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The Origins of Infant Baptism — Child Believers' Baptism?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
Baptism has been placed firmly on the agenda of ecumenical theology by the Lima Report, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. It makes no attempt to resolve the question of baptismal origins, but judiciously summarizes the state of the debate: ‘While the possibility that infant baptism was practised in the apostolic age cannot be excluded, baptism upon personal profession of faith is the most clearly attested pattern in the New Testament documents’. The paucity of recent discussion of the beginnings of infant baptism may suggest that they are deemed insoluble, short of the discovery of new evidence. Theology, at any rate, may neither be able nor need to wait until historians of primitive Christianity reach a consensus. The possibility that infant baptism was practised relatively early, perhaps even in the New Testament Churches themselves, was no deterrent to Karl Barth's regarding it as theologically indefensible. Nevertheless, he could not ignore what he called ‘the brute fact of a baptismal practice which has become the rule in churches in all countries and in almost all confessions’, and he ventured his own explanation of the triumph of infant baptism and of the New Testament passages to which its advocates customarily appeal. His sharp critique of the tradition provoked a greater stir on the continent of Europe than in the English-speaking world. A fresh look at the historical question is certainly overdue, although its starting-point is bound to be the celebrated exchange between Joachim Jeremias and Kurt Aland of two decades ago. Ecumenical discussion, and in some Churches, ecumenical reality, call on both paedobaptists and credobaptists to examine the others' Practice with a new seriousness. In such a context the beginnings of the dominant tradition cannot healthily be left unscrutinised or treated as inscrutable.
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References
1 Faith and Order Paper No. 111 (Geneva, 1982), p. 4, para. 11. This article is itself based on a paper prepared in April 1985 for the conversations between representatives of the Church of Scotland and the Baptist Union of Scotland. The 1984 report of the Multilateral Conversation in Scotland has subtly altered the judgment in Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry into ‘While baptism on profession of faith is the most commonly attested practice in the New Testament, there is some evidence that infant baptism also took place’ (para. 14).
2 Church Dogmatics, vol. IV, pt. 4 (Edinburgh, 1969), pp. 164–194 (cf. pp. 168, 165)Google Scholar, cited as Barth.
3 Cf., for example, Kasper, W. (ed.), Christsein ohne Entscheidung, oder Soil die Kirche Kinder Taufen (Mainz, 1970)Google Scholar; Hubert, H., Der Streit um die Kindertaufe (Berne, 1972)Google Scholar; several essays in der Maur, H. J. Auf and Kleinheyer, B. (edd.), Zeichen des Glaubens. Studien zu Taufe und Firmung Balthasar Fischer sum 60. Geburtstag (Cologne, Freiburg, 1972)Google Scholar; Molinski, W. (ed.), Diskussion um die Taufe mil Arbeitshilfen für eine erneiierte Praxis der Kindertaufe (Munich, 1971)Google Scholar; and the bibliography given by L. Ligier in Gregorianum 57 (1976), pp. 614–616. Barth's comment that, even today, the national Church may stand or fall with the practice of infant baptism (p. 168), is not irrelevant to Scotland.
4 Jeremias, , Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (London, 1960Google Scholar; a revised translation of Die Kindertaufe in den ersten uier Jahrhunderten, Göttingen, 1958)Google Scholar, cited as Jeremias (1960); Aland, , Did The Early Church Baptize Infants? (London, 1963Google Scholar; translation of Die Säuglingstaufe im Neuen Testament und in der Alien Kirche, Munich, 1961)Google Scholar, cited as Aland (1963); Jeremias, , The Origins of Infant Baptism (London, 1963Google Scholar; translation of Nochmals: Die Anfänge der Kindertaufe, Munich, 1962)Google Scholar, cited as Jeremias (1963); Aland's, revision of Die Säuglingstaufe … (2Munich, 1963Google Scholar) included a response to Jeremias (1963); he has also written Die Stellung der Kinder in den frühen chrisllichen Gemeinden und ihre Taufe (Munich, 1967)Google Scholar, cited as Aland (1967), and Taufe und Kindertaufe. 40 Sätze zur Aussage des Neuen Testaments und dem historischen Befund, zur modernen Debatte darüber … (Gütersloh, 1971)Google Scholar, cited as Aland (1971), which also takes in the discussion provoked by Barth. The Jeremias-Aland encounter is reviewed by Strobel, A., ‘Säuglings- und Kindertaufe in der ältesten Kirche. Eine kritische Untersuchung der Standpunkte von J. Jeremias und K. Aland’, in Perels, O. (ed.), Begrundung und Gebrauch der heiligen Taufe (Berlin, Hamburg, 1963), pp. 7–69 (cited as Strobel)Google Scholar.
5 So recently Barth, Gerhard, Die Taufe in frühchristlicher Zeit (Bibl.-theol. Studien 4; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1981), p. 144.Google Scholar
6 Cf. Church of Scotland Special Commission on Baptism, Interim Report (1955), p. 19. The claim that ‘if the New Testament had meant to exclude infants from Christ's Baptism, it would have used language … to make this quite clear’, is quite untenable. Cf. Barth, p. 179, and Aland (1967), p. 21 (there is solid evidence of the presence of children of all ages in the earliest congregations, but nothing is said about their baptism).
7 Cf. Jeremias (1960), pp. 73–75; Aland (1963), pp. 49–52; Jeremias (1963), pp. 28–32. Jeremias is probably right that the fact that children, males and females, were baptized separately and that parents answered for their little ones before they were themselves baptized does not count decisively against our seeing here the baptism of adult converts (proselytes) along with their children. Hippolytus' text (Apost. Trad. 21)mavbe found in Kraft, H., Texte zur Geschichte der Taufe, besonders der Kindertaufe in der Alien Kirche (Kleine Texte 174; Berlin, 1969), p. 20 (cited as Kraft).Google Scholar
8 Cf. Didier, J. C., ‘Une adaptation de la liturgie baptismale au baptême des enfants dans l'Eglise ancienne’, Mél. de sci. relig. 22 (1965), pp. 79–90.Google Scholar
9 Cf. Aland (1963), p. 50: ‘all the needful material is present for a plausible interpolation hypothesis’! Even Jeremias (1963), p. 40, says that infants appear ‘quite unexpectedly’. Cf. too B. Neunheuser, ‘Die Liturgie der Kindertaufe. Ihre Problematik in der Geschichte’, in Auf der Maur, op. cit., pp. 319–334, at p. 321.
10 Theological factors could retard the development. When Augustine argued that infants were baptized for the same reason as others, Pelagius countered by insisting that they should be baptized by exactly the same ritual. Cf. Augustine, The Grace of Christ and Original Sin 1:32:35, 2:1:1, 2:21:24.
11 Baptism 18:5 (Kraft, p. 13).
12 Jeremias (1960), pp. 81, 83–85. For a similar view cf. the Church of Scotland's Special Commission, Interim Report (1956), p. 18.
13 Aland (1963), pp. 61–69. Jeremias (1963), pp. 66–68, accepts the force of only some of Aland's criticisms. Aland's interpretation is generally sustained against Jeremias' in Nagel, E., Kindertaufe und Taufaufschub. Die Praxis vom 3–5. Jahrhundert in Nordafrika und ihre theologische Einordnung bei Tertullian, Cyprian und Augustinus (Europ. Hochschulschriften XXIII: 144; Frankfurt am Main, 1980), esp. pp. 41–48, 73–74.Google Scholar
14 Op. cit., pp. 55–76. Although he does not directly address the question how well established infant baptism was, it is clearly his view that in the late 2nd C. it was the standard practice (cf. p. 166).
15 I Apol. 15:6.
16 Jeremias (1960), p. 72.
17 Aland (1963), pp. 73–74; Jeremias (1963), pp. 55–58. Jeremias (1960), pp. 68–69, argues that the Grundschrift of the Ps-Clementines, compiled perhaps in the early 3rd. C, presupposes the baptism of children on the conversion of their parents. Although this may follow from certain general considerations, the children in question are obviously young adults (Recogn. 7:21ff.). Celsus, writing c. 170, shows that young children were taught and converted (Origen, Contra Celsum 3:56; Strobel, pp. 33–34).
18 Jeremias (1960), pp. 59–63; Aland (1963), pp. 71–73; Jeremias (1963), pp 58–62.
19 I Clement 63:3 (cf. 65:1); Aland (1963), pp. 71–72.
20 Adv. Haer. 2:22:4 (2:33:2 in some editions); Kraft, p. 10. Cf. Jeremias (1960), pp. 72–73; Aland (1963), pp. 58–59; Jeremias (1963), pp. 62–63. Irenaeus' allusion scarcely warrants talk of his ‘doctrine of infant baptism’ (Church of Scotland Special Commission, Interim Report, 1956, pp. 14f.). Cf. Barth, p. 166: ‘There is a genuine doctrine of infant baptism only from the time of the Reformation’.
21 The retroversion by A. Rousseau and L. Doutreleau in the edition in Sources Chrétiennes 293 (1982), p. 286, suggests the Greek terms were βρ⋯φoς (or ν⋯πιo⋯) ν⋯πιo⋯ (or παιδ⋯oν), and 
. The critical clause becomes 
θεóν.
22 I Apol. 61; cf. Aland (1963), pp. 54–55. Jeremias omits this evidence.
23 Aland (1963), p. 54.
24 Ibid., pp. 53–54.
25 Jeremias (1963), pp. 38–41.
26 Apology 15:6 (Kraft, pp. 2–3). Cf. Aland (1963), pp. 57–58; Jeremias (1963), pp. 43–48. Strobel, p. 40, largely agrees with Aland. Jeremias' earlier argument from Apology 15:11 is not persuasive; cf. Jeremias (1960), pp. 70–71; Aland (1963), pp. 55–56; Jeremias (1963), p. 48, n. 2.
27 Jeremias (1960), pp. 41–42, 55–56, 75–80, 85, at p. 80; cf. Kraft, pp. 79–85, for relevant inscriptions.
28 Aland (1963), pp. 75–79.
29 Jeremias (1963), pp. 49–53.
30 ‘Inscriptions and the Origin of Infant Baptism’, JTS n.s. 30 (1979), pp. 34–46, at p. 45.
31 Ibid., pp. 45, 46.
32 Ibid., p. 46. Cf. Aland (1963), pp. 108–109.
33 Beasley-Murray, G. R., Baptism in the New Testament (London, 1962), p. 354Google Scholar. According to J. C. O'Neill, in Exp. Times 91 (1979–80), pp. 310–311, baptism for the dead was emergency baptism.
34 This pattern would avoid standard objections levelled at each others' practices by paedobaptists and credobaptists, in that it postulates a baptism as (young) believers of those whose previous standing from birth has not been a matter of uncertainty. Babies and younger infants, being ‘holy’ from birth, would be unambiguously members of the Christian community, and would receive baptism not to effect entry into membership but as its seal, when they were in a position to respond in their own person to the baptismal questions. See further at n. 43 below.
35 Most sources prior to the 3rd C. presuppose the sinlessness of young children. Cf. Aland (1967), pp. 17–21; Aland (1971), pp. 33–34; Klaus, B., ‘Die Erbsündenlehre als Motiv des kirchlichen Handelns in der Taufe’, Kerygma und Dogma 15 (1969), pp. 50–70Google Scholar, at pp. 54–58; Didier, J. C., ‘Un cas typique de developpement du dogme à propos du baptême des enfants’, Mél. de sci. relig. 9 (1952), pp. 191–213Google Scholar, at pp. 194–200; Strobel, pp. 34–39.
36 Jeremias (1960), pp. 45–46; Aland (1963), pp. 80–84. On Tertullian's use of the text in De Anima 39 see J. H. Waszink's edition, pp. 440–447.
37 The relation of Jewish proselyte baptism to primitive Christian baptism remains disputed. G. Barth, op. cit., pp. 30f, 141, denies any significant influence on Christian practice until the later 2nd C. Cf. similarly Strobel, pp. 11–12.
38 Beasley-Murray, op. cit., pp. 119, 331, argues from the fact that the Church at Corinth was only about four years old when 1 Cor. was written that most of the children in it must have been born before their parents' conversion, and were either baptized with their parents (in which case Paul's argument here falls) or still unclean (because born before their parents' conversion but not baptized). But this argument holds only if‘your children’ denotes all the children of the Corinthian Christians. It is more naturally taken only of those parallel to unbelieving partners, viz., those unbaptized and perhaps also unbelieving.
39 Jeremias (1960), pp. 47–48; Aland (1963), pp. 19, 33–36, 80, on the differences between Jeremias' editions. Jeremias (1963), pp. 37–38, maintains his revised position.
40 Jeremias (1960), p. 48.
41 Aland (1963), pp. 81–82; Beasley-Murray, op. cit., p. 331.
42 Perpetua was baptized in prison prior to martyrdom in A.D. 203 apparently without her child who at the time was not allowed to be with her in prison (Passion of Perpetua 3:5, 9). The narrative nowhere mentions Perpetua's husband.
43 Interim Report (1955), p. 27. The Commission lands itself in self-contradition. It argues that ⋯γ⋯α implies either that they were already baptized or that they participated in their parent's baptismal incorporation. But since primitive Christianity knows nothing of unbaptized Christians, their being already within the Holy People demands that they were subsequently baptized. But how could they require to be baptized if they already partook of their parent's baptism?
44 Jeremias (1960), pp. 39–40, cf. 47, 48. Cf. Aland (1963), pp. 82–84.
45 Epistle 64 (Kraft, pp. 27–29).
46 Cf. Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 19. This work contains the fullest Christian discussion of circumcision to date. It speaks of circumcision and baptism in close proximity, but falls short of suggesting any positive correspondence. Justin takes a pejorative view of circumcision, which was given only for Israel's hardness of heart and to mark her out for condign punishment at the hands of Rome. Cf. Simon, M., Verus Israel (Paris, 1964), pp. 198ff.Google Scholar
47 Baptism 18:5 (Kraft, p. 13).
48 Jeremias (I960), pp. 48–55; Aland (1963), pp. 95–99.
49 The so-called ‘oiros-formula’ has not survived critical scrutiny; cf., for example, Strobel, pp. 43–45.
50 Cf. Strobel, pp. 63–68.
51 Oratio 40:28 (Kraft, p. 53). Cf. Jeremias (1960), p. 96.
52 Strobel, pp. 46–56. Cf. Barth's reflection on Matt. 21: 14–17 (p. 183). Overall he exaggerates the independent responsibility of the reception of baptism in the New Testament, and hence could not entertain child believers' baptism.