapter 2 to his Jewish contemporaries at the day of Pentecost that "God's promise is for you and your children" as a warrant for including infants in baptism or young children in baptism. You can see this passage on the screen here. But let me observe three things about this passage. First, to ask, what is the promise here? It's not covenant membership per se or baptism which would follow from that. It's the Holy Spirit who's just been poured out. Uh, this is uh what has been identified right in the preceding clause in verse 38. "You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And that is what uh Jesus has promised. This is the fulfillment of Luke 24:49 where the Holy Spirit has been promised and he's called the promise of the Father. So what is in view here? The promise is Holy Spirit reception. That's just what's been visible with all the speaking in tongues. Second, the recipients of that promise are not just "you and your children," but also "all who are far off" in verse 39. So, syntactically, both of these classes of people are in the exact same position. Your children and all who are far off, both are equally capable of receiving the promise of the Holy Spirit. And third, the way we get the Holy Spirit, the conditions of this promise in this passage are repentance in verse 38 and calling in verse 39. "Repent and then everyone whom the Lord our God will call." And so the basic import of Peter's words seems to be basically everybody can receive the Holy Spirit consequent upon repentance and faith, from the people under your roof to the people in distant lands. The Holy Spirit's now democratized, available for anyone who has faith in Christ. It so there's three sort of wrong terms here if you want to try to get baptism, not Holy Spirit reception. Can't assume those are the same of the children of believers but not those who are far off irrespective of any evidence of repentance or calling. So I think Peter's saying something that a credto Baptist would just totally agree with. And I can understand how if you're coming to this passage, again, I'm trying to be sympathetic here, um, I can understand, you know, you got 3,000 people baptized. I can understand how those words just will stand out to you based upon background beliefs you might bring to the text. But it simply goes beyond what is in the text to insist upon that. All the text says, verse 41, is "those who received his word were baptized." Again, the people identified as baptized here are those who respond. They receive his word. So, uh, you know, if you want to get infant baptism here, uh, respectfully, I think you need to you need to put it into the text. It's certainly not explicit. It's certainly not clear that the text says "those who received the word were baptized."
Now, another passage that is often brought up is Jesus's blessing of children. Think of Mark 10 for example and the synoptic parallels and this statement of Christ that "to such belongs the the kingdom of God." Uh Mark 10:14 you can see on screen here. But note that Jesus says that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, not to a particular class of children like the children of believers or something like that. Jesus is commending childlikeness here with all that it entails as a prerequisite for entering the kingdom of God. And that is why he immediately follows by saying, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it." Uh, so with Matthew 18:3-4, same thing, where anyone of any age can enter the kingdom of God if they become like little children. The point here is just child uh entrance to God's kingdom requires childlikeness. And if you wanted to try to say this reflects a theology of children, then you need to find a way to specify that to which children. This is one of the challenges I think with infant baptism arguments from the New Testament is they tend to prove too much. This could be a good argument for indiscriminate infant baptism. Just baptize all infants because Jesus is not speaking of a particular kind of infant or class of infants like the children of believers.
A final passage that's worth engaging here from the New Testament data is 1 Corinthians 7:14 and particularly Paul's claim that "the children of one or more believing parents are holy." Now the question in context here is questions of marriage and divorce uh in the Corinthian church. And in verses 12-16, Paul's burden is with the circumstance of a Christian who is married to an unbeliever. And verse 14 is basically functioning as the rationale supporting his appeal to remain married. So that is the context and what we can observe here is that the unbelieving spouse is said to be in the same position as the child. The children are holy (hagios) because the unbelieving spouse is made holy (hagiazō). You sometimes don't see an English translation. That's the cognate form of the same uh word. So this raises the question, is what does holiness mean here? What kind of holiness are we talking about? Because in whatever sense the child is holy, so is the unbelieving spouse. Well, throughout the Bible, the term holy can be used in a variety of ways. Uh, you can call the Sabbath holy. You can call priestly garments holy. You can call objects in the tabernacle holy. Those under a Nazirite vow are holy. In this context, holy here suggests the sanctity and legitimacy of the marriage and consequently of the resulting offspring. So therefore, this this is fitting the context because the concern here is believers thinking they need to divorce their unbelieving spouse. Um, now if that's wrong then and holy means in some way or another worthy of baptism or a member of the new covenant or a member of the church or something like this, then by consistency I think we need we need to say that the unbelieving spouse as well should be considered a member of the church and worthy recipient of baptism even apart from any evidence of repentance and faith and so forth. I think it's just better to say it's a holy marriage and family in the sense of a legitimate one set apart to the Lord, but not necessarily church membership.
Now I say more about all of these things in the in the article "The Why Not Grandchildren?" article. Uh, suffice to say here just to summarize, uh, it looks like from the standpoint of the New Testament, from everything we just kind of looks like people are not brought to baptism, people come to baptism. Baptism is something we're willingly involved in. Baptism is one part of repentance and faith. Now, we also don't have any explicit evidence of uh a couple coming to faith and then in the case of an infant delaying baptism. So, that's why I say suggestive. You know, from everything we can tell, it looks like baptism is for those who believe. And my my the reason I I affirm that uh more definitively is simply because of my doctrine of the church. I think the New Testament defines the church as those who believe. And I don't think just baptizing someone just makes them a believer. I just don't see any reason to think that. Um, but you know, let's acknowledge evidence just looking at the historical data. We don't have any explicit evidence either way of a an uh an infant child of Christian parents and then you're told to delay or you're told to baptize. Uh, so I'm saying the New Testament data seems suggestive of credto baptism.
What about church history? Fourth section of the video. As we've indicated, we could put the development of infant baptism into five phases. And the one that I've put in red here is the one that I want to alert us to and we're going to come back to here because I think this gets us into the fascinating rationale and how differing these rationes have been for infant baptism as it's developing. I want us to see the fluidity and change in these early times. Here's how David Wright puts it: "The 4th century fascinates because almost for the first time in the story, we reach terra firma. That means firm ground. Hard factual evidence of baptismal biographies of known and named individuals who were the children of Christian parents. And surprise, surprise, pyobaptism is scarcely discernable at all." Is that so? Is he right? Let's work through this.
As you move forward outside of the New Testament in say the extra-canonical century literature, uh, you don't see by my lights any major changes. What's conveyed in the early sources like the Didache and theologians like Justin Martyr sounds like credtobaptism in the same way that the New Testament sounds like credtobaptism. Basically, if you describe the baptismal experience as involving certain acts that infants cannot do, like fasting and then renouncing Satan and reciting liturgy liturgy and eating honey and so on and so forth, and you nowhere indicate any exceptions, then it sounds like you're presupposing that the person who is getting baptized is capable of expressing faith. It's not absolutely conclusive, but it seems suggestive of credto baptism because again, you just expect like, okay, if you give a a rite and it is something that only uh, an adult or child could do, not an infant, and you never say, "Oh, but in the case of infants, here's what you do," then it sort of leaves you wondering, well, did they do this for infants at this time in history?
So for example, with the Didache, we can start with this. This is a brief anonymous text, uh, probably dating to the late 1st century, maybe early second, and it gives us a lot of information about early church practice. Chapter 7 is called "Concerning Baptism." It says: "Concerning baptism, baptize this way. Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19. In living water. But if you have not living water, baptize into other water. And if you cannot in cold, in warm. But if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism, let the baptizer fast and the baptized and whatever others can. But you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before."
So here again, similar to the New Testament, what is specified for a baptisand, that's the person getting baptized, generally looks like what an infant wouldn't be capable of doing at that point in their life. It looks like something that you would expect from a child or an adult. Fasting prior to the event and then the general practice being submersion in water with pouring as an acceptable alternative to that. And this is generally what you find in the literature from this time. I'm not going to be exhaustive like our friend Everett Ferguson. Thank you Everett Ferguson for the work you have done. So that I mean he really covers every single text. It's by by my light, by my awareness, he doesn't leave anything uncovered. So, I'm going to give representative examples here in this video. Try to paint the picture but not make it a 4-hour video. Um, but this is what you generally find in the literature from this time among the apostolic fathers, early second century texts.
Let me give another example from Justin Martyr. And the the idea here is again that the baptismal practice of this early time seems to assume a more mature initiate. Martyr says this: "As many as are persuaded and believe that which we teach and say is true and undertake to be able to live accordingly are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting for the remission of their sins that are past. Uh, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water and are regenerated in the same manner in which we ourselves were regenerated. For in the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe and of our Savior Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water."
The question that arises again is, if infant baptism were the apostolic norm, why don't we see some kind of mention of it? You know, like, you know, baptisands should fast and pray and renounce Satan and so forth. But in the case of infants, here's what you do. If infants are sort of exceptional, why don't we see some ex some reference of exceptions? Uh, why don't we give get instruction? We're going to get that later. I'm going to give you an account of that from Hippolytus in a second, but we don't see that at this time. Um, some people say, well, this was more of a missionary context in the early church. So, you just would have more adult conversions, maybe as a generalization, but we definitely still have Christian parents at this time. Andrew Kaperski in his article on this points out that Justin did know people who were born to Christian parents. Justin certainly knew people who were born to Christian parents. It's not like you didn't have Christians having babies in the second century.
Now, I'm not going to work through all the texts, but I would say I I think what you get from Justin and the Didache there is representative. These are not outlier texts. This is representative. You know, another example would be Aristides. He's a second-century apologist. Same kind of thing. It just the the portrayal of baptism seems to assume the person getting baptized is capable of things like fasting, renouncing Satan, articulating faith, reciting liturgy, etc. And by the way, of course, Justin would have known about the general practice of the church in his day as well. Ferguson says he was in a position to know general Christian practice and may be taken as representative of Christian baptism at the mid-2nd century, especially at Rome. So this is generally the picture.
Some people try to to find infant baptism in things like Polycarp's statement that he'd served Christ for 86 years, but that's really reading into the passage, you know, for multiple reasons. That doesn't prove he was baptized as an infant. Um, that and you have to kind of assume certain things, but that's the very thing you need to to prove. Uh, this the simple fact is Polycarp. Number one, we don't know how old Polycarp was exactly when he said that. Number two, we don't know whether that means he was baptized at that age. So, for multiple reasons, that's not that's not a clear or good proof text. We really don't have any explicit references to infant baptism in this earliest period. Um, you know, I I'm not trying to overstate the case, but I I think that's true.
The first explicit reference we have to infant baptism comes from Tertullian in the late 2nd century. Tertullian is writing the first treatise on baptism in all church history. And he is opposing the baptism of infants and encouraging the delay of baptism. And you can see this on the passage ending with the words: "Let them become Christians, that means get baptized when they have become able to know Christ." Now I know how these discussions go and what people will point out, and that is that Tertullian's rationale is totally different from modern-day Baptists and most modern-day credtoists. Totally agreed. Tertullian has a very high view of baptismal efficacy and he is quite the rigorist. Okay. But his rationale is also different from later Augustinian pyobaptism which is associated with original sin. A lot of these earlier testimonies have an emphasis on the innocence of children, which is interesting. So when people say Tertullian's not a Baptist, the response is, yeah, agreed, but he's also not a Lutheran or a Catholic or a Presbyterian. He's different from every expression of modern-day pyobaptism. The relevance of Tertullian is his value as a historical testimony. What we don't have to agree with his theology, but just what does this tell us about what's going on in North Africa in the late second century? And I think here we have the first unambiguous testimony for infant baptism. Tertullian would not have opposed a practice that didn't exist. But it doesn't seem like the universal practice either.
What some scholars have suggested is that the nature of Tertullian's argument is unlikely if infant baptism was indeed a widely established and ancient practice going back 100 years to the apostles. Here's how Ferguson puts it: "Tertullian refers to the baptism of small children as something already being done and for which a practical and scriptural rationale was advanced. But in view of Tertullian's respect for tradition at this period of his life, evidently not a practice of longstanding, just as he would scarcely have made reference to an unknown practice, nor would he have rejected a generally accepted one." And later he puts it like this: "Tertullian's opposition to infant baptism is an indication that the practice was neither long-established nor generally accepted."
Now, I find that plausible, though other scholars disagree with that. To my mind, it's hard to think of Tertullian making this argument if this was just the general practice of the church going back to the apostles at this time. It seems to be more something that's just cropping up, which would explain why we don't see infant baptism earlier. Having said that, as you go into the third century, we definitely see a rapid proliferation of pitalism. We find perhaps the first testimony of the routine inclusion of very young children who cannot yet speak in a text called the Apostolic Tradition, which is presumed to have been written by Hippolytus of Rome, though that is contested and the date here is uncertain, somewhere 2nd century to 4th century. Uh, if it was written by Hippolytus indeed, then that would make it early 3rd century in Rome. But we can't be certain about the date. This is in the genre of a church manual. Here's what it describes: "When they come to the water, the water shall be pure and flowing, that is the water of a spring or a flowing body of water. Then they shall take off all their clothes. The children shall be baptized first. All of the children who can answer for themselves, let them answer. If there are any children who cannot answer for themselves, let their parents answer for them or someone else from their family. After this, the men will be baptized. Finally, the women, etc., etc." You can read the rest of that on the screen there.
So if indeed we this is from Hippolytus, then what you have here is the inclusion of very young children incapable of speaking for themselves in baptisms here in Rome perhaps somewhere around 215 at the latest, but probably giving testimony of earlier practices that have existed for some period of time before that, though again, there's scholarly disputes about the date of this text and whether it was written by apologists. Moreover, as you push into the third century, you find infant baptism being affirmed by Origen. For example, in his sermons throughout the 230s and throughout the 240s, Origen claiming it is apostolic tradition. Origen is massively influential. And infant baptism is also affirmed by Cyprian in the mid-3rd century, who interestingly also affirms infant communion. And Cyprian's position on infant baptism is affirmed by 66 other bishops in the region uh meeting in council in Carthage. So infant baptism is widely attested here in the 3rd century.
So the question is, if infant baptism doesn't go back to the apostles, how did it arise and spread like this? Ferguson's argument is that we get a clue in tomb inscriptions from around this time, especially early 3rd century, because we have a lot of these and they suggest in in many cases of infant or child baptism that's an emergency procedure, kind of a deathbed procedure. So here's an example from the catacomb of Priscilla: "Florentius made this monument for his well-deserving son Aronianis, who lived 1 year 9 months and 5 days. Since he was dearly loved by his grandmother and she saw that he was going to die, she asked from..."
The church that he might depart from the world a believer. So this means that means being baptized. So the scenario is baby boy almost two years old, sick and about to die. Grandmother requests baptism. There's lots of other examples from tombstones around this time and including with Christian parents. You find a lot of these examples that that Ferguson is drawing attention to.
Here's another one. Quote, "Her parents set this up for Julia Florentina, their dearest and most innocent infant who was made a believer. She was born a pagan on this day. I'm not going to give all the details here. Skipping ahead. She lived 18 months and 22 days and was made a believer in the eighth hour of the night almost drawing her last breath. She survived four more hours."
So this is obviously different from many. This reflects a theology that's different from many contemporary views, both credtobaptist and pyobaptist, that don't conceive of baptism as making someone a believer. But it also is a challenge to infant baptism because obviously a child who's getting baptized when they're 18 months old didn't get baptized right when they were born. And there's so many inscriptions like this.
Ferguson says, "The inscriptions I propose are the key to understanding the origin of infant baptism. When we recall the high infant mortality rate of the ancient world, it is easy to understand how an emergency practice eventually became a normal practice."
Now this strikes me as a plausible theory, though we can't nail it down with certainty. I mean, I think we have to be honest when we get to historical data. We just have to make our case but acknowledge the limitations and the historical evidence is not absolutely conclusive uh for for different views on this. But that's what it looks like to me. Looks like something that crops up there late 2nd century and then it rapidly proliferates because so many of these tombstones you have someone who just wasn't was born to Christian parents, not baptized as an infant, but baptized as like a 2-year-old right before they die, this kind of thing.
At any rate, baptismal practice is not settled by the time you move into the fourth century, despite the proliferation of infant baptism. There's still variation and so um even despite the massive influence influence of of origin. And so you do still find competing views for a while about whether to baptize infants born to Christian parents. And in fact, the practice of delaying in uh baptism uh swells up in the 4th century.
Here's Wright's summary. If we move from precedent to practice, we encounter that widespread group of later 4th century churchmen and church women nurtured in Christian families but not baptized until they were of independent years. It is extensive. Ambrose and his brother Satyus and probably also their sister Marcelina, Augustine, Basil the Great, Ephraim Cirrus, Gregory Nazanzin and his sister McCrina, in all likelihood Jerome and his friend Helodoris, John Crosstammus of Nola and his brother Rufinus of Aqualia, and quite possibly others. Mentions two other examples. One of those is John Cassian. Uh, I think Wright, by the way, was mistaken there in mentioning McCrina as Gregory's sister. She was the sister of the other Gregory. Gregory of Nissa. Gregory of Nazanis' sister was Gregia, but she also was baptized as an adult, as was Gregory of Nazanis' brother, Cesarius, as was their father, Gregory of Nazanthis, the Elder. So, all those names could be added to Wright's list.
Point is, the people getting baptized as adults during the 300s almost comprise a who's who of significant Christians, despite being born in many cases into devout Christian homes. And Wright notes that although several of these would subsequently become critical of baptismal delay, only in the case of Augustine is there any blame assigned to the parents. Most of them simply celebrate their baptism. A lot of times it'd be around age 30 without any suggestion that their parents had done anything wrong. Uh, several like Gregory of Nazanzis go at great length praising their parents as giving them a godly and Christian upbringing.
You also have infant uh cases of infant dedication during these time among some of these and and then you also see these hybrid views like Gregory of Nazanzis's own suggestion where he urges baptism for those in danger but for others to wait till a child is somewhere around their fourth birthday. So around age three or four, turning four, that you would baptize sometime in that region so that they can take in something of the mystery.
It really is only with Augustine that the picture begins to change. And not just Augustine generally, but Augustine in his later anti-Palagian writings, starting around 410 AD. So in the early 5th century. And here Augustine draws upon infant baptism to help his argument in favor of original sin. And this has a massive influence because starting with Augustine, you get this emphasis that baptism is necessary for salvation. And that includes infants. Those infants who don't make it to the baptismal font and die, according to Augustine, are lost. They are damned. They are not saved. They do not experience the beatific vision. By the way, that view goes on for a long time. I'll document that in a second. And that view is less common prior to Augustine. A lot of people believed in the relative in innocence and/or salvation of infants prior to Augustine, even apart from baptism.
Augustine's emphasis that the unbaptized baby who dies is damned in turn causes a shift in the regular lurggical practices. You have less kind of regular occasions for baptism throughout the calendar year celebrated by the whole church, and you get more just immediate baptism of babies from that individual family coming for baptism for obvious reasons of you don't want to wait around and you don't want to wait one more second than you have to. You want to get that bapt baby baptized, God forbid something happens, right? So you don't want to wait. It's like, oh, the next baptismal celebration is 3 months from now. You're not going to wait for that. You're going to get baptism immediately. And some have argued that this transition leads to a reduction of some of the pomp and circumstance that was associated with baptismal ceremony in the second and third and fourth centuries. But in terms of the theology of baptism, Augustine kind of regularizes and cements this practice in contrast to the earlier diversity.
There's a few spots in Western Europe like Ireland where credo baptism is retained for a while. It flares up again with like the Waldenzians who have both practices for at least some portions of their history. But baptism really gets infant baptism really comes into its own with Augustine.
Here's how Wright puts it. When infant baptism finally became the Norman practice, which in the West may well not have happened until a century or more after the decisive contribution of Augustine, the history of Christian baptism started all over again. Although babies, some babies, especially dying babies, were baptized certainly from about the middle of the 2nd century onwards, there is not too much in common between the baptism of the first four centuries or so, basically a right of conversion, and the universalized pital baptism of the post augustinian era.
This is significant because of what we said at the beginning of this video, that people appeal to certain aspects of Augustine's legacy but not realize other aspects that they're leaving off. For example, I'll often have people say this to me as a credto Baptist. They'll say, "It's just incredible to think that an erroneous practice of baptism like baptizing infants when you shouldn't would come to be the universal church or nearly universal church practice for almost a millennium in the wake of Augustine up to the Reformation. And this is just what happens. God would not allow that degree of error to persist for so long." But the problem is they may not realize that that's what everyone already believes about other aspects of Augustine's doctrine of baptism, like the damnation of unbaptized babies, which is precisely a theology of baptism that predominated in the church for a millennium because of Augustine's influence. There's just qualifications to it with the idea of limbo. But from Gregory the Great through Anelm, basically Foggenius, everybody thinks that unbaptized babies who die do not get the beatotific vision. That is the view for a millennium. And and that's a huge pillar in Augustine's defense of infant baptism is the necessity of baptism to wash away original sin and thus the certain damnation of those who don't have it. And that's not just one incidental feature of his pital baptism. That's an intrinsic part. That's one of the pillars of it that remains there for a millennium.
So, you see what I'm trying to get at here? It's like people act like infant baptism is this solid castle that's just always been there and they don't realize how much variation there has been. If credtoists are wrong to oppose a practice uh that came to predominate for a millennium, then we should just go the whole way for with Augustine and affirm like him the damnation of unbaptized babies, even though hardly anyone believes that anymore. um because that also predominated for a millennium. Hopefully the point I'm trying to make is is uh clear there.
Now sometimes eastern Christians say that this idea of the unbapti of the damnation of unbaptized babies who die is just a western idea. But listen to the confession of Dyius from the 1672 Senate of Jerusalem, one of the most significant Eastern Orthodox councils of the last millennium. Quote, "We believe holy baptism, which was instituted by the Lord and is conferred in the name of the Holy Trinity, to be of the highest necessity. For without it, none is able to be saved. And therefore, baptism is necessary even for infants, since they also are subject to original sin, and without baptism are not able to obtain its remission." It continues, "And since infants are men, and as such need salvation, and needing salvation, they need also baptism. And those that are not regenerated since they have not received the remission of hereditary sin are of necessity subject to eternal punishment and consequently cannot without baptism be saved. So that even infants should of necessity be baptized."
Of course, many have softened on that point today. And so what emerges here is that there is often a selective appeal to tradition. People appeal to this part of the tradition but leave off that part of the tradition. Uh, and the fact is that infant baptism is a very complicated story. It's very much a practice that has this kind of um variation for its ration. Uh, it's it takes a long time to become normal and then what makes it normal is a particular theological rationale which is no longer held to today. So that's what I'm trying to say here. This is uh trying to I'm trying to draw attention to that complexity.
So, I hope this will summarize as an explanation as to why many of us are not persuaded that infant baptism is actually apostolic practice. At the very least, I hope you might consider Wright's conclusion. The true history of baptism of itself favors dogmatism on neither side of the traditional divide. In other words, whatever conclusion you come to about at what age a person should be baptized, there isn't uh grounds for a sense of exasperation with the other side as though they're departing from something obvious. The true history of baptism in the church is very complicated and there's much variation in it. Whatever view you take today, so I hope this video will serve peaceable understanding.
I hope I have not offended or been unfair to palaptists. I probably have been, to be honest. So, I probably missed something. You know, I am not perfect. I'm sincerely making good faith effort to just put forward my argu argument. Here's why I think infant baptism is an accretion, something that's slowly coming on along the way. Um, I will read the comments and so and because I really respect I hope, you know, that's why again I I want my channel to serve unity in the gospel, but that means we can talk about these things, but I'm trying to do it in a spirit of in a in a spirit of unity broader, more broadly. So, I will read the comments because I hope you can feel that I really love, respect, and admire Pitobaptists. I'm not in my conscience, I'm not able to affirm that point of view. It just seems to me to be right that we should just wait until someone knows what's going on and then you baptize them. Um, but I feel in my heart such toward the POBaptist tradition such that I'm trying to talk about this in a way that's not unduly provocative. And so, I will really read the comments. If you think I've been unfair, read the uh let me know in the comments and I will read the comments and I will really consider push back on this. And if you make a response video, I'll watch the video unless it's like 4 hours long. I'll watch the video and I'll listen to the push back. Okay? I will listen to the push back. But this is my sincere good faith effort as to why I think credto baptism is the apostolic position. I hope this serves peaceable understanding on this issue in the church. Thank you for watching. May the Lord bless you.
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